Today's Character Colouring Book is both a slight sidestep and comes with something of a story. These are clearly not DnD characters... they're Cyberpunk characters, it says so, right up in the top right corner. Except anybody paying attention to the banner at the top of the blog, or my ongoing ramblings, might recognise the character on the left as my terrible, terrible human dumpster fire cleric, Demyan.
Because since the early days of the Cyberpunk 2077 video game, I always maintained that if I was going to play the game (which is unlikely), I would play the Corpo origin storyline, and would make a version of Demyan as my character. Because he fits so wonderfully into that idea of a Cyberpunk Corpo/Exec.
Then I got an email from Demiplane, where I've messed around with their various Tabletop RPG character makers before, saying they now had the Cyberpunk Red game. So, I went off to make me a Demyan.
It could not have been a more seamless fit, honestly. Every narrative option I was given, there was a clear parallel to Demyan. It all just worked.
When I mentioned this to Fluffy, we talked about his Demyan equivalent, Moss, because, honestly, these are two characters that neither of us can fully let go of. They live, rent free, in our collective heads for reasons that I'm not entirely sure of. Maybe it was because we never got a chance for them to have a proper narrative end. The campaign, such as it was, just kind of fizzled out and the last we left our boys, they were taking a long rest with their other two companions in the middle of a wizarding school for magical asshole teenagers deep underground, part way through an adventure.
So we never got to give them a "narrative wrap up", or really cover what might have happened next.
It's also interesting because there is a different version of Demyan that lives in Fluffy's head than the one who lives in mine. Which is, actually, fairly on brand. There's the Demyan that he projects into the world, and the Demyan that I was fully aware of as a much richer character that existed only inside his own head. I'm not saying he wasn't a complete asshole. He was. But he also had layers and nuance.
They are also the two characters that Fluffy and I end up talking about the most. It always comes back to them. There will be a song or a movie character or some piece of media that one of us sees and is very "Demyan/Moss coded", and we end up talking about them.
So, of course, if there is a Cyberpunk version of Demyan, he absolutely has a Cyperpunk version of Moss in his life.
Moss, who was a tabaxi (catlike humanoid... see also my speedy floof boi, Rain), but in this universe we replace the black leopard aesthetic with African heritage, tattoos, cybernetic eyes and an outfit that comes with a holographic tail and ears. Plus a robot arm and robot leg, because Fluffy said that Moss would have "too many implants". Where did he get the astronaut boot? Nobody knows and he absolutely has no memory of getting it.
Also, funnily enough, it's not the first time I've used that exact same jacket and pants for a "modern" character for Fluffy.
What's also interesting is that I went with much more stretched out
human style proportions rather than the usual Hero Forge proportions.
Which makes Demyan look the 6'1" he actually is, although actual Demyan
would have a much narrower/skinnier chest than HF allows.
Fluffy's response when I showed him the Cyberpunk Moss... "I would play the fuck out of that".
Their former DnD relationship does slot wonderfully over to a Cyberpunk world. Demyan being the Exec that works for a large, multinational corporation (the church of his evil DnD goddess) and is in a power struggle with an Exec from another division (the head of the Waterdeep branch of the church). So since this Moss is a hacker/netrunner, Demyan went "off the books" to employ him to find dirt on the other Exec, only to find that Moss finds said information, but is also full of his company's faulty cybernetic implants which are driving him slightly insane, so he hears the voices of rogue AIs or NET Ghosts that nobody else can hear (which accounts for OG Moss's Wild Magic sorcery and warlock patron). So, much to his chagrin, Demyan now has to keep Moss safe.
Thus, hijinks ensue.
Not that I think we'd ever play these characters in a Cyberpunk Red game... but at least they're there if we need them. Hence the story time.
Anyway...
There isn't a lot that happened this week...
Mini Media Reviews were a little all over the place. I started with Memoirs of a Snail, which Google lists as a "Drama/Tragicomedy", and I would 100% agree with. It's beautiful, but it's also deeply fucking depressing. But that does seem to be the directors personal wheelhouse. I have a very vague memory of watching Mary and Max and feeling much the same. Good though, but not for those days when your mental health is a little ragged.
Next up was Alpha Rift... well, kind of. It was so monumentally terrible that I lasted about 20 minutes before I noped out of it. Actually, it was the point that I realised that the incredibly annoying female sidekick was going to be sticking around that I called it quits. It felt like somebody's bad DnD fan fiction made on a shoestring budget with heavily improvised and unnatural dialogue.
Instead of that I ended up watching a documentary called Saucy!: Secrets of the British Sex Comedy, which was very interesting and occasionally a big tragic.
I followed that up with Shaolin Soccer, which I'm not sure I liked as much as God of Cookery.
Then I rounded out the week by finally getting around to Season 2 of Romulus, which I watched back in 2021. Originally, I wanted to watch Season 1 again first, because they were both of SBS On Demand last year. But I waited a little too long and the first season is gone (for now). So I just watched the second and had to kind of piece together some of the characters and plot points from my memory.
It's still an excellent TV show. Full of deeply flawed characters who occasionally I want to slap the shit out of. But I still highly recommend it.
Otherwise there wasn't a Friday Night DnD this week, because people who aren't me get sick and stuff.
Anyway...
Today was hot. But weirdly, unlike other hot Saturdays, the supermarket wasn't packed super early. So it was just a casual wander around. And afterwards, we just came back here and hung out for a couple of hours before I went Ma back up the road.
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