Pandemonia: The Filthsea

Far below the city of Darkstar, below even the labrynthine sewers of the known world's largest city is the Filthsea.

The Filthsea fills the bottom of a cavern so wide you can't see the far side from the shore near the falls that pour into the water from the sewers above it. The Filthsea was once crystal clear, pure and filled with subterranean marine life; collossal jelly fish glowing blue and purple, blind albino cave whales, and other more alien creatures. 

And then the sewers above eroded a hole through the ceiling of the Filthsea's cavern. The waterfall of sewage that cascades into the Filthsea dwarfs even the Drammenstorm Falls of the Redwood Reach. All manner of garbage and waste falls into the Filthsea and it has long since been a nauseous green and brown water of mutated marine giants and other more terrifying entities.

The Sewer Infantry rarely goes there as the Salmoraxii have made the shores of the Filthsea into one of their bigger settlements and footholds on this side of the Gate from their home world. One day, the more forward thinking, competent commanders of the Sewer Infantry hope to mount an offensive and take the fight straight to the Salmoraxii. 

Okay. All right. Important safety tip. Thanks, Egon.

Harold Allen Ramis
November 21, 1944- February 24, 2014

I'm not usually affected by the deaths of celebrities. I just don't get it when people identify with someone so geographically distant, someone they have probably never met, someone most likely nothing like their on-screen persona.

That being said, I was not only shocked to hear that Harold Ramis passed but I was shocked at how sad it made me.

I'm not going to do the math, but just spitballing it, I'd guess that Harold Ramis accounted for about 80% of my adolescent laughter.

Rest in peace, Dr. Spengler.
Don't cross the streams.

I stand corrected...

So, for the past few months, I have been telling my friends that Marvel bringing The Guardians of the Galaxy to the big screen sounded like a lame idea.

But then I saw the trailer...

I hate to say it, but I am intrigued. Though, I still think its a bad idea to continue making separate Avengers movies (Thor 2, Iron Man 3, etc.) rather than focusing on more team movies.

GFWG Meeting

This past Thursday was yet another meeting of the Glens Falls Writer's Group. Last meeting, I turned in Chapter 2 of my Atoms & Arcana epic. The first chapter was well received, all things considered. The second not so much. Well, I should say that the group picked up on many of the issues that I had worried about myself. And I also received two great ideas that might help me solve it. (Thanks Sandy and Chris)

One problem though, is that many of the others in the group just don't read Sci-Fi/Fantasy. With the genre comes a couple of conceits; made-up names and places (a lot of names). My story has a definite military fantasy feel to it, like say The Black Company. Not that I would dare to compare myself to a Giant. But by nestling comfortably into that genre, or sub-genre, a list of names comes with it.

This was the biggest criticism I received and the bulk of the notes I took away from the meeting.

If there happen to be any pros out there that were to read this, I would appreciate some advice on how to handle this issue, aside from giving them unique personality traits in broad strokes, which I am reluctant to do. (I don't want The Squad Joker, The Squad Cynic, etc.) I want them to grow and have multi-faceted personalities. And unfortunately, my fellow writers only get to read a chapter every two weeks, which I can understand makes it difficult to keep them straight.

Any advice would be appreciated.

Sewer Infantry Slang: Brown Breaches

Brown Breaches (n),(adj.): A horrifying, often soul crushing spectacle or encounter or used to describe said encounter. Can happen anywhere but usually involves a Greater Rift Aberration, a denizen of The Weirdwood or close call with one the Bleak Powers, like Xerqix or his depraved followers. Related: Slantways

(1)"That time we cleared out that Xerqix temple, we were surrounded by the Clown God's favored assassins and lost a quarter of our men. Even the Sarge agreed it was a Brown Breaches encounter."

(2) "Shit, Sarge! The cryptopi are droppin' from the ceiling! Brown breaches, Sarge! It's brown breaches!

Pandemonia: The Black Hand

Not long after the founding of the Stormsea Republic, when some of the ancient Leviathans still stalked the world, refusing to give up the fight, one of the greatest soldiers of the age and holder of one of the last vorpal swords, Centurion Arblaster was attached to the Third Provincial Legion. The Third took part in the defense of Sunturi after a failed experiment opened a rift to some infernal plane of existence. To this day, the exact plane is unknown. But the entities that crossed over were well observed.

An army of small fiends wrought a path of destruction through the city of Sunturi, doing damage out of proportion to their small physical size. They were led by a giant, hellish Lord, protected by armor sculpted from black volcanic rock and holding a sickening black sword. His cloven feet burned the ground where he walked and the prints can still be seen in Sunturi to this day.

No soldier could stand against him. Where he touched soldiers, he burned them. When he held them in his fist, they ignited.

Arblaster called out a challenge to the fiend and stood in his way, though the Fiend Lord was twice as tall as a man. The Fiend Lord laughed and a whole city heard his mirth and quivered in fear. All except Arblaster. The Fiend Lord and the Centurion fought. Arblaster's vorpal sword cut the Fiend Lord's sword in two. The Fiend Lord slapped Arblaster with his palm and sent the man flying into a building.

The Fiend thought his victory was complete but Arblaster stood up. There was a giant, burning black hand print on his chest. Arblaster stumbled, hurt and nearly broken, toward the Fiend Lord. The Centurion still held the vorpal sword and cut the Fiend Lord in half, through its stone armor, and it died laughing.

Arblaster sank into unconsciousness and slept for a week. When he woke, his hair had turned white and the same black hand was burned through his armor to his skin. He died many years later, a farmer and a very old man. A statue of him stands in Sunturi at the site of the battle and another statue stands in his home city of Centralia.

The armies of the Republic honor bravery against impossible odds by allowing the painting of a large black hand on the armored chest of any soldier judged worthy after the witnessing of a Black Hand victory.

The Snow Mangler 5000

I didn't think it was possible to love a machine this much but after the past few days of relentless snow, I can safely say that I love my snowblower.

The other night, I went to bed at 1am. It had been snowing earlier in the day and we received 5 inches or so. I got home from work to the pleasant surprise that my neighbor had already done most of the work for both of our houses with his little snowblower. So, at 1am, everything was cleared of snow( cars, driveway, sidewalks, etc).  I went to bed thinking, maybe the worst of it has passed. WRONG!!!

By 5:30 that morning when I woke up, there was 10 more inches on the ground. It was as if God tired of sprinkling his little flakes and grabbed a cosmic ice cream scoop and dumped it all at once.

When, we finally dug out, and after fixing the loose belts on my Toro Snow Mangler 5000, I realized that I was never more in love with that thing than I was right then.