#Garret Reynolds

[sometimestart]

Incorrect quote

Mac: I’ve thought of this, I have defensive mechanisms in place. 

Dennis: I didn't know we were gonna get pulled into rooms and punched in the face by ghosts, I feel like if you had told me that I wouldn't have got on a plane and flown over here.

Mac: Okay things are scary when you're not prepared Dennis, but we are. Do you wanna know why? Say a scary ghost is coming towards you, right? You don’t know what to do, you think you're doomed! BAM! FORTNITE GUNS! YOU KNOW WHAT THESE ARE FULL OF??

Dennis: ... 

Mac: HOLY WATER

source: https://youtu.be/Rjx1z48od7k?t=2029 

[raspberrysmoon]

this is awful. list of all tcb/starkid joey richter characters i can find written exactly how they are on my graphic. please add (red is hatchetfield)

starkid

- ted spankoffski

- danny (tgwdlm)

- dan reynolds (npmd)

- wilbur cross

- jangle (bf)

- cineplex teen (bf)

- thrash (nmt)

- ezekial

- brad callahan

- ethan green

- pete spankoffski

- homeless ted

- steve (wb) ?

- ron weasley x3

- joey richter (mamd)

- bug

- grunt

- freddy

- duck

- peter

- barry maplethorn

tcb

- owen carvour

- sergio santos

- vanger barschtit

- hans

- spencer (fs)

- scrags (sis, sis:bib, htgcc?)

- cluebert (sis)

- crispin lynch (wg)

- matt carter (tcbob)

- david (tcbob)

- garret (tcbob)

NOW HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO FIT THIS ON A POSTER BOARD ?????

[autoacafiles]

So this has been something that's been asked for a few times, so after a long times work, here we have it! A hypothetical voice cast for the characters of Autobot Academy. If there's a character you don't see, it's as we don't want to rush figuring out a character. We may update this list in the future, however it'll be in our own time, so we won't be taking any questions about specific missing characters. And hey, if you have your own voices that don't match up with these, then feel free to stick with that!

Autobots

Yuri Lowenthal - Hot Shot/Excellion II/DF Hot Shot/Ben Tennyson

Ashley Eckstein - Lightbright/Maxima/DF Lightbright

Tara Platt - Artillery/Maelstrom/ CG-11272017

ThunderPsyker - Bumblebee/Mjolnir

Morgan Garrett - Arcee/Diabla/Spidarcee

Nick “Lanipator” Landis - Rampage/Shockaract/Straxus

Brianna Knickerbocker - Transmutate/Transmutate X/Transmutate IX

Sam Vincent - Side Burn/Darkburn

Rick “Rice Pirate” Lauer - X-Brawn/Wrenchit

Chris Hackney - Mach Alert/Infernox/Lio Convo/Galva Convoy

Tiya Sicrar - Moonracer

Christine Marie Cabanos - Nightracer/Wipe-Out

Ashley Johnson - Glyph

Kanono - Tap-Out/AlbinoBug

Lizzie Caplin - Tremor/Shockblast

Erika Ishii - Sonar/Noisemaze

DoktorApplejuice - Armorhide/Armorbreak

Josh Keaton - Sideswipe/Firebreaker/Sunstreaker/Mismatch

Alejandro Saab - Steeljaw/Shatter-Pattern/Phantomjaw/Hellhound

Chris Miller - Thunderhoof

Sumalee Montano - Lodestar

Max Mittelan - Hosehead/Contagion

Sam Regal - Bomb-Burst

Kyle McCarley - Longshot

Ben Diskin - Misfire/Missilefire

Lucas Gilbertson - Saber/Dark Saber/Devcon/DF Devcon

Li Ming Hu - Hightail/Ravager

Mike Ginn - Gridlock/Ravager

Erica Mendez - Galaxy Flare

Michelle Ang - Riptide

Vanessa Marshal - Strongarm

Jill Harris - Nautica/DF Nautica

Courtney Ford - Muzzle

Nicolas Cantu - Wasp/DF Waspinator

Erin Fitzgerald - Convex

Archie Kao - Roadblock

Connor Kelley - Sky High

Haven Kendrick - Hot Rodimus/Raze

Michelle Yeoh - Windblade

Shannon McCormick - Rung

Elizabeth Maxwell - Chromia

Edward James Olmos - Fortress Maximus

Travis Willingham - Rollout

Andrew Francis - Scorch

John DiMaggio - Kup/Nitro Zeus/Leadfoot

Kyle Herbert - Star Convoy/Orion Pax/Toxitron

Mark Bonnar - Starscream

Paul McGann - Perceptor

Jake Johnson - Devaron

Herself Sarah Wiedenheft - Saperion/Arcrunner

Debra Wilson - Elita-1

Nicolas Cage - Overload

Nathan Fillion - Silverstreak/Killstreak

Ian MacKellen - Alpha Trion

Maximals

Tara Strong - Slash

Bryce Papenbrooke - Leobreaker

Matt Mercer - Bigfight/Death Convoy

Tom Gliblis - Break

Aleks Le - Stampy

Jack DeSana - Whoop-Kong

Roger Craig Smith - Bound Rogue

Charlie Day - Rattrap

Protectobots

Ashly Burch - Whirl

Heather Watson - Minerva

Aerialbots

Ratana - Stiletto

Cherami Leigh - Skyburst/Stormclash

Rachel Robinson - Surge

David B. Mitchell - Silverbolt

Axellerators

Jamie Chung - Flare-Up

Ron Botitta - Amp

Decepticons

Jason Marnocha - Megatron

Isaac C Singleton Jr. - Soundwave

Kathleen Delaney - Thunderblast

Vincent D'nofrio - Motormaster

Laura Bailey - Drag Strip

Shelby Rabara - Wildrider

David Kaye - Gnashteeth

Marc "Ganxingba" Soskin - Thundercracker

Ian Hanlin - Skywarp

Ryan Reynolds - Deadlock

Kaley Cuoco - Flamewar

Todd Haberkorn - Stonecrusher

Maurice LaMarche- Cryotek

Josh Powell - Onslaught

Corey Burton - Shockwave

Sylvester McCoy - “Doc”

JK Simmons - Horntrap

Resistance

Cameron Monaghan - Beta Maxx

Neo-Maximals

LaMonica Garret - Great Convoy

Peter Dinklage - King Atlas

Lydia Leonard - Black Convoy

Sam Witwer - Venator

Others

Colin Baker - Jhiaxus

Billy West/Michael Dorn - Dion/Umbra Convoy

Greg Cipes - Carjack

[pwlanier]

The Estate of Snuff Garrett (1938-2015 )

18K Gold Edward H. Bohlin Buckle Set with Snuff's initials in Rubies, and Exotic Belts with Extra Tips.

Cattle Brand Engraved Colt Single Action. Bohlin marked sterling and 14K gold grips with high relief steer head.

Pair of Tom Mix Circus Original Lithograph Posters.

Roy Rogers' Personal Eagle Boots, a gift from Roy to Snuff.

If you don’t know who Snuff Garret is, you need to Google him immediately. One of the greatest American music record producers of all time, Snuff wasn’t just rich and famous, he was ostentatious and hilarious, fun and funny, brilliant, quick, and as foul mouthed as a man could be. He was a hoot. And he was a cowboy.

Thomas Leslie “Snuff” Garrett was born in Dallas, Texas. He dropped out of high school, became a disc jockey in Lubbock, and went on to become the most successful record producer of the 1960s and 1970s. A few of his stable of artists included Bobby Vee, Gary Lewis & the Playboys, Johnny Burnette, Del Shannon, Cher, Brenda Lee, Nancy Sinatra and countless others. He worked with Phil Spector, Carole King, Leon Russell, Clint Eastwood and Burt Reynolds. Snuff’s great talent was his ability to know a hit song when he heard one, and know who should sing it. He was, to everyone’s agreement, a genius in that respect.

Snuff loved music, and he loved art. Along with his music friends, and Hollywood friends, Snuff had artist friends. Olaf Wieghorst, Joe Beeler, Michael Coleman, John Hampton, Tom Ryan, Gary Niblett, Harley Brown and many others. Snuff’s home was filled with art from his cowboy artist buddies. It was also filled with movie posters. Framed original lithographs hung floor to ceiling, featuring the antics of Tom Mix, Roy Rogers, Rex Allen and the others. Every room in Snuff’s house was a testament to his many passions.

Of his many famous friends, Roy Rogers and Snuff had a particularly special relationship. Snuff grew up on Hollywood cowboys and he worshipped Roy. When, as an adult, he met and worked with Roy, the two became fast friends. Frequently Snuff referred to Roy as a “father figure.” It was clear in the way that Snuff emulated Roy (from his suits to his boots), that he had great respect for the man. They remained dear friends for life.

Old West Events

[ulkaralakbarova]

A Los Angeles journalist befriends a homeless Juilliard-trained musician, while looking for a new article for the paper. Credits: TheMovieDb. Film Cast: Steve Lopez: Robert Downey Jr. Nathaniel Ayers: Jamie Foxx Mary Weston: Catherine Keener Graham Claydon: Tom Hollander David Carter: Nelsan Ellis Adam Crane: Michael Bunin Jennifer Ayers: LisaGay Hamilton Leslie Bloom: Rachael Harris Curt Reynolds: Stephen Root Flo Ayers: Lorraine Toussaint Cheery Lab Tech: Jena Malone Troubled Woman: Octavia Spencer Young Nathaniel: Justin Martin Bernie Carpenter: Kokayi Ampah Paul Jr.: Patrick Tatten Marisa: Susane Lee Mayor Villaigosa: Marcos De Silvas Harry Barnoff: Ilia Volok Julliard Conductor: Mike Nowak Angry Homeless Man: David Jean Thomas Uncle Tommy: Lemon Andersen Homeless Transvestite: Kevin Michael Key Barely Dressed Woman: Moya Brady LAMP Homeless Guy: Orlando Ashley Leon: Artel Great Shouting Woman: J.J. Boone LAMP Advocate: Annie McKnight Homeless Lady: Bernadette Speakes Leeann: Anna Levin Steve: Steve Foster Teresa: Vivian George KK: Kevin Cohen Courtney: Courtney Andre Detroit: Teri Hughes Linda: Linda Harris Bam Bam: Albert Olson Melissa: Melissa Black Mama Grouch: Valarie Hudspeth Darryl: Darryl Black St. Kiana: Kiana Parker Hazard: Hazard Banner Russell: Russell Brown Jackie: Jacqueline Sue West Ashley: Joyre Manuel Singing Woman: Lorinda Hawkins Annette: Annette Valley Patrick: Patrick Kelly Quiana: Quiana Farrow Globe Lobby Guard: Tony Genaro Atheist: Charlie Weirauch Cop with Tents: Wayne Lopez EMT #1: Joe Hernandez-Kolski Winston Street Cop: Noel Gugliemi EMT #2: Paul Cruz Homeless Man: Wil Garret EMT #3: Halbert Hernandez Construction Worker: Alejandro Patiño Homeless Woman #1: Karole Selmon Neil: Rob Nagle Cello Donor: Patricia Place Enraged Homeless Man: Ralph Cole Jr. Reception Nurse: Gladys Khan ER Nurse: Palma Lawrence Reed Laid-off Employee: Isabel Hubmann Homeless Woman #2: Bonita Jefferson Winston Street Prostitute: Eshana O’Neal Young Jennifer Ayers: Myia Hubbard Miss Little John: Iyanna Newborn Beauty Shop Girl: Bronwyn Hardy News Editor: Troy Blendell Jennifer’s Son: Nick Nervies Editor: Paul Norwood Sign Spinner (uncredited): Wally Lozano Film Crew: Screenplay: Susannah Grant Unit Production Manager: Patricia Whitcher Casting: Francine Maisler Art Direction: Greg Berry Producer: Gary Foster Author: Steve Lopez Director: Joe Wright Editor: Paul Tothill Costume Design: Jacqueline Durran Production Design: Sarah Greenwood Makeup Department Head: Ve Neill Producer: Russ Krasnoff Still Photographer: François Duhamel Production Coordinator: Robert Mazaraki Hair Department Head: Gloria Pasqua Casny Music Editor: Dominick Certo Director of Photography: Seamus McGarvey Set Decoration: Julie Smith Script Supervisor: Kerry Lyn McKissick Original Music Composer: Dario Marianelli Post Production Coordinator: Adam Cole Stunts: Shirley Smrz Stunts: C.C. Taylor Stunts: Hannah Kozak Hairstylist: Lisa Marie Rosenberg Stunts: Allan Graf Stunts: Jim Wilkey Stunts: Aaron Toney Stunts: Gregg Smrz Stunts: Todd Schneider Stunts: George Marshall Ruge Stunts: Chad Randall Stunts: Robert Nagle Stunt Coordinator: Scotty Richards Stunt Driver: Ed McDermott II Stunts: Marilyn Miller Stunts: Sean Graham Stunts: Jalil Jay Lynch Stunts: Kevin L. Jackson Stunts: Kofi Elam Stunts: John T. Cypert Stunts: Greg Wayne Elam Stunts: Chino Binamo Stunt Driver: Michael Caradonna Stunt Driver: Norman Epperson Stunts: Daniel W. Barringer Stunts: Greg Fitzpatrick Stunt Coordinator: Mickey Giacomazzi Stunts: Peter Weireter Stunts: Hollis Hill Stunts: Keith Woulard Stunts: Angela Meryl Stunts: Danny Wynands Stunts: Kortney Manns Stunts: Michael Maddigan Stunts: Kofi Yiadom Stunt Driver: Allan Padelford Stunts: Thomas DuPont Stunts: Jason Cekanski Stunt Driver: Scott Alan Berk Movie Reviews:

[babeliar]

[seeyoumondaydevi]

I’m re watching Pretty Little Liars rn and the number of grown ass men hooking up with minors and the way the writers make it seem like it’s all so normal and some people in the fandom defending these child predators is very very concerning…

[sometimesthevillainwins-blog]

Alison: “The four of you remember more about that night then you think.”

