Lmst

Rambling about Cairn and Errant combat. I wrote this mostly to sort out my own thoughts. #osr #nsr #cairn #errant

https://tulkaas.wordpress.com/2024/12/13/blaggards-combat/

Immortal Bird – Sin Querencia Review

By Dolphin Whisperer

Mortality makes us human. Or, at least, it informs what we’ve become and how we’ve structured our societies—the ages at which we learn life, grow life, enter work, exit work, and the challenges of seemingly limited time to achieve each step. Yet, though we know our conscious time on this earth is finite, its flow often resembles less the smooth river and more the creek which swells and surges and ruptures and dries and dies, its turns unpredictable. Though assembled for over a decade at this juncture, Immortal Bird has seen several members blow through in the namesake of their Windy City Chicago home,1 but remains anchored in extremity by the persistence of Rae Amitay (Errant, Thrawsunblat) in finding partners in riff, rhythm, and ruckus. And though held to no defined release schedule, Immortal Bird has flocked again enough to conjure Sin Querencia.2

Always straddling the line between a blackened snarl, a deathly pummel, and a hardcore shuffle, Immortal Bird’s patchwork attack hits as equal parts curious and aloof with Sin Querencia landing no differently. As Amitay has found greater vocal expression over the years, with side ventures Errant and Wretched Blessing being closer to solo endeavors, a fuller range of techniques splatters Sin Querencia to give it fresh life against what came before. The dominant lyrical character that accompanies the dissonant and frosty pick drives (“Consanguinity,” “Contrarian Companions”), which wouldn’t sound out of place in a Gargiulo project like Artificial Brain or Dreamless Veil, remains a distorted high-range screech and lower tunneled howl, but interjections of a ghastly, cutting clean croon add layers of space and intrigue when the music recedes to a creeping crawl (“Bioluminescent Toxins,” “Contrarian Companions”). Immortal Bird remains determined to develop their already dense sound.

Yet, it’s not a labyrinthian instrumental construction that swerves the Bird about a progressive nature, but rather a keen sense of song structure and how to break it. Each piece on Sin Querencia develops its own way of wrapping around its main refrain or melody. Frequently, Immortal Bird lives on the captivating nature of their riff structures, in lieu of traditional hooky choruses or virtuosic leads, and uses contrasting discordant or otherwise exceedingly bright chord interjections to modulate, crescendo, and drive away (“Bioluminescent Toxins,” “Plastered Sainthood,” “Contrarian Companions”). Even when tracks veer toward a standard verse-chorus structure, Immortal Bird find ways to stretch a coda to its breaking point with vicious vocal punctuations (“Propagandized”) or sneak in the lone squealed-out solo (“Sin Querencia”) against an increasingly jagged bass stumble.3

Given the heavily guitar-driven stance that Immortal Bird continues to take with each of their outings thus far, it makes sense that they choose a production style that boosts that amplified presence. Whether darting about the classic Immortal riff chase (“Ocean Endless,” “Sin Querencia”) or driving pits with stenched-out hammerfests (“Plastered Sainthood,” “Propagandized”), a volume and weight of six-stringed tone lands with a practiced and cutting precision that moves every song forward effortlessly. In a similarly brash and distracting manner, Matt Korajczyk’s kit finds both welcome cymbal spread in down moments and unwelcome snare explosions during oft-occurring blast and heavy skank sections. After spending a lot of time with Sin Querencia, I’ve grown accustomed to that kind of pummel—and it’s far from the only offender in this realm in metal history. But moments like the snare roll before the second clean vocal passage in “Bioluminescent Toxins” and the general balance of the tapping close on “Propagandized” show that the kit doesn’t have to live with constant boosting to be impactful.

Immortal Bird has not made any steps in becoming a more accessible band, but that hardly matters when the music they do produce remains interesting enough to dissect repeatedly. And even if you don’t want to do that, this presentation of a modern hybrid of black, death, crust, and whatever other influence the Bird sees fit holds enough of a riff-forward attitude to moisten the earholes of a neck-whipping bystander. These tenants of metal, to riff to rollick to rumble, cannot be destroyed so long as bands continue find eclectic ways to bend and bruise them in a manner befitting of an wanting crowd—immortal in extremity. So while Sin Querencia doesn’t build a new home to house the flayed ideas of Immortal Bird, it doesn’t need to to remain enjoyable as a snappy drive through riff city.

Rating: 3.5/5.0
DR: 5 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: 20 Buck Spin | Bandcamp
Websites: immortalbird.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/immortalbirdband
Releases Worldwide: October 18th, 2024

#20BuckSpin #2024 #35 #AmericanMetal #ArtificialBrain #BlackMetal #CrustPunk #DeathMetal #DreamlessVeil #Errant #Hardcore #Immortal #ImmortalBird #Review #Reviews #SinQuerencia #WretchedBlessing #Yautja

Continuing my solo playtest, in the middle of the 1st adventure with some changes to HP! #osr #odnd #errant #solottrpg #knave2e

https://tulkaas.wordpress.com/2024/07/16/solo-playtest-the-tairveen-campaign-1st-adventure-part-2/

@takeonrules I’m definitely going to use this calculator when I run #Errant! Thank you so much for making it.

