Just The Caffeine Talking

Random Encounters: The Infinite Library

"The universe (which others call the Library) is composed of an indefinite and perhaps infinite number of hexagonal galleries, with vast air shafts between, surrounded by very low railings. From any of the hexagons one can see, interminably, the upper and lower floors. The distribution of the galleries is invariable. Twenty shelves, five long shelves per side, cover all the sides except two; their height, which is the distance from floor to ceiling, scarcely exceeds that of a normal librarian. One of the free sides leads to a narrow hallway which opens onto another gallery, identical to the first and to all the rest. To the left and right of the hallway there are two very small closets. In the first, one may sleep standing up; in the other, satisfy one’s fecal necessities. Also through here passes a spiral stairway, which sinks abysmally and soars upwards to remote distances."

— "The Library of Babel," by Jorge Luis Borges

The name of the Infinite Library is a lie. The books within it have a finite number of pages and a finite number of letters per page, so the possible permutations are vast (10 to the 4677th power, according to one source). The library is much bigger than our own Universe, but it's not quite infinite. You can visit it here.

Each book in the Library contains a random assortment of letters, spaces, and punctuation. Some of them (a vast number) are readable books. Even more are gibberish. All possible books exist in the Library. Finding them is next to impossible.

Travelers come to the Infinite Library via magic or super-science, usually seeking a particular book. Without some way to locate the book you're seeking, you can wander the Library's galleries until you die and find nothing but randomness.

ENCOUNTERS IN THE INFINITE LIBRARY

(Technically, this table should be nearly infinite itself, since almost anything is possible in such a vast library.)

Roll 1d10 if you're staying in a single chamber of the Library, 1d20 if you're exploring.

1. Roll Twice and Combine
2. Alien Wizard: It's an ancient supergenius with five eyes, wings, and tentacles, and it knows secrets of magic you've never encountered. It's here looking for a particular book and won't leave without it.
3. Ghost: The phantom of an author searching for her books in the endless library. It's possible that all authors wind up here when they die . . .
4. Giant Book Worm: A worm twenty feet long, with a mouth a yard wide. It consumes books — but it won't say no to some fresh protein, either.
5. Giant Wasps: 1d6 wasps the size of dogs. They feed on books to make paper for their mammoth nests.
6. Gust of Wind: A blast of wind roars through this part of the library, stirring up a blinding cloud of dust and blowing out all lamps and candles.
7. Librarian: A tall robed figure, its face hidden by a hood, with inhuman proportions and extremely long fingers. The Librarian knows the location of all books and can give directions — but note that some books may be thousands of light-years away.
8. Madman: A visitor to the Library driven mad by the scale and the randomness of the books. There's a 50 percent chance that at first he seems rational and may give advice which is plausible-sounding but utterly delusional.
9. Origami Assassin: A small, stealthy killer made of folded pages, magically animated and sent after one of the party. It hides between books and waits to give its target a poisonous paper-cut.
10. Thieves: A band of 2d6 book thieves, sent to steal a particular book. In short, it's a rival band of adventurers. Roll 1d6 to see what they're armed with. (1: Clubs, 2: Knives, 3: Swords and Crossbows, 4: Revolvers, 5: Lasers, 6: Disintegrator Guns.)
11. Barricade: Someone has used the books in this room to wall off the entrance. There's a 50 percent chance that they're still inside; reroll to see who has built the book fort.
12. Dangerous Book: Instead of the book you're seeking, you've found a dangerous book. Roll on the Dangerous Books table below for its harmful effect.
13. Doctor: A blind physician who offers shelter and assistance to anyone who enters the room he uses. He is well-known in this part of the Library and anyone who harms him makes enemies of everyone else.
14. Empty Rooms: The shelves of the next 1d20 rooms have been emptied of books. Don't worry, near-duplicates of all of them exist somewhere.
15. Giant Silverfish: 1d6 roaches as big as cats. They scuttle among the books, eating the bindings and sometimes scavenging the bodies of the dead. There is a 10 percent chance that one of the silverfish has attained human-level intelligence and remembers all the books it has eaten.
16. Inquisitor: An official searching the Library for prohibited books. The odds of finding any book at random are basically zero, but they search anyway. There's a 50 percent chance that any Inquisitor is really a fraud, using bogus credentials to get stuff from people they encounter.
17. Purifiers: 2d6 members of a cult who believe the random nature of the books proves that this library is a Hellish creation. They destroy all books they encounter, casting them down the cosmologically-long shafts or building huge fires. Purifiers are unarmed but do not fear death.
18. THE Book: The one you came here to find is on the shelves of this room.
19. Wasp Nest: Giant wasps have filled this room with a paper hive made of pages of text. There are 2d6 Giant Wasps in the room, plus the remains of 1d6 unfortunate visitors stung to death.
20. Tracks: Roll again to see what the room has traces of.