What the liars actually remember...

Oh Marlene!

[berriesandcream11]

Moment of silence for all the characters who have passed on PLL all for it to be a twin.

Even Ian and Wilden are getting a moment. Don’t @ me.

[thatboomerkid]

SpellJammer: Shadow of the Spider-Moon

Player’s Packet (ver 1.3)

for use with the First Edition Pathfinder Role-Playing Game

by Clinton J. Boomer

with special thanks to Andy Collins, Scott Schomburg, Chloe Michelle, Dennis Detwiller, David Gerrold, and George Loki Williams

additional campaign materials may be found here

The broad theme of the campaign is simple: “outsiders — criminals, rejects, freedom fighters, the lost, the abandoned, the desperate, and the mad — go balls-out, nothing to lose, against corrupt authority and nightmare monsters, surviving on the razor’s edge of the known & the unknown”.

It’s meant to have one foot in Serenity/Firefly, one foot in Pirates of the Caribbean, one foot in Guardians of the Galaxy, yet another foot in Princess Bride, plus little dashes of steampunk / dieselpunk pulp-action high-fantasy on top: Raiders of the Lost Ark, Giant Robo: The Day the Earth Stood Still, Aliens, Lupin III: The Castle of Cagliostro, The Mummy, The Fifth Element, The Rocketeer, and/or Big Trouble in Little China

RACES

Dwarf: a scattered people born of Moradin’s Forge*, 80% of whom now exist solely as slaves beneath the whip and bootheel of the illithid and their grotesque creations. Dwarves in captivity are stripped of their names, titles, and family lineage; for this reason, free dwarves often cover themselves in dense tattoos, transformed into living repositories of their clan history. Dwarves no longer have a homeland but make small communities on Fenris, the Crown-Moons of Garl, Gelth, and Callarduran, and across the Chain of Tears (especially the city of Discord).

For human occupants of Pyrespace, the illithid invasion – which the Church of Yondalla officially denies occurring, under pain of incarceration, transportation, and excommunication – happened ten years ago: half a generation past, when the very youngest of human spacehands were still in diapers.

For dwarves, it happened approximately last Tuesday.

Shepard Book, Zoe Washburne, and Drax the Destroyer are good examples of dwarves.

*NOTE: The Church of Yondalla, which does not recognize the divinity of Moradin, refers to the dwarven home-world instead simply as ‘the Adamant Forge’ in all official documentation.

---

Elf: an elegant race in slow decline, born of Perianth, still recovering from the Unseelie War that split and decimated the species a millennium ago. For the elves, long-lived as they are, the wound is still very fresh: fewer than seven generations have passed since the end of the war, after all (for a human, this is perhaps comparable to a tragedy that occurred less than a century and a half ago).

Elves consume food, water, and air as Small-size creatures. Drow are a playable race, although they suffer a great deal of distrust from everyone … including other drow.

Inara, Simon Tam, River Tam, the Operative, Nebula, and Gamora are good examples of elves.

---

Gnome: engineers and technologists born from the Circle of Gold, greatest moon of the Crown of Sapphire, now scraping-by on the Crown’s remaining moons and across the Chain of Tears: the devastated shards of their destroyed home-world, shattered two-and-a-quarter centuries ago.

Like the elves, of course, gnomes are fantastically long-lived: the very eldest gnomes can recall the true glory of their home world, seen with their own eyes; some of the most ancient were already well into their venerable years, over two and a half centuries old, at the time of the cataclysm. Even for the very youngest of gnomes, those who have never known a home-world other than the Chain of Tears, only about three generations have passed since the destruction of that moon (in terms that a human might understand, this is perhaps similar to an event that occurred 60-70 years ago).

Gnomes may choose to gain +2 Intelligence in place of their standard +2 Charisma; most have the Gear Gnome subtype. Nearly half of all gnomish pregnancies result in twins, and triplets are as common among gnomes as twins are among humans.

Kaylee Frye, Niska, Hoban ‘Wash’ Washburne, Rocket Racoon, Miracle Max (from Princess Bride), and Twigg (from Pirates of the Caribbean) are good examples of gnomes.

---

Hin: Undisputed rulers of Quelya above the waves, thanks much to their ingenuity in social organization & their bountiful harvests even in the most barren of lands. The vast monotheistic religion of the Hin offers prayers to Yondalla and to her Saints, including Davian and Asmodeus; all Hin estates contain a shrine to Yondalla. The priests and nuns of the Church may not marry, though their laity is expected to produce many, many children. Status within the Church is of paramount importance for all Hin; donations to the church can buy writs of indulgence, favorable legal judgment, and even sainthood.

Lord Beckett, Governor Swann, Elizabeth Swan, Captain Barbossa, and Commodore Norrington (from Pirates of the Caribbean), Badger (from Firefly), Buttercup, Prince Humperdink, Count Rugen, Vizzini (from Princess Bride), and the Collector and Grandmaster (from Guardians of the Galaxy) are all good examples of Hin.

A BRIEF NOTE ON HIN NAMING-CONVENTIONS

Hin identify, for the most part, as members of the Church of Yondalla first, as part of a culture second, and as citizens of a nation third.

Thus, a Hin living in Arvoreen, Beshaba, or Brandobaris can be expected to have an Arvorean, Beshabite, or Brandobarin name. However, a Hin living far away from the shores of Green Fields -- in Cyrrollalee or in Urogolan, for example -- with always retain a “proper” Arvorean, Beshabite, or Brandobarin name.

Hin with Urogalandic names, simply put, do not exist.

“Invented” Hin names, which are relatively common everywhere except on Quelya, are the major exception to this general rule: occasionally, a young Hin living off-world will choose to reinvent himself -- and, thus, rename himself -- often, but not always, as a means to get out from under the thumb of a particularly oppressive (or shameful) family. 

Venturing forth into the unknown without the benefit of a longstanding lineage is, in fact, a tradition among Hin significantly older than modern Arvorean or Brandobarin society.

As such, a young Hin in Lagas going by the name of “Morgan Drake,” “John Smith,” “Alastair Chapman,” or “Sebastian West” -- for example -- might be looked down upon as a probable criminal or even as a pirate ... but on Ashen, Verdura, or out on the Chain of Tears, such an individual is likely to earn a mark of respect from all but the most conservative and close-minded of Hin.

Invented Hin Male Names: Thomas, Morgan, Smith, Hunter, John, Price, Bennet, Chapman, West, Tanner, Spencer, Walker, Jackson, Clarke, Parker, Mason, Drake, Corbyn, Everett, Garret, Simon, Alastair, Sebastian, Elliot, Fletcher, Graham, Ethan, Oliver, Felix, Callumn, Stanley, Richmond, Lennox, Ford, Jensen, Gabriel, March, Ellis, Wellington, Reginald, Chesterton, Alex, Solomon, Carter

Invented Hin Female Names: Beatrix, Cressida, Gemma, Joclyn, Scarlett, Elizabeth, Rhonwen, Maisie, Isla, Kaitlyn, Briony, Jane, Charlotte, Adalaide, Ivy, Gwendolyn, Kenzie, Finlay, Audren, Haley, Theodora, Abigail

Invented Hin Last Names: (any invented Hin male first name)

---

Human: Humans come in many different colors, in many different sizes, and worship many, many gods – usually in the guise of Yondallan saints. Most humans pay at least some lip service to St. Davian, the great champion of Yondalla (who intercedes to deliver the prayers of humans to Yondalla), but humans very often also worship older, more-private familial gods. Humans may not, of course, marry into Hin families nor join in any Hin merchant house as a full partner; the best that a human can hope for, in many cases, is to be a servant remembered fondly by the children of the family he serves.

This, of course, leaves humans permanently at the bottom of the Quelyan (and thereby system-wide) economic food chain.

It is accepted fact, by those who study the pre-history of Pyrespace, that humans were once scattered across the system for unknown purposes and by unknown means, presumably at the whim of the mysterious Precursors. For this reason, the Church of Yondalla is active in seeking-out lost civilizations of humans who have spent unknown centuries far from the light of Yondalla’s mercy.

Captain Malcolm Reynolds, Captain Jack Sparrow, Westley the Farm-Boy, and Peter Quill are good examples of humans.

HUMAN OFFSHOOTS:

al’Zihad: Despite their bizarre appearances and hostile overtures, it is passionately believed that the curious ifrit, oread, sylph, suli, and undine populations native to Ashen were once human: servants of the Precursors adapted over the course of centuries to their alien environment. It is because of this belief that the Church of Yondalla has extended such a warm and generous offer of camaraderie to the “native” al’Zihad population, hoping to reintroduce them to their divinely ordained role as servants … this time, to the Hin.

Aasimar: Human families who commit themselves to the performance of good works in the name of Yondalla occasionally produce an angel-blooded or archon-blooded heir: born to serve the Church as beatific instruments of peace.

Dhampir: Some human children born beneath the Spider-Moon, along the Chain of Tears, or in the wilds of Fenris are infused with strange energies of death-magic. These children are claimed by the Church, for their own protection.

Fetchling: A strange subspecies of human – thought to originally hail from the lost forest-moon of Baervan (circling the Crown of Sapphire), infused with energies from the forbidden Library of the Eremite – these creatures are kept secret by the Church of Yondalla.

Ganzi: The children of humans exposed over-long to the energies of the Crown of Sapphire have been known to exhibit bizarre mutations; such creatures are taken-in by the Church of Yondalla to be kept safe.

---

Half-Elf: Increasingly common throughout the system, originally the products of union between a male elf and female human: while elven females will often take human lovers, both male and female, pregnancies resulting from such unions are unknown: elven women must maintain a strict, meditative state of concentration to actually achieve pregnancy. As such, accidental fertilization is impossible, and even the act of impregnation is discomforting enough that no elven female would perform the act without sound – usually political – reason.

Elven men, therefore, are often shocked to discover that a brief rendezvous with a human woman has produced a bastard child.

Half-elves now breed true and have formed small communities in larger cities like Discord, Zionil, Dallah, and Lagas. Half-elves have no place within Elven society and possess little group unity.

Will Turner (from Pirates of the Caribbean) and Inigo Montoya are good examples of Half-Elves.

Half-Orc: True orcs (and their off-shoot species, including ogres, goblins, and hobgoblins) are not born and possess no gender: they are fungal creatures that emerge fully-grown from vast, reeking pits. Humans exposed to this fungus occasionally produce half-orc offspring; half-orcs are most-commonly born from humans captured by the illithid and taken to Moradin’s Forge (where airborne spores of goblin-fungus are dangerously common).

Half-orcs are prized by the illithid as a more perfect slave-stock than dwarves, orcs, or other monstrous humanoids, and have escaped their bondage to breed true: the product of any mating involving half-orcs (human/half-orc or half-elf/half-orc) is nearly always half-orc: their bizarre, altered fungus-genome is nearly viral in this regard.

Populations of “native” half-orcs intermingle with “native” humans across the wastes of Fenris, representing – to the Church – peoples long separated from the light of Yondalla.

Jayne Cobb and Niska’s leg-breaker Crow (from Firefly), Fezzick (from Princess Bride), Yondu (from Guardians of the Galaxy), and Bo’sun (from Pirates of the Caribbean) are good examples of Half-Orcs.

---

Kuru: A bizarre subspecies of island-dwelling human driven all-but-extinct by the combined might of the Arvorean navy and the Church of Yondalla; kuru who bend the knee to the Church and denounce the worship of Dagon are given the same rights as other human offshoots (which is to say, not very much and certainly not as much as main-bloodline humans).

Skintwister: A vanishingly small percentage of humans – when directly exposed to alien fauna and extreme environment – rapidly adapt at a cellular level, taking on the most useful traits of a local native animal species within a generation. Human families on Quelya occasionally produce shark-blooded skintwister, while humans on Verdura can produce bat-blooded, bird-of-prey blooded, boar-blooded, crocodile-blooded, or tiger-blooded offspring, and humans on Fenris can produce bear-blooded, bird-of-prey blooded, boar-blooded, rat-blooded, tiger-blooded, and wolf-blooded young. These ‘near-humans’ are much prized by the Church as useful resources.

Tiefling: Human families who commit wicked deeds, marking themselves for eternal punishment in the bowels of Hell, occasionally produce a devil-blooded heir: born to serve the Church as weapons of war. In addition to the devil-spawn tieflings recognized by the Church of Yondalla, demon-spawn tieflings occasionally appear among the hinen (human servants) of Perianth; kyton-spawn appear among those humans on the Chain of Tears who venture too close to the forest-moon of Baervan, and rakshasa-spawn appear with alarming frequency among those humans assigned to toil the plantation-fields of Verdura.

---

Warforged: Creations of the gnomes, the original warforged were long ago the original deciding factor in the wars against the ysoki. Redesigned in later centuries to act as adaptable, dependable assistants for gnomes, including the best possible defense against Hive (and later, illithid) incursions into gnome-space, the warforged were manufactured in the tens of millions.

