Just a quick note to let you folks know I'm going to run three Pelgrane games for GenCon Online this year. One per day for three days straight, and it'll be over Discord.
I'll post more details here closer to the time. Just wanted to let you know it's upcoming and will be a blast! Each game will be Night's Black Agents, and since I don't want this post to be tooo short ...
Movie Recommendation: Blood Red Sky (German, subtitled, Netflix). Terrorists hijack a plane bound for New York, only to discover that one of the passengers objects. Violently objects.
Brilliant, fast-paced, not a moment wasted on bullshit. If it's plot-relevant, it's in. Characters are well-thought-out and even the assholes aren't wasted.
Plus, that ending. O MY SWEET JEBUS.
Enjoy, and I hope to see you (virtually) at GenCon!
Here's my dilemma: I really can't tell you a damn thing about this series beyond the bare bones, because there are so many good moments in this six part Korean historical zombie apocalypse drama that, if I were to spoil even one, you'd hate me forever.
When the trailers for this first hit, a lot of the comments section thought it was Last Train to Busan but with swords and funny hats. It really isn't. Really. REALLY. But I can't spoil, can't spoil, mustn't spoil …
Hokay. Take a breath.
The King is dead.
That leaves the Kingdom caught between two factions. The Crown Prince, played by Ju Ji-hoon, is the presumptive heir, but he's also the son of a concubine, so if any legitimate progeny happens to swagger onto the scene, his standing is shaky. The current Queen, Kim Hye-Jun, is pregnant, with a month to go. If her child's a boy, as hoped, then she and her family are set for life. But if the King's death becomes common knowledge then the Crown Prince gets the throne, and then it won't matter if she has quintuplets.
If only there was some way to bring the King back to a semblance of life, even just for a month or so. Luckily for the Queen and her scheming father, the Chief Councilor, masterfully played by Ryoo Seung-Ryong, there's a renowned physician who's supposed to be able to fix anything. The doctor knows of a plant that resurrects the dead, and tries it out on the King's rapidly decomposing corpse.
Which poses a significant problem for all concerned, when the King comes back to life with a ravening desire for human flesh. Fortunately he falls unconscious during the day, but at night his ceaseless quest for meat really puts a strain on the kayfabe. Bodies start piling up, most of which are disposed of quietly. People start to suspect. The Crown Prince begins an investigation, fearing the worst.
Then everything starts to go wrong.
The series is written by Kim Eun-hee, who's been working on Korean television dramas since 2010. This is the first time her work's featured outside Korea, as far as I can tell. The series is based on her webcomicLand of the Gods, published with YLAB back in 2014. I don't doubt someone is negotiating for the foreign language rights as I type this, and I'd be amazed if it wasn't in graphic novel form in a dozen different languages by Christmas 2019. Mind you, I'm so out of touch with that sort of thing, for all I know it already is.
Set in the Joseon period, when the country is on the brink of destruction due to internal strife, this series really shines with its thorough and detailed depiction of an advanced society about to boil over. Kings, princes, nobles - their squabbles are weakening the Kingdom to the point of destruction. At over $1.7 million per episode, you'd like to think it was as near perfect as human hands can make it - and it is. My only mild quibble is with the subtitles. People say gosh and goodness a lot. I do not think that is what they are actually saying. My personal fave character is the Prince's sidekick, played by Kim Sang-Ho, a cross between Porthos and Aramis - mostly Porthos. There's nobody you'd rather have at your back in a time of crisis, and this definitely qualifies. He plays off well against the Prince, a mix of d'Artagnan and Athos, mostly d'Artagnan. However there's plenty to choose from, and it's a fantastic ensemble cast with no weak players - though given the subject, I wouldn't get attached to any of them if I were you.
Yes, there are only six episodes in the first series. Take heart. There will be more. Especially if you tell Netflix how much you love the first season!
A short while back I recommended a Spanish TV show, Money Heist, to all Night's Black Agents players and Directors. I have something else for you: Mossad 101, an Israeli sypcraft action drama that's been on Netflix since October 2016 and has had a second series release.
The plot features a disparate group of would-be spies who have volunteered for Mossad training, and are put though a grueling series of tests to see whether they have what it takes. Their supervisor, Yona Harari, is a former field agent whose last mission went very bloodily wrong, and in the process two and a half million Euro went missing. The trainees include the wife of the agent who died on that mission, and she suspects Yona knows a lot more than he's telling about that cock-up, and the missing money.
The idea's intriguing, but what really makes it work - and I don't think the producers realized this while they were making it - is a Satanic mix of reality television and spycraft. Because the trainees are being eliminated at a fairly rapid rate, the show has all the evil appeal of an Apprentice or Big Brother with the added draw of slick espionage techniques that border on stage magic. The number of times I was convinced that I had seen X, when it was actually Y with a dash of Z … Penn and Teller would be fooled.
It helps enormously that the actors are all enthusiastic and good at their jobs. There's a lot of people on stage in the first half-dozen episodes, and it would have killed the series stone dead if any of them had been boring. As it is, you'll have a favorite within the first ten minutes of episode one, and then have your heart broken when they get booted.
Which makes the second season an odd duck, because it ditches the reality television idea that made the first season so entertaining. The second season revolves around that same botched operation and the missing millions, but now there are more dead agents, training doesn't seem to be a priority any more, and there are three new characters, taken from one episode in the first season, who basically are the trainees except they're not Mossad, they're criminals. It's not a bad plot; it's very engaging, but it feels as if the writing team either lost its way or was told 'you have to write a traditional spy thriller. No, I don't care. Traditional. With terrorists, drugs, money laundering, the whole bit. Training spies? That's so last season.'
I reiterate: the second season isn't bad. It obviously had more money spent on it, for a start. From a player and Director's POV it's very Dusty, guns kill, and there are plenty of ideas to steal for your campaign or agent. Plus, it's really great to see something set in Kiev rather than the usual suspects, and again, Directors, if you want a city to use in your campaign, here you are. However ditching the central idea that made the first series so much fun to watch feels like a mistake.
It reminded me, oddly enough, of Fauda, another Israeli spy drama that I tried to watch but stopped after the first episode. Fauda's slick and engaging, but I didn't care about any of the characters and didn't know enough about them to want to learn more. That, and it felt like a sausage factory, with female characters getting less than 1% of screen time, and always in a support role. That just killed the show for me. I might go back to it - Fauda's well-executed - but if I do it will be in spite of its flaws, not because I'm intrigued.
Last time I did this I wrote up an achievement, and I'm going to do the same this time.
Yona and Abi. Using only Interpersonal skills like Flattery or similar, plant a surveillance device disguised as jewelry on a person. Just slipping it into their pocket without them seeing doesn't count; they have to see, but not suspect.
