Tora Con 2015

So I spent this weekend at Tora-Con selling 7th Moon and Red Ellen, not too many copies, but I still made some progress. I hosted my own panel again, few showed up, but other than technical difficulties preventing me from using Power Point, everything went well. I did learn polyamory is more acceptable among my fan base than I thought, definitely sticking with that angle. The best part of the weekend were the concerts, first Arm Cannon, a vidoe game cover rock band, then Vocaloid, which I will post a sample of here:

And now I leave you with pictures of cosplayers:

Game of Thrones

Okay so in my persona life it's only one week until Tora-Con at the Rochester Institute of Technology where I'll be selling and signing copies of 7th Moon and Red Ellen. Also, this weekend it's my birthday and my birthday present is that HBO is bringing back Game of Thrones just for me. Yeah, I guess the rest of you can watch too, but it's really just for me.

Since there is so much going on, I thought I'd give a breakdown of what's going on so we can all be caught up. To simplify things, it helps alot if you just focus on the four main stories. Yup, it's really just four stories, four houses, four families, four locations.

House Targaryen - Let's start with the simplest one, the only one left is Daenerys, Khaleesi and Mother of Dragons, and she is separated from everybody else by the Narrow Sea. Her family were the original royal family of Westeros ever since the founder rode in on a dragon. Over the years, dragons died out and the family grew weaker until the last king went mad and the kingdom turned against him. His pregnant wife was sent across the Narrow Sea for safety. Many years later, Daenerys is a grown woman, Queen of the Dothraki and helped hatch the last dragon eggs. The three dragons imprinted on her and now treat her as their mother. After growing up under the oppression of her oder brother, she has no patience for oppression and routinely fights to liberate slaves and then add them to her army to liberate even more. Her true goal is to return to Westeros and reclaim the Iron Throne.

House Lannister - The richest family in Westeros, owner of gold mines and fillers of the coffers of the kings. They once backed House Targaryen, until the king went mad, then they sided with the people who ultimately defeated them and took the Iron Throne.

• Cersei, the Queen - mother of the late King Joffrey and his successor Tommen. She was forced to marry the late King Robert Baratheon when he took the Iron Throne, she is a political monster, cold calulating and using everything she has, money, family, her own body, to hold power.
• Jaimie, the Kingslayer - Cersei's twin brother and lover. Yes you read that right, he is the biological father of Cersei's children. He earned his nickname for killing the last Targaryen king, though in his defense, the king ordered him to kill his own family. during the War of Five Kings, he was captured by Robb Stark and while trying to return to his family, his right hand was severed by people who didn't have much respect for House Lannister.
• Tyrion, the Imp - a dwarf and youngest of the lannister siblings. Jaimie is the only person who actually seems to like him, althogh he is actually the most likable of the people in King's Landing. He has had a rough life because not only is he a dwarf, but his mother died in childbirth so his sister and father have had it out for him ever since. He fell in love with a whore, but was forced to marry Sansa Stark against both their wills. When he found his father had taken the whore as his own, he killed both and retreated across the Narrow Sea.

House Baratheon - Robert was once betrothed to the sister of Ned Stark, and when the Targaryen King took her, the two Houses joined forces to bring down the mad king and when Ned rejected the Iron Throne, it fell on Robert. He died after being gored by a boar that he was hunting and when rumors spread that Joffrey was not in fact his son, the War of Five Kings began with two of those kings being Robert's brothers. Stannis arranged for the assassination of his brother and intends to claim the Iron Throne for himself. He has Melissandre, a priestess of the fire-god to assist him with powerful magic.

House Stark - Once mighty they have been dropping like flies, but the few left are possibly the strongest.