All warforged, under the dictates of the Church of Yondalla, are property: they do not, and cannot, possess souls.

Each warforged is “born” from a generation creche; not a single such creche is known to have survived the destruction of the Circle of Gold (the gnomish home-world), and the technology to repair or re-fire a damaged creche – if one could even be found! – is utterly lost. For this reason, warforged are no longer treated as the expendable resource they were in the days of the Rat-Slaughter or the Hive Marches.

Data (Star Trek), C3-PO (Star Wars), the T-800 (Terminator), K2-SO (Rogue One), Baymax (Big Hero 6), David (Prometheus), Cameron (Terminator: the Sarah Conner Chronicles), Bishop (Aliens), GLaDOS (Portal), Wall-E, and the Iron Giant are all good examples of possible warforged archetypes, but many other interpretations are possible.

image from here

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Others:

In addition to the major races and civilizations of the system, two dozen or more other sapient species make their homes across Pyrespace.

Inhabitants of Ashen:

Kasatha: Swift and dangerous hunters adapted for the open desert, a rare few kasatha have left the holdings of their clans to seek bounty beyond their world.

---

Inhabitants of Verdura:

A huge number of native species make the wilds of Verdura their home, many of them armed with Precursor technology and decidedly hostile to strangers. Among them are the Catfolk (lion, tiger, jaguar, leopard, cheetah, puma), Giff, Ghoran, Gnoll, Grippli, Kobold, Lizardfolk, Nagaji, Orang-Pendak, Reptoid, Tengu, Vanara, Vishkanya, and Wyvaran.

---

Inhabitants of Quelya:

Gargoyle: A strange species of living stone that laired near – and among – the Urogalandic people for unknown millennia, gargoyles struck a deal with the Church of Yondalla during the Siege of Mordheim to assure their own survival; now, more than four centuries later, these hulking devils serve the Hin as bodyguards, elite scouts, heavy infantry, and unstoppable delivery-mechanisms.

Locathah: The curious and grotesque locathah – who are said to intermingle freely with the humans of many remote island communities – are treated with grave suspicion by the Church of Yondalla, as they often act as spies, seducers, and saboteurs for the cults of Dagon. The few locathah able to earn the trust of the Church are still watched closely for any sign of heresy.

---

Inhabitants of Perianth:

Gathlain: In the deepest woodlands of Perianth, far from the oversight of Elven noble houses, the bizarre gathlain wander the twilight; these odd entities claim to originate from an “adjacent” reality, one to which the doors have been shuttered.

The gathlain whisper that older, hungrier, and infinitely more powerful spirits of “the Forest Behind the Word” also lurk in the long shadows, slowly rebuilding their strength after a humiliating defeat -- and centuries of enslavement -- at the hands of a nameless elven witch-queen.

---

Inhabitants of the Chain of Tears:

Ratfolk: Nearly exterminated a dozen times over by the warforged armies of the gnomes, with whom they once shared a home world, the ysoki are a cunning species of survivors who have adapted to life across the Chain of Tears with endless tenacity.

Goblin-Spore (SQ): Some percentage of ysoki are carriers for a curious strain of the goblin fungus (which births goblins, hobgoblins, orcs, and ogres) to which they alone are immune. 

These special ysoki gain low-light vision, are immune to disease and poison, and are treated as Plant creatures -- in addition to being treated as humanoids with the ratfolk subtype --  for the purposes of a ranger’s favored enemy, for bane weapons, for feats, and for purposes of spells such as antiplant shell and horrid wilting, and for all similar effects, although these ysoki do not gain any other normal immunities, benefits, or traits of a true Plant creature.

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Inhabitants of Fenris:

A fair number of native species make the wilds of Verdura their home, many of them armed with Precursor technology and decidedly hostile to strangers. Among them are the Catfolk (tigers and snow leopards), Kitsune, Syrinx, and Tengu.

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Inhabitants of the Adamant Forge

Duergar: engineered slaves of the illithid, built via a foul twisting of the dwarven genetic code, duergar are not a common sight anywhere in Pyrespace except, perhaps, in the company of their horrid masters. That said, some duergar -- such as those dwelling on the Forge-Moon of Duerra -- have shattered the chains of their bondage and now walk free.

Goblin, Hobgoblin, and Orc: various subspecies born of the same strange fungal blooms (all of which possess the Goblin Spore Special Quality, above), sapient members of these races are rare in the extreme. That said, it is not completely unknown for an individual goblin, hobgoblin, or orc to “wake up”: becoming something significantly more complex than a mere weapon of genocide and extermination.

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UNIQUE RACES: Verdura, Fenris, the Chain of Tears, several moons, and even the wilds of Quelya are doubtlessly home to additional sapient species, still as yet undiscovered.

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SETTING

The setting is a single solar-system, Pyrespace, with several major & minor worlds.

WORLDS & NATIONS The Pyre: an incalculably vast stellar engine of incandescent plasma; small dark shapes — rumored to be ancient artifacts of the long-vanished Precursors — orbit the star tightly, flickering low across the endless ocean of flame (burning at an average of 6,000 degree Kelvin), diving through 13,000-mile-tall solar flares that routinely reach 10-20 million Kelvin (up to 100 million); these eerie & barely-visible shapes, whatever they may be, are utterly inaccessible to any modern space-vessel.

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Ashen: A storm-wracked world of dust & salt drifting upon an ocean of vacuum, covered in an inhospitable white desert slashed-through with low, jagged, slate-grey mountain ranges; this world hides strange ruins & wondrous treasures of the Precursors beneath its oceans of dust; it is considered strategically valuable both for its rare natural resources; dotted with Hin refineries, forts, border towns, resupply depots, and mining operations; home to strange native populations of kasatha, alongside clans of ifrit, oread, sylph, suli and undine (collectively known as the al’Zihad), who claim to have come to Ashen while bound in the service of the Precursors: inscrutable masters who once dwelt in a mysterious city trapped deep within the Celestial Pearl.

Ashen has two moons:

Anachtyr the Shining: A blinding-bright tempest-world of endless, boiling amythest-hued ocean studded with towering fumarole-vents dozens of miles in height; mighty coils of eye-searing azure lightning leap eternally between titanic these waterspouts, and the steam of this roaring planetoid can be seen drifting into the void: a haze that glitters like diamonds.

Lessinor the Masked: A world of heavy fog, dripping rust, creaking black tourmaline, and unending gloom, mantled in long shadows which writhe with ancient echoes and whispers, it is said that visibility on this planetoid has a maximum of 100 feet. Vast keeps, palaces, and even lightless cities of cyclopean gold-draped skeleons have been reported dotting the curious surface, but not one has ever been found a second time.

Approximately 10% of Ashen is actively subject to mining, exploitation, extraction and terraforming operations.

Major Cities of Ashen:

Acheron: a dug-in black-site military base / fortress-city / arcane research facility controlled by the Hin nation of Brandobaris

Core: a city-sized, semi-mobile mining and oil-rig facility controlled by the Hin nation of Arvoreen; a joint project with gnome & warforged diaspora from the Chain

Salt Lake: a religious-outreach community controlled by the Church of Yondalla, which seeks to convert the native al’Zihad to the worship of the goddess; this is by far the largest city on Ashen, and the central hub for all rail-travel on the planet.

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Verdura: a world of shallow oceans, towering mountain peaks, massive waterfalls, sprawling cave-systems, boiling mud-flats, impossible plateaus, icy ravines, echoing jungles, smoldering volcanos, bewildering river-systems, ancient lost ruins, and — above all — rainforest seemingly without end; home to an uncountable number of near-human species all-but-universally hostile to outsiders, many of whom are armed with ancient Precursor tech.

Hin rubber plantations, lumber mills, exotic “safari” hunting lodges, and industrial logging-facilities are therefore sprawling, heavily-militarized affairs

Although it boasts no truly massive cities, Verdura is host to the Hin colony of New Arvoreen, the center of Covington Farms – soon to be the breadbasket of the Pyrespace system – and a mountain-set Brandobarin research-station known as Thaumir. In addition, a small community of gnome diaspora have established the technological-marvel nation of Markovia, named for its Founder, Monarch and Supreme Leader, Dr. Adlai Markovitch (and his three nieces).

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The Three Moons of Verdura:

Tiamat: A darkly-glittering, iridescent jungle of venom and razor-sharp glass, a shimmering wilderness of fog-shrouded valleys, viridian mire, and steam-wreathed peaks laid beneath a sky of eternally wheeling stars. Home to many of the deadliest insects and reptiles in the system, this endless deep-emerald hell is yet rumored to contain that most fantastic of treasures: the legendary la fonte della giovinezza: a mystic source of endless youth and vitality, guarded by an ancient knight – Sir Azharul of the Thorns – devoted utterly to the service of Yondalla … and to the execution of all unworthy seekers.

Bahamut: A golden moon of shifting desert sand and sky-rending thunderstorms, of dark clouds howling over rain-spattered platinum dunes, this world is sacred to many of the reptilian monstrosities that lurk in the jungles of Verdura. Priests among these creatures claim that once, long ago, doorways opened from their sacrifice-sites to a huge city of bone, a fantastic place fed by the twin rivers Luar and Kath, ruled-over by a red-skinned, leviathan humanoid: a grotesque thing, serpent-like, with four eyes and four ears, that shot flames from its mouth when it spoke. No true evidence of this fabled city, said to lie “behind the east wind,” has yet been discovered.

Chronepsis: A small, silver-grey ice-moon, this airless and barren world is riddled with vast doorways, leading down into bone-white palaces of titanic, cyclopean design. What treasure might lie within these pleasure-halls is unknown, as few who have ventured beneath the surface have ever returned. It is sung, by the heretical faith of Dagon, that two great serpents lair here – named Null and Faluzure – and that these creatures know, between them, the fate of the dragons … and time of their return.

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Quelya: a world of archipelagos, reefs, marbled sand, dark cerulean waves, and tropical island chains boasting only a handful of sizable land masses, dominated by the Hin (halflings) and their servitor-race, humanity; the hungry, expansionist, colonial-minded nations of the Hin are united only by the rule of a massive corrupt Church and a single vast, hyper-complex monetary system; the planet boasts but a single continent — the Green Fields of Yondalla –  which are ruled-over by an ever-shifting array of Hin merchant-houses; in the furthest reaches of the world, shark skintwisters and locathah are rumored to bend the knee in loyalty to the strange and beautiful malenti, and to make horrid sacrifices to the coiling serpent Dagon.

HIN NATIONS / CITIES / HOLDINGS

Acheron: a Brandobarin military base / fortress-city / research base on Ashen

Arvoreen: an aggressive, militaristic nation noted for its perpetual war-footing, it maintains the finest navy in the system; the Arvorean Academy of War is famously egalitarian, admitting humans, half-elves, near-humans, and even warforged into its officer-training corps; national colors of red & gold.

Arvorean Male First Names: Alejandro, Fernando, Santiago, Antonio, Maceo, Francisco, Joaquin, Marco, Cristian, Javier, Rafael, Carlos

Arvorean Female First Names: Yamilet, Carmen, Valentina, Paloma, Lucia, Esmeralda, Alicia, Maria, Sofia, Luna, Catalina, Vida

Arvorean Last Names: García, Fernández, González, Rodríguez, López, Martínez, Sánchez, Pérez, Martín, Gómez, Ruiz, Hernández, Jiménez

Beshaba: The Hin holy city on the banks of the Rio Provendor (and its surrounding hills), most sacred site of Yondalla’s worship, currently self-ruled; the place where Gol-Kaa (the Last Human King of Beshaba) was slain by Saint Davian in single combat; national colors of white & sky blue.

Beshabite Male First Names: Dvir, Asaf, Asher, Elazar, Uriah, Reef, Aryah, Ofek, Yaheli, Arbel, Yinon, Idan

Beshabite Female First Names: Maayan, Danya, Liv, Shoshanna, Alean, Annael, Carmel, Eden, Avitel, Avia, Naama, Ofri

Beshabite Last Names: Ngaere, Zerbibi, Mishayev, Qablan, Magadla, Berdugo, Yayin, Sasi, Sharabani, Akiyva, Hagge, Siyvan, Tzviy

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Brandobaris: an elegant, cultured nation noted for its arts and refinement, it maintains the finest academies of learning – in alchemy, wizardry, engineering, medicine, mathematics, law, history, and space-flight – in the system; national colors bright yellow & light grey; home to the three bitterly warring institutes of higher learning:

Archives Timmestre-Falco: home of both the finest telescope array and most complete orrery in the system.

Sincomakti School of Sciences: known for the deep pockets of its alumni – for use in funding elaborate expeditions – and a particularly notorious library.

Universidad de Lepidottero: specialists in medicine, mathematics, and forensic investigation, on the cutting edge of xenobiology.