On a related note: i started learning how to use eMacs (and eMacs lisp) yesterday. I’ll use the movement dice function (and your eMacs related posts) as learning tool/reference. 👨🏻‍💻 🙏

Just posted a play report on my blog! This time it's sharing a lightbulb going off above my head re WASTING gold for XP...and kobolds!

#dungeon23 #Errant #OSR #xpforgold
https://dripping-tap.blogspot.com/2023/09/play-report-2-designing-for-waste.html?m=1

Dark fantasy kobold holding a spear. He's just a lil guy!

@steelguildcoop Awesome! Looking forward to reading it.

That’s a really cool way to describe #Errant!

@imtony Thanks Tony!!! I'm so glad you like my article and The Dripping Tap!
I have an article in the chamber that's a GLoG flavored diversion, but I'm already drafting a drag-and-drop Sewer monster, disease and threat module from my level and my ongoing city game that has a lot of sewers!

I can fully endorse #Errant it's all the OSR blogs distilled into one book. Drag-and-drop flexibility and solid at the same time!

@steelguildcoop A labyrinthine sewer system is a really evocative setting for a massive dungeon crawl.
Are the monster there by accident or design? Do they ever come up to the city? Why haven’t they taken over it? So many cool stories to tell…
Also, #Errant is one of my favorite RPGs! I’ve never gotten a change to play it. It’s really cool to hear that others are playing it.
Btw, I really love your blog! I’m adding it to my RSS reader. 👍🏼

Update for #Dungeon23 my sewer level, and a summary of my first few sessions testing my dungeon! It's been really satisfying to continue improving my drawing skills :)

#ttrpg #Errant #OSR
https://dripping-tap.blogspot.com/2023/09/the-sewer-level.html

Tiens d’ailleurs je lisais l’autre jour dans #Errant une procédure pour cuisiner et manger des monstres, et je me disais que j’avais pas vu ça dans beaucoup de #JdR, t’en connais d’autres ?

[extrait du jeu de rôle Errant]

EATING MONSTERS

Errants with strong stomachs and daring palates may turn to slain monsters as a source of food.

Turning monsters into victuals takes a travel turn and is a skill check with a dv equal to the threat of the monster, adjusted according to the following modifiers:

-1 if clean water is available.
-1 if cooking equipment is available (a mess kit is insufficient).
-1 if a fire is available.
-1 if salt or other spices are available.
+4 if you cannot spend a full travel turn cooking.

A success produces rations. If the monster is larger than average, the depletion of the rations may be increased by 1 or more. Failure indicates that the food is spoiled; it may still be eaten, but a phys check will be required to avoid contracting an infection.

Note that eating some monsters, especially highly magical ones, may have potential side effects. In such cases, the errant makes a saving throw. If they succeed, the errant gains a one-time use of a monster’s ability (e.g. a dragon’s breath, a vampire’s hypnosis, a slime’s corrosive touch). On a failure, the errant suffers the effects of that ability as if they had been subjected to it, though perhaps in a diminished form (e.g. eating dragon meat may cause you to take fire damage, though perhaps not to the full extent of a dragon’s breath ability).

Ran some #Errant tonight and had a fucking BALL. Playtesting my dungeon23 project has only paid off.

There's so much of the layout I need to change from a practical standpoint, but the loops I put in have been SO much fun.

The first area has holes down, and they've picked them 100% of the time. This time, it was descending into a city gate full of undead guards

Chessex canvas map drawn with a top-down map of a city gate, with five Errants surrounded by 14 zombie guards. Two are still descending the rope, represented by pizza tables!

@LeviKornelsen hey everybody! 👋
My name is Asher, and I post (and blog!) about all sorts of #OSR #NSR stuff. I have some #MÖRKBORG adventures on my itch page!

Working on a #dungeon23 project that uses #Errant as its skeleton. I like worker-owned businesses, am a Leftist from Pittsburgh, and have been getting really into DUNGEON SYNTH.

There are many great things about the #Errant #ttrpg but one thing is making me grind my teeth at the moment. The four classes are:

1. The Violent (fine)
2. The Deviant (odd choice but is an adjective as well as a noun so ok)
3. The Occult (ok here too)
4. The Zealot (NO! IT SHOULD BE THE ZEALOUS!)

Watching this great stream where Ava Islam drops the incredible line "in my home game I tell my players I won't call their characters by their names until they hit level 2". I think this is somehow not included among Errant's many procedures and subsystems? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-uSH6tS3g8&ab_channel=PlusOneExp #ttrpgs #errant #PlusOneExp

Getting more and more excited to run Errant. Check out this incredible table, for inspiration "if there is no obvious figure in a settlement who would loan money to the company" #ttrpgs #RandomTables #errant