a massive amount of confusion has arrived in my brain.
it spent months reading endlessly.
it can take months of concerted effort to replace an irrational thought process.
happy new year 🐹
i'm going to share the first and last sentences from some of the books (and/or zines) i've read this year.
it's a poetic way to close this year on the blog.
i've made an encounter table at the end to be used for a setting based on the books (and/or zines).
1. Cyst by Jamzilla
First Sentence: "All has come to ruin."
Last Sentence: "All is lost."
2. Psycho Nymph Exile by Porpentine Heartscape
First Sentence: "Vellus Satowary is a biomecha pilot."
Last Sentence: "I was alone for so long."
3. Horse Girl by Samuel Mui
First Sentence: "You are a woman in her late 20s."
Last Sentence: "You will be remembered by those who love you."
4. Against Nature by Tomas Espedal
First Sentence: "I’m starting to grow old; I don’t recognize myself."
Last Sentence: "You say the end, but love doesn’t want to end."
5. The Pheasant by Raymond Carver
First Sentence: "Gerald Weber didn't have words left in him."
Last Sentence: "'He should turn around and just knock hell out of her.'"
6. White Ibis by Sam Pink
First Sentence: "'Just, whatever,’ I said, standing in a drugstore aisle with my girl."
Last Sentence: "And I couldn’t tell if it was trying to come in, or telling me to come out."
7. Pizza Girl by Jean Kyoung Frazier
First sentence: "Her name was Jenny Hauser and every Wednesday I put pickles on her pizza."
Last Sentence: "She really was beautiful, even with short hair."
8. Into the Odd (remastered) by Chris McDowall
First Sentence: "The world is too large for explorers to map, and too old for academics to record."
Last Sentence: "The crew are looking for anything to stave off the boredom."
9. The Blunts and Future King by Jimble
First Sentence: "A hand hearth is a small, stone orb with a hole in its top."
Last Sentence: "This supplement was written with the Champion being an NPC in mind, but I’m not a cop."
10. To Be Devoured by Sara Tantlinger
First Sentence: "Something is dead over there, hidden among the tall trees separating my property from Mr. Landon’s."
Last Sentence: "At least it is something they cannot take from me."
11. The Easter Parade by Richard Yates
First Sentence: "Neither of the Grimes sisters would have a happy life, and looking back it always seemed that the trouble began with their parents’ divorce."
Last Sentence: "Would you like to come on in and meet the family?"
12. Ashcan People, Displaced Well Beyond Time and Space Volume 1 by Evey Lockhart
First Sentence: "Why is a large, wedge-shaped neighborhood near the densely packed heart of Troika City, more than half abandoned at any given time?"
Last Sentence: "If you are in a wetlands area, your spells have no stamina cost."
13. Chilly Scenes of Winter by Ann Beattie
First Sentence: "Permettez-moi de vous présenter Sam McGuire” Charles says."
Last Sentence: "It would be a waste of time just to stare at snowflakes, but she was counting, and even that might be a waste of time, but she was only counting the ones that were just alike."
14. Stack Gang by Sean Richer
First Sentence: "Welcome to Troika City, wherein the STACK GANGs are in a very boring mumblecore war with the Flatmen, the Flatworlds, and the Trash Corps that plug the hole between the 2D and 3D astral planes."
Last Sentence: "Running at full speed right at you."
15. EEEEE EEE EEEE by Tao Lin
First Sentence: "Andrew talks to Steve on the phone then drives to Domino’s."
Last Sentence: "He pulled the blanket over his head and listened to Steve, in the kitchen, cleaning dishes, then microwaving something, then nothing for a while; and then the TV, making a cheering noise."
16. Batrachian Swamps by Micah Anderson & Nate Treme
First Sentence: "37 distrustful villagers, many missing arms—fishers of vast catfish and the dreaded lurks and divers of swamp pearls."
Last Sentence: "If it makes it out, the whole swamp becomes infected and the frogmen are reborn from the junk DNA of their mammalian scourge."
17. The Garbage Times by Sam Pink
First Sentence: "It was a shitty winter."
Last Sentence: "I blew her a kiss and it shattered the window and exploded her head and went through the wall behind her, through the entire building and everything else in its path into the sky, moving so fast it didn’t even disrupt clouds, up and up, halving an airplane as it continued into space, crushing meteoroids such that they smothered and killed stars, piercing and assassinating the sun, eventually reaching the end of everything and opening a hole in the lining, deflating it and carrying it off like a popped balloon."
18. Vampire Cruise by Amanda Lee Franck
First Sentence: "A few months ago, a pair of young and hungry vampires wrote out a business plan, dredged up a wreck, and poured their hoarded wealth into veneering it in luxury."
Last Sentence: "Adding to the model boat to bring it more in line with the real boat will allow for more specific effects."
19. Enter the Craplands by Sean Richer
First Sentence: "Alright, so like, I’ll be pretty straight forward: these are the denizens of the craplands, just ordinary people."
Last Sentence: "Craplandian Goddess of the Wind, patron saint of slamming that damned door in your face."
20. Bear by Marian Engel
First Sentence: "In the winter, she lived like a mole, buried deep in her office, digging among maps and manuscripts."
Last Sentence: "It was a brilliant night, all star-shine, and overhead the Great Bear and his thirty-seven thousand virgins kept her company."
d20 encounters from this blog post to write into your #dungeon23 notebook
- lost ruin
- biomecha pilot. “I was alone for so long"
- horse-girl
- man without a face
- d8 wild pheasants
- drugstore, open
- pizza delivery driver
- d6 mercenaries, bored
- majikal pipe, see “the blunts and future king
- d3 volture-women, hungry
- 2 sisters taking care of their sick mother
- 2 great ponds on the edge of the city
- begins to snow
- people stacked on one another’s shoulder, running full speed right at you
- pizza joint, payphone
- fishery. ran by frogmen
- a giant crater, caused by a kiss
- vampire
- Craplandian Goddess of the Wind, see enter the craplands
- mole-girl, speaks of the Great Bear and his thirty-seven thousand virgins
my new year's resolution is to not say a single word all year 🐹
edit:
i've noticed the best encounters are ones not based on a TTRPG