Brandobarin Male First Names: Luca, Filippo, Marco, Pietro, Giovanni, Nicolo, Davide, Diego, Giuseppe, Edoardo, Tommaso, Andreas , Cosimo, Lorenzo, Ottaviano

Brandobarin Female First Names: Chiara, Nicole, Ludovica, Gaia, Matilde, Vittoria, Francesca, Alessia, Camilla, Bianca, Arianna, Elena

Brandobarin Last Names: Rossi, Berlusconi, Ferrari, Brambilla, Ricci, Greco, Esposito, Marino, Bianchi, Morelli, D’Angelo, Piazza, Caputo

Chaldira: a massive mining-city on Fenris; although it is ostensibly self-ruled under the auspices of a gnomish coalition from the Chain of Tears, in practice the city bows to the “supervision” of a Brandobarin wizarding-circle. Core: a city-sized, semi-mobile mining and oil-rig facility on Ashen, controlled by the Arvorean armada; a joint project with gnome & warforged diaspora from the Chain. Cyrrollalee: former home of the last human king; an enormous, incredibly-fertile nation noted for its high population of humans (mostly farmers); rumors persist among the superstitious peasantry of “fairy circles” in the woods that lead to other realms; national colors of green & dark blue

Cyrrolaelan Male First Names: Odhran (Orin), Rory, Tadhg (Tag), Senan, Cathal (Kat-hal), Rodnan, Aodham (Aiden), Callum, Eion (Ow-en), Rian (Ree-an), Fionn (Finn), Cillian (Killian), Declan

Cyrrolaelan Female First Names: Aoife (ee-fa), Caoimhe (kwee-va or kee-va), Saoirse (seer-sha), Ciara (kay-ra), Niamh (neev), Roisin (ro-sheen), Cara (ca-ra), Clodagh (clo-da), Aine (on-yah), Aislinn (ash-lin), Alys, Avalon

Cyrrolaelan Last Names: Murchadha (Murphy), Ó Ceallaigh (Kelly), Ó Súilleabháin (O’Sullivan), Breathnach (Walsh), Ó Broin (Byrne), Ó Conchobhair (O’Conner), Ó Raghallaigh (O’Reilly), Ó Dubhghaill (O’Doyle), Mac Carthaigh (McCarthy), Ó Gallchobhair (Gallagher), Ó Cinnéide (Kennedy), Ó Muireadhaigh (Murray), Ó Cuinn (Quinn), Ó Mordha (Moore), Mac Lochlainn (McLoughlin)

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Dallah: a sin-soaked island city of gambling & revelry, part of the Tymoran island-chain; currently under self-rule; “national colors” of black & white Gixx: a floating city named for its watery host-moon, under Brandobarin control, orbiting the Crown of Sapphire Lagas: capital city of both Arvoreen and Brandobaris, existing along the border of both nations at the mouth of the Rio Provendor; a sacred city of the faith of Yondalla second only to the City & Lands of Beshaba

Important Sites in Lagas: The Rusted Sun Theatre, Parrish Place Bed & Breakfast, Café Molise, The Shuttered Door Academy

Important Hin residing in Lagas: Lord Mayor Emilio Dioceres, Archbishop Quirino Stephanos, Minister of Finance Alessio Villanova, Trade Minister Lazzaro Calistoga, Assistant Trade-Minister Dario Adalberto.

Moander: capital city of Cyrrollalee, built on the ruins of Dún Ailinne.

Mordheim: capital city of Urogolan, former home of “Uric, Last Human King of Urogolan”; this cold and half-tumbled fortress city, towering high above the treacherous stone of the Baía da Loucura, is choked in near-constant ice Perryroyal: massive island city at the far end of the Tymora island-chain that serves as the legendary “gateway to Xhiaae-La,” currently under the control of the Arvorean navy Salt Lake: a religious-outreach community on Ashen controlled by the Church of Yondalla, which seeks to convert the native al’Zihad to the worship of the goddess; this is by far the largest city on Ashen, and the central hub for all rail-travel on the planet Thaumir: a mountain-set Brandobarin research-station on Verdura Tymora: a particularly fertile chain of islands inhabited mostly by humans, currently ruled by the city of Dallah; the islands stretch from Lagas to Perryroyal.

Many traditional Tymoran names -- especailly those found in Dallah -- sound vaguely Greek to 21st-century human ears, but the islands are home to over 7,000 unique human cultures and no single list could possibly home to capure the length and breadth of the names used by Tymorans.

In addition, put bluntly, many people of the island chain simply do not think of themselves as “Tymoran,” but, rather, as members of a distinct culture under foreign occupation.

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Urogolan: grim, north-most Hin nation, noted for its vast mineral wealth, dense coniferous forests, fatalistic populace, and bleak weather; national colors of grey and black.

Urogalandic Male First Names: Ander, Hans, Johan, Ulf, Lars, Sven, Ivar, Leif (layf), Magnus, Ragnar, Sigurd (see-gurd), Herleif (her-leaf), Hjalmar (hyal-mahr), Njal (nj-al), Ødger (ed-ger), Roar (ruw-aar), Rune (ruw-n-eh), Sten (stehn), Trygve (trig-vah), Uhtred (oof-tred), gil (ee-yeh-gil), Einar (eye-nahr), Frey (fray), Geir (geyr), Gudbrand (good-brant), Gudmund (good-moond), Gunnar (guhn-nar), Hagen (hah-gen), Haldor (hahl-dawr), Halvar or Halvor (hahl-vahr), Jarl (yahr-al), Kåre (kehr), Aric (aar-ih-k), Arkyn (aar-khin), Brynjar (brin-yahr), Cuyler (kiel-ehr)

Urogalanadic Female First Names: Áma, Åse, Astra, Astrid, Borghild, Brynhild, Eir, Elli, Embla, Erica, Liva, Ragnfríðr, Revna, Rúna, Saga, Sigrid, Sif, Freya, Heidrun, Hildr, Hrefna, Hulda, Kara

Urogalandic Last Names: Any of the above Urogalandic male first names, with one of the following added to the end: sen, son, sson, søn, datter, dotter, or dottir

Xhiaae-La: legendary islands of gold & jade just beyond Tymora, source of human unarmed martial fighting techniques highly valued by Hin employers; currently under Brandobarin control

Xhiaae-Lan Male Names: Liang, Haoran, Zhen, Shufen, Ling, Lan, Kaihong, Taio, Shui, Qui, Jin, Chun, Ai, Bao

Xhiaae-Lan Female Names: Annchi, Baozhai, Changying, Chao-Xing, Chuntao, Da-Xia, Daiyu, Ehuang, Fenfang, Genji, Hu, Huian

Xhiaae-Lan Family Names: (spoken & written first) Shao, Long, Wàn, Zhāng, Qián, Tāng, Yǐn, Lí, Yì, Cháng, Wǔ, Qiáo, Lài, Gōng, Wén

Zuzadlara: an Arvorean military-base and floating “port city” on Perianth, established to assist Elven forces in maintaining peace across the system.

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Perianth: the elven home-world, a mist-wreathed, twilight-draped bioengineered “forest of prosperity” constructed by the Precursors via unknown means; the deep woodlands are said to hold terrifying gateways to other realms of existence; the courts of the elves are closed to outsiders, and non-elves are permitted access only to a vanishingly small number of sky-ports; the elves of both the Western Courts and Eastern Courts alike do a brisk trade in humans bought from the Hin, and some reports suggest that only 3% of the planetary population is actually elven.

Perianth is “ruled” by House Larethian, although the high throne of that House – that of the Phoenix Emperor (Western Court) or Moonlight Dragon (Eastern Court) – stands empty, as does the throne of his bride: Lolth, the Beautiful Eclipse (Western Court) or Lolth, the Crimson Empress (Eastern Court).

The favor of House Larethian is a currency traded by the other noble Houses; the Western Court name is given for each House first, followed by the Eastern Court name:

House Fleuris / House Kaika: painters, vintners, and rose-garden keepers.

House Sanglante / House Chimanire: the most-expert sword-smiths and sword-saints.

House Chanceux / House Kōun'na: Imperial record-keepers, known for their prodigious luck.

House Illustre / House Kagayakashī: the most beautiful and honorable house, known for their mastery of dance.

House Assombrir / House Kage-tsuki: the lowest of the noble houses, experts in medicine.

Perianth is not known to have any major cities, although each House maintains a number of holdings.

Western Court Male Names: Baillieu, Ménétries, Bachelot, Peletier, Bocuse, Marius, Théophile, Roland, Ancel, Thibaut, Sylvain, Médard, Chauve, Rémy, Maret

Western Court Female Names: Solène, Élisa, Émeline, Joséphine, Ameline, Neri, Mélanie, Coline, Émilienne, Iseult, Asselineau, Eulalie, Roxanne

Eastern Court Male Names: Hyotoki, Gatane, Yamitsu, Dainaga, Akihiko, Yori, Hideaki, Kazuhiro, Wantaro, Anoye, Gezushi, Sesuki, Teitada, Hiroaki, Noboru

Eastern Court Female Names: Haitsuke, Narino, Reinatsu, Maera, Benomi, Kohaku, Kayo, Miyako, Aya, Shizuka, Komina, Jionuye, Kakura, Amiri, Reiko, Yuki, Emi

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The Spider-Moon

The sole satellite of Perianth, a massive labyrinthine ruin to-which one third of the elves — the drow — were exiled long ago; the drow are no longer trapped beneath the surface of the Spider-Moon due to the hideous gifts of the illithid. This oversized nightmare realm is ruled by House Lolth and her loyalists: exiled members of all five noble Houses and their servants. This inhospitable world boasts only a single major trade-hub: the Dark City of Xogotha.

Any type of direct approach on the Spider Moon must find a way to navigate the tens of thousands of floating dead (and undead) – casualties of the Unseelie War – still drifting in orbit around the planetoid. For their part, the drow use this corpse-field as a blockade, employing necromancy to bypass the horror-show whenever necessary.

Drow names are identical to elven names.

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The Celestial Pearl: a mysterious planet-sized anomaly bearing what appears to be a perfectly smooth, bone-white surface: this ghostly pale sphere has no atmosphere and no magnetic field, no geographical features, no marks consistent with any meteoric impact, no evidence of historical habitation, a surface temperature of 3 Kelvin, and a core temperature zero Kelvin. The curious surface itself – which appears to be an impossibly-thin crystalline latticework of monomolecular razor-ribbons covered in a few drifting inches of ice-powder, white sand, ash, and stardust – cannot be landed-upon or even approached: weird, invisible, immovable “arches” — made of something harder than adamantium — protrude in a strange, coiling web of whorls into space, reaching up to 500 miles away from the surface.

Zionil: Largest space-station in the system, nearly a moon onto itself, this massive gnomish facility serves as an informal way-station -- a respected, nearly sacred neutral ground -- between the “inner worlds” of Ashen, Verdura, Quelya, and Perianth; and the “outer worlds”: the Crown of Sapphire and the Chain of Tears, Fenris, and Moradin’s Forge.

It also serves as the ultimate melting-pot of cultures across Pyrespace: here, humans dressed in fashionable gnomish top-hats & tails rub shoulders with dwarves travling to jobs on Ashen & half-orcs en route to Verdura.

Dominated by the enormous Cathedral of St. Deneir the Scribe and House of St. Mili, the Voice of Heaven, sprawling centers of worship for the Church of Yondalla, Zionil is also home to a huge Xhaaie-Lan population; the Lantan Shipyards are without a doubt the finest facilities in the system for the design & construction of Hin-built spelljamming vessels.

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The city is unofficially under the control of Baronet Giancarlo Lugocelli of Fenris, a devout human aristocrat admired across the system for his shrewd buisness accumen and unbridled civic spirit. 

This artificial moon also serves as home to The Thirteenth: an emergency garrison of specially-designed warforged kept in reserve to make a surgical-strike wherever the threat of Hive activity is detected outside the heavily quarantined moons of Segojan (Hive Colony Euclid), Baervan (Hive Colony Keter), Baravar (Hive Colony Thaumiel), and Urdlen (Hive Colony Apollyon); this force is led by Inquisitor Francesca DiAccursio of La Universidad de Lepidottero as part of a massive anti-xenos taskforce.

An increasing number of dwarves from Moradin’s Forge also now make a holy pilgrimage here to the Muamman Duathal: a library of dwarven law, history, technological innovation, achivement, literary scholarship, and art nearly the equal to the catacombs of lost Dugmaren.

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The Crown of Sapphire & the Chain of Tears: an enormous, shining, many-ringed cerulean gas-giant, host to a dozen moons (listed below) and the long trail of an asteroid belt which follows behind it; the Crown roars with low heat and mild radiation, serving as a “second sun” to the system. As to the means by which the Precursors performed this “stellar uplifting” and manipulated the interior of the Crown, it is impossible to say.

About 70% of the “chain” following behind the Crown was originally the home-world of the gnomes – once known as Kruug od Szlatta, or the ‘Circle of Gold’ – and their many miraculous inventions, which was shattered utterly as the result of a run-away hyper-energy reaction; big money can be made out here, sifting the clockwork wreckage and mining interplanetary debris for rarities; the finest technology in the known universe can be found here: powering the cities, foundries, refineries, sky-docks, casinos, space stations, laboratories, and bio-manufactora which float together in complex nets through the wild void.

Moons of the Sapphire Crown:

Garl: now the largest of the moons, a gem-studded planetoid home to a huge number of scattered mineral-mining operations, including Blistavo Zlatta: now the default capital-city of the gnome people, formerly known best as a decadent, lawless, off-world trade-hub town full of casinos, amusements, cunning illusions, and other cheap entertainments.

Gelth: second largest of the moons, a dark spheroid of endless seething lava-flats, smoldering radioactive pools, toxic black smoke, and jagged obsidian blades miles in height. Home to a small number of mining-colonies (which are outnumbered 10-1 by the destroyed remnants of exactly such facilities).

Callarduran: third largest of the moons, a place of icy-cold wind whistling through thousands of miles of smooth stone tunnels, home to the finest stone-crafting workshops in the system.