• Sansa - The eldest sister and eldest living legitimate Stark, she was betrothed to Joffrey which she was excited about until Joffrey killed her father Ned Stark for treason despite protest from everyone. Fortunately, there was another more ambitious suitor, Margaery Tyrell, who took Joffrey off her hands, but then she was forced to marry Tyrion who let her off the hook for her marital duties. She has since been smuggled to her mother's family by Petyr "Littlefinger" Baelish who loved her mother and may have an unhealthy attraction to Sansa.
• Arya - younger sister of Sansa, a tomboy to the point of being a swordfighter wielding Needle, a small rapier commisioned by her illegitimate half-brother Jon Snow, it is now all that she has left of her family believing everyone else dead. While trying to escape King's Landing she was captured on the road and met an assassin named Jaqen dedicated to the Red God and managed to save his life and two others by opening their burning cage so they could escape. In return he killed three people and offered her to join his guild. At first she turned him down because she wanted to return to her family, but now believing that impossible, she has decided to join the assassin's guild after all.
• Bran - the older of the remainging legitimate sons of Ned Stark, he is now the Lord of Winterfell. He was crippled after being thrown off of a tower for discovering the Lannister incest, but also lost that memory in the fall along with the use of his legs. He is carried by a large man known as Hodor because it's the only thing he can say. He is a worg and has the ability to possess animals usually Summer a direwolf he raised from a cub. In a pinch he can also possess Hodor, but it's not particularly pleasant for either of them. Most recently they have ventured north beyond the wall into the territory of the White Walkers and encountered the Children of the Forest.
• Jon Snow - The eldest living Stark, but unfortunately a bastard and forced to join the Night's Watch giving up his rights to House Stark and forced into service to protect Westeros from threats north of the wall. For centuries this was only the Wildings but recently discovered the legendary White Walkers, undead of the frozen north are in fact real. This may in fact be the deadliest threat to Westeros, but nobody is taking notice because they are all busy playing politics down in King's landing.

So that should cover everything important in Game of Thrones.  Next week it's Tora-Con, and I'll give you the lowdown on Monday!

Final Fantasy VI Anniversary

It recently came to my attention that just this week, my favorite game, Final Fantasy VI, is celebrating it's anniversary! In honor I would like to rundown the story, because it's the most awesome story ever!

The whole thing starts with a dramatic prologue explaining that 1000 years ago (because that's when all the cool stuff happens) there was a war of magic. Magic came into the world because of the three magi, basically goddesses of magic, and by putting magic into the world the effect was to transform humans and animals into espers. The espers led to war, presumably it was them against the unchanged humans, but regardless of the specifics, the magi wanted the war to end and the only way they could think of was to create a new world for espers to separate them from humans and then follow the espers there and turn themselves to stone so magic would no longer be a part of the world. Meanwhile, the world was rebuilt by humans who have achieved industrial era technology. However, someone has discover a way to bring magic back and war may begin again...

With this setup, we focus in on three soldiers in the artic tundra piloting magitek armor to investigate rumors of an esper having been found in a mine. Even though there are only three, their power easily overwhelms the villagers and miners and they reach the esper, but the esper, even frozen, reacts to one soldier with enough power to blow away the other two. The surviving soldier awakens in a villager's house with no memory except her name, Terra. Scared the man who brought her to his house sends her away when the Empire comes to reclaim her, then sends another young man after her, named Locke. Locke takes Terra to see King Edgar of Figaro, a double agent who claims to be an ally of the Empire, but is really a spy for the Returners, a group of rebels who oppose the Empire. Kefka, the unlikely general of the Empire, shows up in Figaro looking for Terra and Edgar decides to arrange for an escape leaving Kefka stranded in the desert, but while trying to escape, Terra ends up using magic to protect her new friends which surprises them. Realizing she may be of great value to the Returners they take her to their base, picking up Edgar's brother Sabin along the way. The leader of the Returners wants to take Terra back to the frozen esper and figure out what's going on. Along the way, Sabin is separated from the group and washes up on the far off shores of Doma. Here, we find the Empire at war as well, this time the champion is Cyan, an accomplished swordsman. Kefka shows up again and decides to poison the entire kingdom of Doma, despite the fact that General Leo who is in charge of this campaign thinks such action is too drastic. Kefka doesn't care, he laughs as we watch everybody die. Cyan, the sole survivor (we never find out why he's the only one who doesn't die from the poison) flies into a rage and single handedly takes on Kefka and all of the troops. Sabin realizes this is insane and offers to Cyan that he can join the Returners and they will fight the Empire together. After a traumatic detour through the Phantom Forest where Cyan sees the recently departed souls of his wife and son, they enter the Veldt where they meet the feral child Gau who helps them return to Figaro. Meanwhile, back in Figaro, Locke finds another imperial general named Celes who has apparently turned traitor(again, we aren't really given any specifics as to what she did or why, but the point is she's on our side now) and Locke helps her to join with the rest of the Returners. Kefka manages to track down our heroes and start fighting over the frozen esper. Terra reacts to the esper again and starts glowing pink and flies off-literally she flies away. The group goes looking for her and finds her in the slums of Zozo in the care of an old man who identifies himself as Ramuh the esper. Ramuh explains that the espers are the source of magitek at the factory in Vector, the capital of the Empire on the southern continent, and that there may be an esper who can help Terra if the Returners can break the espers out of confinement. Getting there is the hard part, all major transport has been restricted and the Returners are on the no sail list. The only way is to sneak aboard the only airship which belongs to Setzer a gambler who is infatuated with an opera singer who happens to look exactly like Celes.