Flandal: a hot, near-barren planetoid rich in iron and a number of other valuable metals … but, very specifically, boasting neither water nor arable land. Successfully cleared of all Hive infection after the eradication of Hive Colony Nehemoth in 1463; classified as safe.

Gixx: a fog-shrouded shallow-sea water-world currently occupied by a floating Brandobarin city.

Segojan: a smog-shrouded death-world of fungus and alien monsters, home to Hive Colony Euclid.

Baervan: a lost moon, once a twilight forest-world, now home to Hive Colony Keter; also home to the mysterious, floating Library of the Eremite.

Baravar: a shadowy crystalline moon now home to Hive Colony Thaumiel.

Urdlen: home to nothing but an icy, red-tinged ocean that flows silently between towering black spires, this bleak world now plays host to Hive Colony Apollyon.

Gaerdal: a heavily fortified workshop-moon, now 99% destroyed; original “birthplace” of the warforged.

Nebelun: the still-smoldering remains of a desert laboratory-world, dotted with blackened pits connected by a vast webwork of now-shattered elevated railways.

Rupa u Beskonačnom (the Hole in the Infinite): although not a true moon, this small artificial wormhole drifts in orbit around the Crown of Sapphire, occasionally spiting-out weird horrible alien monsters: the nearby moons of Segojan (Hive Colony Euclid), Baervan (Hive Colony Keter), Baravar (Hive Colony Thaumiel), and Urdlen (Hive Colony Apollyon) are infected with a terrifying strain of bizarre alien life; the wormhole is currently orbited by a small armada of mysterious githyanki ships native to another solar system.

Major Cities of the Chain of Tears:

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Discord: The largest city adrift in the Chain is also the largest city system-wide; in terms of sheer population, only the holy city of Lagas on Quelya even comes close. Discord is a sprawling affair, composed of innumerable asteroids and earth-bergs lashed-together with sparking remnants from hundreds – if not thousands – of derelict and damaged SpellJamming vessels. Although the gnomish population of Discord is lightly smaller than that of Blistavo Zlatta, on Garl, gnomes and their warforged security units run much of the city: High Master Artificer Krenlin maintains strict order among the scoundrels, spacehands, and fortune-seekers … at least, in the neighborhoods capable of paying for his protection. The black markets of Discord’s underbelly are run by gangs of ysoki (ratfolk), dwarves, half-orcs, half-elves, more bizarre human-offshoots, locathah, kasatha, unique creatures from the wilds of Verdura and Fenris, and even drow. Significantly more uncommon are goblins, orcs, and ogres – ancient enemies of the dwarves – and Perianth-born elves; although Hin are occasionally spotted here, it’s incredibly rare to see one without an escort … such as a lumbering Church-sanctioned gargoyle or a heavily-armed mercenary crew.

Serenity: Known better by its inhabitants as ‘Scarcity,’ this ugly warren of trash and filth is – to those with the keen eyes to see it – a goldmine of opportunity. If the ysoki can lay claim to a home-world, this is it: the majority of the population here is ratfolk, and their laws guide the city … for good or for ill. Part of a dense asteroid-field known for dangerous gravitational eddies, the port of Serenity is a haven for pirates and criminals wanted in every other metropolis.

Linger: The last glorious remnants of the Circle of Gold are kept here, a city-sized museum dedicated to the memory of that devastated world, and to honoring the uncounted millions who perished in the flare of its destruction. It is a place of quiet luxury and high technology, where the very wealthiest of those who do business in Discord can pretend – if only for a few hours – that the Circle of Gold was never broken.

Gnomish Male Names: Andrija, Nikola, Luka, Marko, Aleksandr, Jovan, Nemanja, Matija, Miloje, Miroslav, Rodavan, Vlado, Zivko,

Gnomish Female Names: Aleksandra, Teodora, Jana, Katarina, Petra, Malina, Milena, Maja, Hana, Anja, Milica (miy-LIH-ts-a), Sara, Nina

Gnomish Last Names: Jovanović, Petrović, Nikolić, Marković, Đorđević, Stojanović, Ilić, Stanković, Pavlović, Milošević, Katić, Sinđelić, Nedić, Marić, Višnjić, Janjić, Sarić, Miličić, Milenić, Natalić, Zorić, Smiljić, Anđelić

Warforged Names: any; names of warforged are self-selected, are not derived from family, and may be drawn from any culture.

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Fenris: A frozen, rocky world of icebergs & fathomless oceans, mighty fjords, roaring hot springs, steaming river-valleys, shrieking tundra, rolling steppes, drifting ice-floes, frigid marshland, deep emerald forest, and seething volcanoes; it is “ruled-over” by a minority population of warring giants, who tear themselves fully-formed from the simmering ley-lines of the living planet; in their long shadow, bold survivors face the fierce wrath of endless winter; some clans scratch out a meager, subsistence-level hunter-gatherer existence, while others build great longhouses, fortresses, and onion-domed cathedrals of wood & stone, defying the giants; beneath the surface of the world, enchanted mechanical castles — home to slumbering vampire lords — wait in silence to be called-forth for the night-hunt.

Humans and half-orcs “native” to Fenris tend toward Cyrrolaelan and Urogalandic names, suggesting some truth to the legends of doorways in the deep woods leading between Quelya and Fenris.

The massive, smoldering, heavily-entrenched mining-city of Chaldira employs tens of thousands of workers, including innumerable indentured humans and near-humans imported from Quelya by the hundreds through the Church-sanctioned penal transportation program; most such workers are branded, upon arrival, to prevent their disappearance into the local human communities. Specialized squads of “workforce retention agents” operating under Brandobarin authority maintain an uneasy peace with nearby human enclaves … though both groups wisely fear the fury of giants, who on occasion choose to assault the veritable fortress of Chaldira seemingly out of pure malice.

Beyond humans, dwarves comprise the bulk of Chaldira’s employees; outright violence in the barracks between dwarves and their orc-blooded coworkers is frowned upon, punishable by both monetary fine and loss of privileges, but is still not uncommon. Gnomes, warforged, and even ratfolk form the Chain of Tears are also common sights, as are Hin mages and their gargoyle bodyguards, although the only thing rarer than a native of Verdura here is an elf.

For their own part, the native catfolk, kitsune, syrinx, and tengu give Chaldira a wide berth: the huge, heavily militarized mining-city has, for the most part, nothing to offer them.

Moons of Fenris

Bahgtru: A hot, dark, ash-swept landscape of dense black forests, broiling deserts, flinty badlands, murky rivers, and foreboding seas, all bearing the ravages of constant war waged beneath a coal-streaked and starless sky. A dozen or more major orc-blood nations vie for control of this resource-rich, twilight-lit world; the largest single military force – the Broken Skull Clan, led by a hulking creature called Moragrek – dominates less than 10% of the planetoid. In the deepest woodlands, orcs fly crude marrow-stained, gut-stitched banners above fallen towers still sparking with ancient Precursor-tech.

Ilneval: Floating mountains, coiling moebius-spiral waterfalls, serpentine valleys filled with boiling fog, forests of glass, a series of artificial rings, cities of broken fractal room-recursions, walking Precursor-tech “transport-facilities” the size of nations, and stranger landmarks dot this bizarre world. Worse still, the goblin-fungus of this moon has underdone a wild number of dangerous mutations, producing varieties of dangerous goblinoid entities unknown anywhere else in Pyrespace.

Luthic: A damp, echoing, rain-drenched world with a low-burning core, this windswept planetoid sees surprisingly few dangerous meteorological events – considering the near-constant cloud cover -- and features only very mild tectonic activity. As such, impossible caverns filled with warm mushroom forests abound, grazed-upon by bizarre, blind half-fungal elk. This world is by far the economically valuable of the Fenris-moons, a veritable goldmine for its Brandobarin investors; transportation to this moon is a sentence dreaded by every human living under the Church of Yondalla’s laws.

Obould: Miles upon miles of long-fallen ruins – twisting, elegant citadels of what appears to have been ancient elven construction – crisscross this rime-coated world, buried in miles upon miles of shattered ice; unfortunately, whatever strange process causes the planet Fenris to vomit-forth giants from its ley-lines is also active here: titans of frost wander the wastes, obedient to three mysterious warlords: the Shogun of Crimson Snowfall, the Shogun of the Endless Dark, and the Shogun of Winterblind.

Shargaas: High above the roiling toxic cloud-cover, cold mountain-peaks spill miles-long waterfalls from smoldering calderas; far below, falling ash and acidic sleet fall silently on the dark glass libraries of the Precursors. It is said that nothing moves here, in the realm of dead furnaces: a planetoid fallen to night. In the winding passages beneath the dormant facilities, however – the strange passages linking the long abandoned “colleges” of Hopelorn, Cold Fever, and the Citadel of Vanished Audience – somethingold and unclean can be heard clicking-away … hungry, and drawing ever closer.

Vaprak: Trolls are an infectious, predatory presence known across Pyrespace: Verdura, Tiamat, the forests of Cyrrollalee and Urogolan, the wooded isles of Tymora, the Crown-moon of Baervan, and upon most of the Fenris-moons & Forge-moons; in fact, it is believed (but not confirmed by the elves) that trolls may even be known in the wild places of Perianth. No place, however, can be said to have been conquered by the trolls like this horrid planetoid: an endless morass of sinking stonework and icy-cold swamp, a place of stench and the low whine of blood-mad insects.

Yurtrus: Miles below the Brandobarin military research-facility of Khin-Oin, a planet-sized city of war-ravaged, long-overgrown Precursor-tech glitters in the cold sunrise … while another neighborhood, connected by monorails that blur between districts faster than the speed of sound, shines like an ocean of light on the other side of nightfall. The city – nicknamed “Fleshslough” by the researchers who drift in orbit high above, perpetually examining the curious urban properties – is a vast thing of austere, ever-moving wonderment: whatever incurable, perversely-contagious disease hangs in the warm air reduces skin to boiling crimson horror in mere moments.

---

Moradin’s Forge: this hyper-dense, heavily volcanic planet is just over half the size of Quelya, yet it commands a significantly more massive gravity well. Although it boasts a minimal surface atmosphere, it serves as the home world of dwarves, goblins, ogres, hobgoblins, and orcs; it is also the staging-ground for an illithid invasion-force with control over a supermassive wormhole situated somewhere beyond the edge of the known solar system; illithid forces include any number of alien monstrosities (many mutated or bio-manipulated by the illithid) stolen from a hundred different systems, of which orcs are the newest prize; 80% of all dwarves system-wide live in bondage beneath the heel of the illithid.

A single rebel city, secret in the extreme, is hidden in the shadows of otherwise-absolute illithid dominance: Veil, last hope of the Forge.

Dwarven Male First Names: Hakk, Osrick, Drok, Brut, Muls, Grold, Urbrik, Aandrak, Buulrol, Kigrer, Fraysik, Korvin, Vog, Bellbaarg

Dwarven Female First Names: Yorgwyn, Urgwan, Rren, Inngva, Kledgeg, Lonnvull, Urrgvi, Kalbri, Khora, Sro, Ohlih, Hyylkis, Memrii

Dwarven Clan Names: Grandmaul, Stonehall, Winterstride, Thunderhand, Icevein, Wargold, Blackstone, Runelore, Heartstrong, Ironblaze, Steelfist, Greysky, Shieldhorn, Axetusk, Proudburn, Stormedge

A NOTE ON DWARVEN NAMING CUSTOMS

Dwarves are hardly a monoculture, and each dwarf has dealt with the loss of Moradin’s Forge in an intensely personal way. Some dwarves have taken to answering only to their Clan name (their first name forever, abandoned), while others refuse to speak their Clan name aloud until they stand once more in the re-taken hall of their ancestors; some dwarves have founded entirely new off-world lineages -- such as Clan Dustblade of Ashen -- and some have adopted themselves into existing bloodlines: Clan Malov, the “dwarven branch” of the Malovitch crime-family is, of course, the most famous of these.

Orc, Goblin, Ogre, Hobgoblin Names: Wurgoth, Gradba, Azuk, Speghat, Cagan, Wilaktug, Sbghat, Omegugh, Fogugh, Braugh, Oggugat, Yegoth, Oogorim, Vothug, Nildud, Golag, Bugharz, Zguk, Ombilge, Zudagog, Tothag, Sogg, Narfug, Ergoth, Xorag, Orpigig, Agronak, Orakh, Xulgug, Fudagog

image from here

Moons of the Forge AKA “The Morndinsamman”:

Abbathar: A shimmering world of vast iron pyrite slabs floating across a seething ocean of molten lead, shot-through with veins of plutonium. Extreme weather events triggered by mega-scale Precursor tech embedded at the moon’s poles – still barely understood, even in theory – routinely cause the surface temperature and atmospheric pressure to reach or exceed 4,000 degrees Kelvin and 18 gigapascals (2,610,680 pounds per square inch): converting portions of the atmosphere into solid, crystalline “red oxygen” while shattering the vast methane-plumes into sheets of pure diamond.

Berronar: A temperate world of steep valleys and winding natural cave systems, with a craggy mineral-rich surface marked by broad streams and small hardwood forests, this served for nearly seven centuries as the “second home” of the dwarven people, founded soon after first contact with gnomes from the Circle of Gold. The early loss of this quiet paradise-moon, along with the entirety of its population, to the illithid during their invasion was a brutal blow to the Clans of the Forge.

Clangeddin: A storm-wracked world of mighty fortresses and massive iron-foundries, this was the very last of Forge-moons to fall: its bleak surface is still marked with endless fields of the unburied war dead, broken banners, and mighty siege-engines half-buried in seas of ash. The endless lightning strikes are said to illuminate black rivers of goblin-fungus running between the most hallowed halls and treasure-filled tombs of the ancient dwarven kings: funerary-stone and pale gold circlets trod into the grey mud.

Duerra: In some ways, on certain battle-fronts, it can be said that the dwarven race yet stands: roaring in open, bloodthirsty, unrelenting defiance of the illithid and all their servants. On this inhospitable planetoid, a vast labyrinth of toxic metal-tainted pools, rusted razor wire, and dizzying mineshafts once used to extract silver, iron, gemstones, and titanium by the cubic ton, two rogue creations of the illithid – the duergar and the dark naga – wage endless war in the dark, focusing the psychic energies of their cold anger on killing anything that so much as looks at them sideways … and plotting, always, to escape the oubliette and shackle the universe as their slave.

Dugmaren: What was once the center of all dwarven scholarship – the eternal echoing repository of some thirty centuries of discovery, poetry, engineering, innovation, and invention, the epicenter of all history recorded by the Clans of the Forge, the memories of a people writ in rune – has been lost. None can say how many tomes and testaments were lost during the Battle of Dugmaren, put to the torch and the axe … nor how many of the great, austere library-moon’s sacred record-keepers were devoured by the rapacious illithid, their minds stolen to be used as horrid weapons against the living. For those who treasure the knowledge of ages, the fall of Dugmaren was perhaps the greatest loss of all.

Dumathoin: A lightless world, shrouded in constant slate-grey cloud-cover, riddled with dangerous – yet fantastically lucrative! – gemstone cave systems of seemingly limitless depth. In the many centuries of its exploration, it yet continues to reveal strange new secrets: some treacherous, some fantastic, all of them beautiful and curious in the extreme. Legends suggest that the winding passages here are truly limitless: that the halls curl back on themselves, leading to tunnels beneath the surface of the Forge, the Spider-Moon, the sands of Ashen, the tombs of Chronepsis, the vampire-castles of Fenris, and even the strange armor of the Celestial Pearl.

image from here

Gorm: A cruel planetoid, a howling nightmare of treacherous, winding obsidian passageways, covered in goblin-fungus and lit only by the low blood-red flickers of a hateful molten core, the Gauntlet of Gorm was once the final testing-ground of the greatest dwarven warriors and the finest dwarven armor: here, unstoppable heroes and unbreakable shields alike were forged. Fallen, now, to the illithid, the retaking of unassailable Gorm may yet represent the last, best hope of the dwarven people.

Haela: The imposing mountain peaks of this glimmering moon are carved with the likenesses of the great clan leaders, the eternal Kings and Queens of the Forge. Beneath their austere gaze, feuding clans have, for centuries, set aside their hate and their bloodthirst to settle generations-old grudges through honorable challenge: tests of skill-at-arms, bravery, strength, endurance, mettle, riddling, drinking, cunning, and even the gift of poetry. The halls here have fallen silent, picked-at now by lean, faceless nightmare predators: misshapen things born under unclean stars.

Laduguer: A hard world wrapped in chill grey mist, a moon of foul reputation and terrible whispers drifting on the winds beneath the stone. Under a steel-grey sky flickering with impossible darkness, bottomless pits sparkling with adamantine and black diamonds rend a jagged landscape of petrified Precursor tech: shattered alien weapons, armor, engines, towers, biological experiments, and massive shipwrecks of sea, star, and air, all transformed to iron. Vast, gaping holes in the surface – some miles across – open into mazeworks of silver and mithral, precious blood-onyx and fantastic skymetals, the tunnels lit by the twisting glimmer of an unwholesome and unnatural flame. The icy peaks of this foreboding moon are home to three long-abandoned dwarven strongholds: the Citadel of the White Rose, the Fortress Hammergrim, and the Throne Perilous.

Marthammor: A wild and far-wandering forest moon of geysers and thermal vents, known for its near-constant earthquakes, its towering native flora and fauna, its softly luminescent gemstones, it extreme and unpredictable weather, and – perhaps best of all – for its sprawling subterranean woodlands: vast, steaming caverns filled with trees adapted to survive seemingly without need of sunlight. Legends speak of doorways in the deep woods to other worlds, and ancient elven runes – some millennia old – can be found carved alongside incomprehensible alien glyphs on the many moss-covered marble pillars, stairs, ivory archways of long-fallen ruins.

Sharindlar: A dusky, crimson and rose-gold planetoid of impossible buttes, wide mesas, abundant hot springs, and huge naturally occurring stone “monuments” interlaced with warm shallow seas, all brushed with glittering, coral-pink sandbars, echoing grottos, and wide white beaches. The rare minerals and exotic plant life of this moon are said to possess a variety of astonishing medicinal properties, capable of restoring life, joy, and vitality to even the most crippled form. A massive temple – seemingly of dwarven construction, yet over 7,000 years old – rises from a golden hillside surrounded by circles of great standing-stones, marked by runes of indecipherable origin.

Thard Harr: Thought to be the ancient origin-point of goblin-fungus, the so-called Labyrinth of Life is home to terrible, primordial beasts seen nowhere else in Pyrespace. This bizarre, sweltering jungle world is stacked in “layers” of independently-floating, constantly shifting plateaus, all orbiting a single boiling ocean: the destination of all waterfalls and the source of constant warm mist and heavy rain. For reasons yet unknown, the maddening complexities of this moon are well-recorded in the oral histories of many monstrous species dwelling on Verdura, who claim to have walked star-paths to this place – for purposes of tending to a mysterious “Temple of the Deceiver / Serpent-Father” – in ancient days.

Vergadain: A small planetoid of gentle hills and clear lakes with a wide orbit, this moon was – for nearly seven centuries, since 1051 A.D. – the preferred meeting-ground to facilitate trade between the races of gnome and dwarf. In the wake of utter cataclysm befalling the shattered gnome home world (in 1492 A.D.), a number of wealthy and prominent gnomish merchant-families established permanent residence here at the heartfelt invitation of their friends among the Clans of the Forge; the casual annihilation of those families by the illithid at their outset of the invasion was a horrific shock to both races.

[longitudinalwaveme]

Uilebheist San Sgàthan

As a boy, Evan McCulloch was hunted by a monster. Now, he himself is a monster...one who is on the hunt.

*Trigger Warning for implied/referenced child sexual abuse. If this will provoke anxiety, please DO NOT read this story. There's nothing explicit or graphic, but I felt it was important to note this.*

Garret Bell had a man in his mirror. Though all the grownups said that he was making up tales when he told them about him, Garret knew he was real. He saw him almost every day. The man in the mirror was tall, thin, and pale, with a lot of freckles. He had messy brown hair and a funny voice, and when he smiled, Garret could see a gap between his two front teeth. When he had first appeared in Garret’s bedroom mirror, Garret had been a little spooked, but the man in the mirror had turned out to not be scary at all. In fact, he was really friendly. He listened to Garret when his foster parents, Dr. and Mrs. Reynolds, were too busy for him, he helped him with his math homework, he gave Garret suggestions about how to deal with the two other foster kids in the house, and he even played games sometimes. Fun games, not the weird ones Dr. Reynolds liked to play at night. At the thought of those games, Garret shuddered. Dr. Reynolds said that they were supposed to make him feel good, but they didn’t. They made him feel scared and nervous and upset. But Dr. Reynolds had told him that if he told anyone about their games, then he would get in big trouble, because only bad boys played those games. Garret didn’t want more trouble, so he kept his mouth shut. Besides, the one time he’d tried to tell his teacher, she hadn’t believed him. In fact, she’d told him that his foster daddy was a very important surgeon and that he needed to stop telling nasty lies about such a good man. And when Dr. Reynolds had found out about it...well, that night the game had been mean.

Part of Garret wanted to start crying, but he didn’t. When he had arrived at the Reynolds’ house after being taken away from his grandma, the two older foster kids, Stefan Lee and Bethany Martin, had told him that crying wouldn’t do him any good now that he was in a foster home, and he hadn’t cried once since. Instead, he went into his bathroom and started washing his hands, and didn’t stop until his hands were starting to bleed. He still didn’t feel clean, but if he got blood on anything, Mrs. Reynolds would be really angry with him. Garret left the bathroom, walked over to the mirror on his wall, and knocked lightly on it.

“Hello? Mr. Mirror Man? Are you there?” After a few seconds, the man in the mirror appeared with a crooked grin on his face.

“Howtizgoan, Garret?”

“Hello, Mr. Mirror Man. I’m...I’m doing okay,” Garret said.

“You sure, laddie? Ye dinnae look so good,” the man in the mirror replied. Garret cringed, hoping that the man in the mirror wouldn’t get upset with him for being a bother like Mrs. Reynolds did when he got upset.

“I’m fine. You don’t need to worry about me.” The man in the mirror looked worried.

“Ye ken that ye can tell me if something isnae going well, don’t ye? I dinnae want anything bad tae happen tae a good boy like ye.” Garret frowned.

“I’m not good. If I was good, bad things wouldn’t keep happening to me.” That was what Dr. Reynolds had told him, anyway. The man in the mirror frowned.

“It’s not your fault that your parents died when ye were a wee bairn, or that your grandmum got too sick to take care of ye. Just pure rotten luck, it was.”

“That’s...that’s not why I’m bad.” The man in the mirror started looking suspicious.

“Who’s been telling ye all this?”

“I...I can’t tell you. I’ll get in trouble.”

“Trust me, laddie. I’ll make sure that nothing bad happens to ye.” Garret swallowed nervously. The man in the mirror was his friend, and he trusted him...but what if he decided that Garret really was bad after he heard about the games he played with Dr. Reynolds?

“You...you promise?” If Garret hadn’t known better, he would’ve said that the man in the mirror was about to start crying.

“Aye. I promise.”

“It’s...it’s Dr. Reynolds. He comes into my room at night and...and he says that he wants to play a game with me…”

************************************************************

“For donating thousands of dollars to charity, his work with the underprivileged in the Central/Keystone area, and his fostering of no less than fifteen children, the Wayne Foundation would like to present Dr. Philip Reynolds with the Thomas and Martha Wayne Humanitarian Award.” Philip Reynolds smiled proudly as he graciously accepted the award from Mr. Lucius Fox, the head of WayneCorp.

“Thank you, Mr. Fox. Really, you are too kind. I’m flattered by the fact that you even considered me for this award,” he said. The audience, which consisted of many of the wealthiest and most influential people in the Central City area, applauded politely. As he left the stage to rejoin his lovely wife, his grin only widened. His life was going swimmingly. He had a booming practice, a sterling reputation, and a lovely trophy wife who never got in his way, and he had just earned himself the perfect ticket into the highest echelon of Central City’s social scene. After all, among the many attendants at the award ceremony were Roy G. Bivolo, the only supervillain to ever become a famous, wealthy artist, W.W. Wiggins, the head of Wiggins’ Toy Company, and, perhaps most importantly, Mrs. Rachel Rathaway, the undisputed queen of high society in the Central/Keystone area. If she gave him her seal of approval, he would be able to make all sorts of connections. With this in mind, he made his way over to her.

“Hello, Mrs. Rathaway, Mr. Rathaway. I’m flattered to have you here,” he said smoothly. He extended his hand, and she shook it.

“A pleasure to meet you, Dr. Reynolds,” Mrs. Rathaway replied. As she said this, Philip noticed the young girl standing next to her.

“And who is this charming young lady?” he asked. The child was gorgeous , just the sort to...no. No. He had young things at home to fulfill that urge.

“This is our daughter, Geraldine.” Philip smiled at the child as he indulged in a brief fantasy. If only the young things he had at home were as beautiful as this one.

“It’s nice to meet you, Geraldine.” Such a lovely name, that…

“Mother, I don’t like this man.” Philip paled. Just what he needed, a child potentially ruining his chances with the wealthiest couple in the midwest…

“Geraldine! I’m surprised at you!” Mrs. Rathaway scolded.

“He frightens me, mother.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Geraldine. Dr. Reynolds has just won a humanitarian award for his work with children. He would never harm a little girl like you.” Philip was starting to relax when an oddly-accented voice suddenly boomed out.

“I would not be so sure of that if I were ye, Mrs. Rathaway.” Philip looked around, but the voice didn’t seem to come from anywhere that made sense. In fact, it seemed to be coming from one of the wine goblets on a nearby table. Before he could even start to puzzle out how that could be, a dozen duplicates of what seemed to be the same man in a weird orange-and-green leotard appeared out of what seemed to be nowhere. The hustle and bustle of the crowd came to a screeching halt as the ceremony’s guests all froze (except for the Rathaways, who quickly moved towards the back of the room).

“But then again, he has always been good at putting on a convincing smoke-and-mirrors routine. That’s true, Dr. Reynolds, int it no?” Freakishly, none of the men seemed to be moving their mouths.

“Who are you? W- what are you?” The voice laughed.

“I’ll give you a wee hint: it’s all done with mirrors.” Philip paled as he realized what that meant. The Mirror Master was crashing his award ceremony. And worse, it was the crazy Scottish one! In the hopes of getting the psychopath to leave him and his illustrious guests in one piece, he pulled out his wallet.

“Here. Take the money. Just leave these innocent people alone,” he said. His voice shook, but he couldn’t ignore a sense of pleasure over the kind of PR that this act would net him. One of the duplicates took the wallet...and then shredded it!

“I am nae here for dosh, Dr. Reynolds. And even if I were, I wouldnae take it from the likes of ye.”