You can imagine how that went, so they make it to Vector and invade the factory and manage to get away with the magicite remains of the espers, but not before Kefka strikes a rift between Celes and Locke causing her to abandon the group temporarily. When they get back to Zozo, the magicite reacts to Terra reveling her past. One of the espers was Maduin, Terra's father. Maduin found Terra's mother when she accidentally entered the esper realm twenty years ago. For two years they lived in peace and started a family, then the Empire tracked her down and captured a bunch of espers and began developing magitek. Terra was also captured and made a slave of the empire. Now that Terra knows what she is, she gets control of herself and they figure she can help by returning to the esper realm and recruiting the espers to their cause. This almost works until Kefka shows up and ruins everything again. The espers go nuts, destruction ensues and then they seem to vanish again. The Returners and the Empire make a truce to track down the espers to Crescent Island. Here they meet Strago and Relm in Thamasa, a village of ancient mage knights who had drawn magic from espers during the esper war long ago and were left behind when the magi took the espers away. They had enough power to stand out, but not enough to protect themselves in a world where the true masters of magic were gone. They lead our heroes to find the espers hiding in the mountains and arrange for what appear to be a happy ending. Then guess what happens? Yup, right when General Leo, the Returners and the espers are all laughing and smiling and letting bygones be bygones and starting a new world of peace, Kefka shows up and kills all the epsers to collect magicite, then kills Leo for standing against him. As out heroes regroup, Kefka and Emperor Gestahl seek out the stone magi and try to draw magic power straight from the original source. A continent rises into the sky, the world shudders in fear, our heroes take their airship to the floating continent and bravely fight the Empire. There we finally face down Emperor Gestahl. Then something really weird and surprising happens, Kefka kills Emperor Gestahl and takes center stage as the true villain. Seriously, Kefka manages to take the gold for being a douche as he then proceeds to rearrange the entire planet to build the ultimate palatial fortress for himself. Yes, this rearrangement causes a lot of destruction, lives are lost, villages are destroyed, the land becomes barren and the sky and sea change colors. Celes wakes up a year later in a world where Kefka now rules over an instantly post-apocalyptic realm where most simply struggle and hope not to incur his wrath knowing he can and will kill them for his amusement. Celes manages to gather and reunite the scattered Returners and they finally wage war on Kefka. The letter portion of the game is kind of jumbled, but makes a point of how much damage Kefka was able to accomplish making him the most bad-ass villain ever!

This game was originally introduced on the SNES in the US as Final Fantasy III because Nintendo of America screwed up the numbering. It was re-released under the proper number for the PlayStation and has since been re-released for the Wii as FFIII and on the DS and mobile devices as FFVI. I highly recommend playing any version you can get your hands on because the visuals and music make everything way better than what I just said. This is the game that truly inspired me more than anything, except possibly Journey to the West. Why are you still reading? Go get it now!