“W-what do you mean?” The voice laughed again, but this time it sounded decidedly sinister.

“Dinnae play stupid with me , Dr. Reynolds. I ken all about what ye do to the wee ones who are supposed tae be in your care!” Philip felt a jolt of alarm. He had been so careful to cover his tracks! How could anyone know about his little indiscretions?

“I...I haven’t the slightest idea what you’re talking about.”

“Of course ye dinnae. A humanitarian . ‘Tis an odd humanitarian who preys on the wee ones! Pure deid brilliant, so it is!”

“Are you accusing me of-”

“Fifteen bairns. Fifteen . And every last one says the same thing: you sacrificed ‘em to your appetite . You like to play with the wee ones, but only when naebody can see what ye make ‘em do! You may be a humanitarian in the light, but in the dark? You’re a beast.” The crowd gasped.

“Dr. Reynolds, is there any truth to what he’s saying?” Lucius Fox asked. Philip made a mental note to track down all of his foster children and punish them for their disloyalty. By letting out his little secret, they had risked ruining him!

“Of course not. The Mirror Master is a thief and a liar, and we have good reason to believe that he was a hitman as well. This is obviously just a scheme to destroy my good name!”

“Nae, nae. I am nae out tae destroy your “good name”. I’m out to destroy ye .” Suddenly, two of the duplicates grabbed Philip, who screamed and started to thrash.

“Guards!” he shouted. In response, two of the ceremony’s guards moved on the duplicates that were holding him...only for them both to suddenly be knocked unconscious by nothing that Philip could see. At this point, the crowd erupted into chaos, as the guests started screaming and running.

“ Now will ye admit what ye’ve been doing tae those poor bairns?”

“W-why do you even care? You’re a criminal!”

“As if you’re not? That’s rich, it is!” Suddenly, the world seemed to twist and flip upside down, and Philip found himself in a nightmare realm, full of bizarre colors and odd crystalline structures.

“Welcome tae my world, Dr. Reynolds!” Philip vomited, having been utterly disoriented by...whatever it was that had just happened.

“I...I’m a very important man, Mirror Master. No matter how much money you’ve been promised, it won’t stop the law from hunting you down.” The Mirror Master laughed and removed his cowl, revealing a surprisingly young man with wild auburn hair, freckles, and a frightening gap-toothed smile.

“This isnae about dosh, Dr. Reynolds. This is personal.”

“I...I’ve never even met you!” The man...no, he wasn’t a man. No man could do this!... glared at him angrily.

“My name’s Evan McCulloch. When I was a wee bairn, I lived in an orphanage. No mum, no da...just like the bairns whose lives ye’ve torn apart. Miss McCulloch, the woman who ran the orphanage, was a good woman, but there was an older boy there named Georgie. He preyed on the wee ones. Preyed on me. He put his filthy hands all over me; said he was going to make me feel good. Said it was a game, and that if I told anyone he’d find my parents and slit their throats. When I got big eno, I fought him off...and he never bothered another wee one again. And now that I ken what you are...I’m going tae make sure ye never bother a bairn again either.”

“You’re n-not really going to kill me, are you?”

“No need. I can do something much worse than just kill ye.” The monster snapped his fingers, and the world around Philip started to shift and contort; the crystalline structures sharpening and pointing at him and the colors darkening to an ominous hue.

“No, wait! I’m a very wealthy man, Mr. McCulloch. Surely we can come to some sort of arrangement!” The looking-glass creature smiled crookedly.

“And abandon poor wee Garret tae a monster like ye? Isnae enough dosh in the world to convince me tae do that!” The crystalline structures started to form a cage, and Philip was struck with a realization. His newest pretty young thing had mentioned a man in his mirror. Philip had dismissed it as nonsense. It seemed he had been wrong.

“Is that what this is about? If he means so much to you, I’ll leave him alone, I promise!” In response, the looking-glass creature started to cackle. It was a horrifying sound; utterly inhuman.

“I’m afraid that’s nae good eno, chief. There’s thousands ‘a’ vulnerable wee ones in this city. Leaving poor wee Garret alone would only free you up tae go after another of ‘em.”

“Surely we can come to some sort of arrangement. So far as anyone can tell, you’re a hitman. You can’t possibly be so very angry about a man playing a little game with children no one wants. It’s not as though they’ll get affection anywhere else. I’m probably doing them a favor.” The words were cut off in a shriek of terror as the look on the looking-glass creature’s face morphed from amused disgust to absolute fury.

“A favor ? Was just that kind of favor that helped make me what ye see today. Don’t you tell me that you do those bairns a favor!” There was a quick slash of something sharp, a scream of agony, and then nothing.

***********************************************************************

Barry Allen vibrated into the Mirror Realm to find a scene that was equal parts bizarre and horrific. Dr. Philip Reynolds, the man who had been kidnapped from his own humanitarian award banquet, was lying badly injured, if not dead, on the ground. Blood was smeared everywhere-on the ground, on what passed for the walls, on a number of crystalline structures, and all over the hands of Evan McCulloch, who was holding what looked for all the world to be a jagged piece of broken glass. Even more strangely, he was sobbing hysterically...so hysterically, in fact, that he did nothing to prevent Barry from picking up Dr. Reynolds, speeding him to the nearest hospital, and then re-entering the Mirror Realm. With the most immediate crisis dealt with, Barry carefully approached McCulloch. While he didn’t appear to be a threat right now, he knew from experience that Evan was incredibly unpredictable.

“McCulloch, what’s going on?” he asked sternly. McCulloch didn’t respond, at least not coherently.

“I dinnae want to play, Georgie! I dinnae want tae play! You cannae make me no more! No wee bairn I! Poor wee bairn…”

“Evan, you might have murdered someone….a philanthropic humanitarian, no less. You’d better be able to give me a coherent explanation for why quickly.”  At that, the hysterical tears transitioned into hysterical laughter.

“Wee Garret and pretty Bethany and clever Stefan? Janice and Terrence and Tommy and Davy and Maria? Ashley and Jacob and Ben and Diego and Joseph and the twins, Matthew and Marsha? Where was Dr. Reynold’s bleeding philanthropy when he came into their rooms at night? When he made them do things no bairn is ready to understand? What kind of humanitarian is it that smiles in public and then preys on the wee ones in private?” Barry paled.

“Are you saying that Dr. Reynolds abuses the children in his care?”

“Aye. And as he lives, he’ll prey on more and more of the wee ones. Twist their minds; destroy their wee hearts. Bairns, Flash. Innocent bairns who are nae innocent no more...and all because ‘a him. If you cannae  believe me, ask the wee ones who live with him.” Barry was now determined to do just that...but only after he dealt with Evan.

“I know that you Rogues make a policy of not harming children...but that’s a far cry from going out of your way to try to kill a child abuser. What spurred you to take things so far?”

“He hurts wee bairns! Is that not reason eno?” Barry had to admit, there was a part of him that agreed with that sentiment. If Evan’s allegations were true and Dr. Reynolds really had been abusing the children under his care, he was going to have a very hard time feeling sorry for the man if he died. But at the same time, a simple distaste for someone whom you suspected of  deliberately preyed on children was a quite different from engaging in an active manhunt for one, especially on the part of someone who wasn’t exactly well-known for his sense of basic human decency.

“While I agree with the sentiment, it still seems like a lot of effort on your part. You’ve never seemed to care much about the plight of anyone. You’re not like the Pied Piper. I’d say you don’t even seem as concerned about people as Captain Cold. So why invest so much energy in this one man?”

“I befriended a lonely bairn named Garret. He’s a good laddie, but he’s all alone in the world, just like me. Felt a sort of kinship with him, I suppose. I didnae mean to get so attached-even I ken that I am nae a good model for the wee ones-but I couldnae help myself. And then one day that sweet little bairn told me that he was bad because his foster da made him play weird games at night, games that made him feel dirty and ashamed. When he told me, he cried, and when I looked into his face, I saw another wee boy who had gone through the same thing, many and many a year gone,” Evan replied. And with that, it clicked.

“You were…”

“Aye, Flash. When I was a wee bairn, an older boy in the orphanage took me outside at night. He made wee little Evan do all sorts of things he hated; but he told me that I liked it and that because I did, it meant I was dirty. And if I told anyone, he’d find my real parents and slit their throats at night. I can...can still feel his filthy hands all over me. Eventually, I got too big for him and I made him go away forever, but...but it was tae late for me. I was nae a little boy nae more once he was through with me. I...I didnae want the same thing to happen to wee Garret or anyone else. I ken what it does to you. Makes you feel like a filthy monster. See, part of ye does like it, and that’s the worst part. Was always the worst part for me. What Georgie did tae me...it twisted me up intae the monster I am. I couldnae stand by and let it all happen again. Better for a monster tae kill a monster than risk seeing a sweet little boy like Garret become something like Evan.” Barry was horrified. Well, that certainly explained a lot about Evan...

“Evan...I’m sorry. No child should ever have to go through something like that.”

“And now wee Garret never will again. I killed the monster that was after him, just like I killed the one that devoured me. Dead and gone. Dead and gone. They cannae hurt the wee ones no more. I thought it would make me feel better, but it didnae. It didnae. The wee ones are safe...so why do I feel so dead inside?” Barry was struck with the realization that he was probably seeing the real Evan McCulloch for the first (and quite possibly the last) time. Not the Mirror Master; not the cheerfully cavalier Scotsman...but the real Evan.

“Evan, listen to me. You need help.” Evan laughed, but the sound was wild and hysterical.

“It’s too late for that now. Help Garret and the wee ones. They can still be saved. I cannae. Wee Evan died a long time ago. Only the monster is left.”

“You’re not a monster, Evan.”

“What else would you call me? You’ve seen what I can do with Wonderland.”

“I would call you a dangerous, misguided man...and a lost, mistreated little boy.”

“Nae. Nae. Don’t you understand? The boy died the night Georgie put his hands on me. Never became a man at all. Only the monster is left; a twisted reflection of what might have been. I’m a monster. Just like Georgie. Just like Dr. Reynolds. Only difference is that I know it. Why d’ye think I hide behind another man’s mask?”

“Evan, we-”

“Goan and arrest me, then. I’ve done what I set out tae do. Ye can take me back where a monster belongs now. Just please...make sure the wee ones know somebody cares. Please. I dinnae want tae see them end up like me.”

“I will. And I promise you, this time they’ll be kept safe,” Barry replied, sickened at the very thought of someone who claimed to be a humanitarian putting children through so much suffering. He could only imagine the mental state of the Reynolds’ foster children. Evan was living proof of the havoc that abuse on such an intimate level could have on a person, and he would rather die than see another child grow up to be so hopeless and empty.

“Just dinnae tell little Garret what a monster his friend is. I...I’d like him to have one good memory from his time in that pure awful place,” Evan said quietly.

“Don’t worry. The last thing I would want to do is scare him by telling him that his friend is the Mirror Master.”

“Good. He’s a good laddie. Better than I ever was.” And when Barry saw the deadness in Evan’s eyes, he had to wonder if perhaps Evan was right when he had said that he had died a long time ago….

[sofridaschars]

‧  ˖  ❛     ꒰     💌    ꒱      heroes ╱    luhlist.

Wanda Maximoff - Elizabeth Olsen

Steve Rogers - Chris Evans

Auradon Grey-Summers - Sophie Turner

Anastasia Romanoff - Madelaine Petsch

Lana Wayne - Olivia Wilde

Abel Roth - Garret Hedlund

Daniel Murdock - Matthew Daddario

Michael Killmonger - Chance Perdomo

Sharona Quinzel - Kennedy Walsh

Juniper Braddock - Chloe Bennett

Wolfgang Strange Osterman - Chris Wood

Elliot Sandsmark-Kent - Anthony Starr

Blanche Reynolds - Erin Moriarty

Timothée LeBeau - Jack Quaid

Yua Brodeur-  Karen Fukuhara

Gabriel Cage - Laz Alonso

Spencer Reyes - Dominic Cooper

Benjamin Wayne - Zane Holtz

Warren Worrington - Tom Hopper

Jaime Roth-Zatara - Victoria pedretti

Zatanna Zatara - Kate Siegel

Brooklyn Rogers - Lili Reinhart

Waverly Barnes - Sydney Sweeney

Malina Osborn - Emily Alyn Lind

Artemis Strange - Hailee Steinfeld

Lysander Barton - Daniel Sharman

Jean Grey - Jessica Chastain

Mary Jane Watson - Kirsten Dunst

June Moone -  Rachel Weisz

[ongaku-ato-kakikomi]

If you write spoilers— imagine the reader being beside herself when they find Garret’s body on the train after she ends up in the box with him because she was seeing him secretly

(A/N): Here you go, love. Sorry for how long this took, I hope you’ll like this :) I really enjoyed writing this despite how dark it is.

When you regained consciousness, the air felt heavy and you couldn’t see anything in the darkness. Then you felt the woods against your back and the tapes around your wrists and on your mouth, and everything started to suffocate you. The small amount of lights coming between the cracks managed to make you realized you were trapped in a box, still on the train, if you recall the sound you’re hearing, and that meant A was about to push you to your imminent death.

You tried screaming at first, but the tape kept muffling those until you managed to take it off. Then you screamed at the top of your lungs, begging for someone to come save you while also trying to push the box around. You closed your eyes in fear when the box suddenly felt unto the ground, your whole body agonizing from the pain while your head stopped a few centimeters away from a nail. The fact that you almost stabbed yourself to death somehow scared you more, but you quickly recovered by using it to cut off the tapes around your wrists.

Then you turn your head, and there he was.

At first, you couldn’t react, because your brain didn’t want to process what you were seeing. Garrett Reynolds, the man you had secretly learned to love in the past year, was wrapped up in a blanket next to you, his dull eyes and his mouth wide open without any breath coming in or out of it. You didn’t want to process it, you didn’t think you would survive it-

So you started to move him with your hands, whispering to him to wake up… Now was not the time to mess around, you were both trapped in a box, probably close to dying, so he needed to wake. He needed to wake up-

And then you cried. You just cried so much that you felt like an invisible force was pulling the tears out of your body, leaving you full of agonizing pain without anything to wash it away. You grabbed unto him hard, not caring that he was a dead body. You loved him. You loved him with all of your heart and mind, and now A had killed him.

So you didn’t care when you heard a door opening, the box soon getting pushed over by two people that kept whispering to each other. All you could do was to cry and hold him close to you, asking god why he made a vicious murderer take him away from you.

You just saw him a few hours ago… and he was fine. He was fine!

“(Y/N)!” You hadn’t noticed that the box has stopped getting pushed, your friends having now found you while taking the box back inside the train’s car. “(Y/N), we’re here, okay? We’re getting you out!”

You couldn’t even know which one was talking. All you could think about was Garrett.

“Get the hammer!”

“Hold on! Hold on!”

When they finally got the lid off, despite your cries and begging, they had no choice but to force you to let go of him.

[crackrissian]

endless-bmx-mag-issue-5/

[televinita]

The Best Books of 2009

It's Goodreads Choice Awards season! Better known as the season of Voting For Books That Sound Good In Hopes Of Blocking Books I Know I Would Hate. I still get invested, even though these awards are largely silly and meaningless to me because there is no way I could ever consume enough content from the current year to determine what is best, or even "decently good." (current 2019-reads count: 5) It takes time for the good ones, the ones without a massive publishing campaign behind them, to reach you.

In the spirit of that thought, you know what I DO feel I have a decent handle on at this point? The publishing world's offerings from a decade ago. And so I present -- in no particular order -- my top picks in select categories that I have personally vetted and deemed to be Quality Reads. Capped at 20 where necessary, to align with the real awards (though I am ignoring the part where the awards would actually have considered books published from mid-November ‘08 until mid-November ‘09, for simplicity’s sake).

YOUNG ADULT

Tier 1

After the Moment - Garret Freymann-Weyr

Hate List - Jennifer Brown

Hold Still - Nina LaCour

How It Ends - Laura Weiss

The Indigo Notebook - Laura Resau

Lost - Jacqueline Davies

An Off Year - Claire Zulkey (look this one is just a personal fave of mine)

You Are Here - Jennifer E. Smith

[secretly I am pretty sure I'd vote for Hate List, but that is the last time I can choose a favorite in this post]

Tier 2 (not my winner picks but presented as examples of "better than most of the actual nominees of the past 5 years combined")

Breathing - Cheryl Herbsman

The Devil's Paintbox - Victoria McKernan

How to Say Goodbye in Robot - Natalie Standiford

Lady Macbeth's Daughter - Lisa M. Klein

North of Beautiful - Justina Chen

Nothing But Ghosts - Beth Kephart

Psych Major Syndrome - Alicia Thompson

Same Difference - Siobhan Vivian

Very LeFreak - Rachel Cohn (Y’ALL CAN FIGHT ME)

The Vinyl Princess - Yvonne Prinz

Wildthorn - Jane England

Willow - Julia Hoban

(YA is over-represented purely because it's the only one where I've read enough to pick a full category composed strictly of books I gave 4 or 5 stars)

MIDDLE GRADE

Lifting the Sky - Mackie D'Arge

Faith, Hope and Ivy June - Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

The Georges and the Jewels - Jane Smiley

ADULT FICTION

Lost Dogs and Lonely Hearts - Lucy Dillon [romance]

The Lost Hours - Karen White

A Vintage Affair - Isabel Wolff

April & Oliver - Tess Callahan

One Second After - William Forstchen [sci fi]

BONUS: 2009 books on my TBR that I have a theory might qualify --

The Horse Dancer - JoJo Moyes

One True Theory of Love - Laura Fitzgerald

Daisy, Daisy!: A Novel of the Broadway Theater - Jo Coudert

NONFICTION

A Little Bit Wicked: Life, Love and Faith in Stages - Kristin Chenoweth [memoir]

Homer's Odyssey: How I Learned About Love and Life with a Blind Wonder Cat - Gwen Cooper [pet memoir - would that be categorized memoir or gen. nonfiction, d'you think?]

A Big Little Life: A Memoir of a Joyful Dog - Dean Koontz [pet memoir]

Howard’s End is on the Landing: A Year of Reading from Home - Susan Hill

[amostexcellentblog]

Classic Movies for Beginners: Case File #3: The MGM Musicals

The world is a stage, The stage is a world of entertainment!

Director(s): Vincente Minnelli; Stanley Donen; Charles Walters; and Others

Starring: (Deep Breath) Judy Garland; Fred Astaire; Gene Kelly; Cyd Charisse; Debbie Reynolds; Donald O’Connor; Frank Sinatra; Jane Powell; many more.

Watch if You Like: Musicals. Seriously, the MGM musicals still define the genre in the popular imagination. So even if you’ve never seen one (and you have seen one, The Wizard of Oz) you’re probably familiar with the style. Almost every recent hit movie musical--La La Land, Hairspray, The Greatest Showman, High School Musical--was shaped in some way by the bright technicolor sweetness of these movies. So if you’re a fan of any of those films, a theater geek, or just curious about what the movie musical was like at its peak, enjoy.

Since I could talk for days about these movies, I’ve decided to just do a quick list of the 10 most essential titles There are, of course, many other musicals from the studio that are worth a watch, but I’m trying to control myself.

Singin’ in the Rain (1952): Everyone’s favorite musical! In case you’ve been living under a rock: Don Lockwood (Kelly) is a silent movie star famous for his films with shrill-voiced Lina Lamont (Jean Hagen). Talkies seem poised to ruin them until his pal Cosmo (O’Connor) gives him the idea to do a musical with his girlfriend (Reynolds) dubbing Lina’s voice. No summary can ever capture what makes this movie such a complete joy to watch. Every song, every dance, every performance is just flawlessly executed to put a great big smile on your face. It’s one of the few movies that deserves to be called perfect.

Meet Me in St. Louis (1944): A year in the life of the Smith family in 1903 St. Louis, the year the world’s fair came to town. There are four daughters, second-eldest Esther (Garland) is on the cusp of adulthood, starry-eyed, and filled with young love for the boy next door (Tom Drake). Youngest is Tootie (Margaret O’Brien), mischievous and morbidly fascinated by death in a way only an innocent child can be. Father (Leon Ames) gets a job in New York, a move that threatens the family’s fragile innocence. Will they go? 

Minimalist plot doesn’t sound like much, but it’s actually a great coming-of-age movie. Beneath its nostalgic sheen there are some darker moments that deal frankly with the loss of innocence that comes with growing up. Garland debuts “The Trolley Song” and the holiday standard “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” which she sings with a more heartbreaking style than you’re likely to hear now. “Have yourself a merry little Christmas, now...” she sings, as if you might never have another chance to. Appreciate innocence while you have it, the movie says, it can be taken away so easily.

The Band Wagon (1953): Washed up movie star Tony Hunter, (Astaire) heads to Broadway to star in a musical comedy written by his friends (Oscar Levant and Nanette Fabray), but they make the mistake of hiring a snooty director of dramas who promptly turns it into a heavy handed Faust adaptation. Tony is unsure of this, as well as the much younger ballerina (Cyd Charisse) hired to be his leading lady. The official favorite musical of people who think it’s too mainstream to pick Singin’ in the Rain. The satire of high art and low art can get heavy handed, and the movie’s ultimate assertion that Broadway musicals are meant to be light comedy is hopelessly dated in the era of Next to Normal and Spring Awakening. It’s real charms lie in the dances, from the joyful hoofing of "Shine on Your Shoes" to the simple romance of "Dancing in the Dark."

On the Town (1949): Three sailors (Kelly, Sinatra, Jules Munshin) on 24 hour leave in New York, New York (I hear it’s a wonderful town) find love and hijinks as they pursue a beauty contest winner (Vera-Ellen) across the city after one of them falls in love at first sight. Along for the ride are Betty Garret as their cab driver, and Ann Miller as a boy crazy anthropologist. Adapted from a Broadway hit, much of Leonard Bernstein’s score was replaced with original music for some reason (censors also required the lyric “New York, New York it’s a helluva town” be changed to “it’s a wonderful town.”) Fortunately, that doesn’t make it any less of a delight, with a perfect cast and great choreography celebrating the limitless possibilities of the city.

Easter Parade (1948): When his dance partner (Ann Miller) leaves him, Don Hewes (Astaire) plucks a girl out of the chorus (Garland) and sets out to make her a star. Shades of George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion (nobody tell Lerner and Loewe), with Peter Lawford in the Freddy role and a slew of Irving Berlin tunes along for the ride. The only movie Astaire and Garland made together, and it’s a fascinating pairing of the most carefree (onscreen anyway) musical star and the least. Astaire was rarely paired with singing stars (as opposed to dancers), and Garland was a bigger star than he was when this movie shot. As a result her character gets more solo numbers and feels more independent of Astaire’s than usual. On the flip side, Astaire does a better job at holding his own opposite Garland than most of her leading men. It’s a shame they never made another movie together as their chemistry makes the film.

Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954): Mountain man Howard Keel ventures into an old west town one day looking for a wife to play housekeeper. He finds one (Powell), who falls in love at first sight and marries him dreaming of a romantic life in the wilderness. He didn’t mention they’d be living with his unruly brothers. Fortunately she manages to tame them enough to go to town for a barn raising. That’s when the trouble starts, each brother meets and falls for a girl from town. After an iconic dance-off with their fiances, the brothers end up kidnapping the women for the winter, which does not go over well. 

Look, this is not as sexist as its sounds. This is not a Stockholm Syndrome thing, the narrative does not condone the kidnapping, the men are banished to the barn by Powell so nobody’s pressured to do anything, and if you look at the end of the barn raising dance you see that the women do initially to choose the brothers on their own free will, before their parents intervene. The movie ultimately comes down on the side of equal power dynamics in relationships. Anyway, the dancing in this movie is incredible. Watch it for that if nothing else.

The Harvey Girls (1946): Desperate to get out of her small town, Susan Bradley (Garland) moves west to marry her lonely-hearts pen pal. That falls through, so she gets a job as a waitress at the Harvey House, a (real) restaurant chain catering to train passengers. A lot of the town’s men don’t want the ladies there, because the chain’s strict moral standards has a reputation for civilizing wild west towns. Nevertheless, they persisted. The town is cleaned up, and the waitresses find true love. Great showcase for Garland’s comedic and dramatic skills. The movie’s slyly feminist defense of a woman’s right to see the world beyond her back yard and the boy next door, as well as its emphasis on female friendships, make up for a bland male lead and awkward third act. (A proper big final number was shot, but deleted for time so the whole thing kinda peters out.)

Lili (1953): Barely a musical, but it has one song and two dance sequences that are key to developing the characters and plot, so it counts. Recently orphaned Lili (Leslie Caron) is all alone and naïve about the ways of the world. She is charmed by a womanizing magician in a traveling carnival. After he rebuffs her affections she attempts suicide, but is stopped at the last minute by the carnival’s puppeteer, Paul (Mel Ferrer), who strikes up a conversation through his puppets. Lili’s natural interaction with the puppets attracts a crowd and she is made part of the act. Paul was once a great dancer whose career was ended by a war injury, lonely and embittered he is drawn to Lili’s soft heart but is unable to express his affection for her without his puppets. Touching story about the walls we build to protect ourselves from hurt, and the necessity of letting them down. Caron’s performance is incredible, it’s like she walked out of a fairy tale.

The Pirate (1948): Manuela (Garland) lives in a small Caribbean village and spends her days fantasizing of adventure and romance with the legendary pirate Macoco, so she’s heartbroken to learn she’s to marry the town’s boring mayor, Don Pedro. On a trip to the port to pick up her wedding dress she is spotted by traveling actor Serafin (Kelly), who falls instantly in love. She is unimpressed with his charms so he pretends to be Macoco in disguise to win her over. Mistaken identity hijinks ensue when he shows up in her hometown and realizes her boring fiance is actually the retired Macoco. This never takes off the way it should. Between the stars, the director (Minnelli), and original Cole Porter songs this should be a home run. Frustratingly, the story never comes together as well as it should, Manuela starts to feel like a supporting player in the second half which throws the whole movie off balance. Still, there are some great songs and dances, and the movie does manage to say a few interesting things about who we are versus who we pretend to be in life.

Royal Wedding (1951): Sibling song-and-dance team (Astaire and Powell) heads to England to perform in a new show against the backdrop of the upcoming wedding of Princess Elizabeth and Philip Mountbatten, Duke of Edinburgh (what ever happened to those two?) While there both of them find themselves falling in love. Her with a penniless Lord (Peter Lawford), him with a newly engaged dancer (Sarah Churchill, daughter of Winston). This is primarily for Astaire fans who get to see two of his most famous dances. One with a hat rack, proving he could dance with anything, the other where he dances on the wall and ceiling of his room thanks to some clever practical effects.