DANGEROUS BOOKS

Roll 1d6 to see how harmful a Dangerous Book is.

1. Blindness: The words of the book damage the human visual cortex. The reader goes blind for the next 1d6 days.
2. Curse: Anyone who reads the book will be unlucky in all things for a year and a day.
3. Dreadful Knowledge: The book includes a description of something terrible which will happen to the character or a loved one. (Note that the prophecy can be false, but it is convincing.)
4. Haunted: A ghost begins stalking whoever read the book. It's both clever and sadistic, so will try to maximize the suffering it inflicts before killing its victim.
5. Madness: Reading the book drives a person mad. There's a 75 percent chance the insanity will fade in 1d6 days, a 20 percent chance it will last 1d6 weeks, and a 5 percent chance it's permanent. The exact form of the insanity is up to the gamemaster.
6. Poisoned: Literally. The pages of the book are toxic. Unless the reader wears gloves, he or she gets a dose of something.

SITUATIONS IN THE INFINITE LIBRARY

(Roll 1d6, then consult the table above to determine who A and B are.)

1. A desires B
2. A wants to capture B
3. A wants B dead
4. A wants to go somewhere
5. A wants to solve a mystery
6. A wants X

The Baristiary

For more than twenty years now I've done a lot of my writing in coffee shops. It gets me out of the house, I can observe my fellow pseudointellectuals and blowhards, and I don't have to answer the phone or walk the dog.

In that time I've seen a lot of coffee shop employees. A lot of them are part-timers, and the turnover is high, so even in towns where we only spent a couple of years I've gone through multiple generations of baristas. After a while one notices some recurring types. Here is the fruit of my decades of fieldwork: The Baristiary.

THE CONNOISSEUR: Some people work at Starbucks or a local coffee shop in order to make money. And then there are the ones who work there because they care a whole lot about coffee. Connoisseur Baristas are the ones who can deploy a whole battery of wine-snob vocabulary to describe differences among coffee varieties and roast styles.

Good Points: Actually do know what they're talking about, which can be interesting for the first hour or so.

Bad Points: The second and third hour, plus the barely-concealed sigh when you just want regular drip coffee.

THE INTENSE GUY: Always male, usually below average height and with very short or no hair. Either no tattoos or a full Yakuza paint job. Generally a few years older than the rest of the staff. These guys seem quite bright and articulate, very hard-working, so much so that you're a little surprised to see them pulling lattes for minimum wage. That surprise lasts until they engage someone (maybe you) in conversation. The Intense Guy has one or two subjects that he cares intensely about and has researched extensively. The most benign Intense Guys care intensely about some musical or cinema subgenre, but unfortunately most of them care intensely about socialism, or Objectivism, or genetically-modified crops, or (sigh) national politics. Their extensive research consists of having read one book which Explains Everything, and a bunch of Web sites put up by other Intense Guys. A few Intense Guys go on to become store managers or get real jobs, and the rest wind up on watch lists somewhere.

Good Points: Efficient at the job, willing to go beyond the standard drink list.

Bad Points: You may actually care very intensely about the same thing; that never ends well.

THE TEMP: Hard to describe because you only see her once. Maybe you said, "You're new here, right?" and the Temp said, "Yeah," and the next time you came in she was gone. If you ask the other staff about her, expect either a derisive snort or a shrug.

Good Points: New face.

Bad Points: Never stays long enough to learn the job.

THE LIFER: If you're nineteen, working at a coffee shop is pretty cool. It's not very hard work, really; the hours are usually pretty flexible; you get to chat with other local hipsters and intellectual poseurs. It's less cool when you're thirty-nine, but about half the coffee shops I go to have a Lifer on the staff, who decided that going to college parties, following local bands, getting stoned, and going mountain biking are all he or she needs out of life. Very likely to have neck or face tattoos.

Good Points: Continuity.

Bad Points: You worry that your children will wind up like that.

THE FOUNDER: The one who started it all. Usually a man, unless the shop offers a lot of baked goods. Forty to fifty years old — a few are older, and took this up after retiring from a much more prestigious and high-paying career. Essentially a combination of The Connoisseur and The Lifer, but with some entrepreneurial talent, a source of capital, and fewer tattoos. This is the mysterious older guy who comes in at odd times, asks the customers how they're enjoying their drinks, frowns slightly at the people with laptops open, and then goes behind the counter and rearranges everything while muttering "we have a system for this!" When he leaves the staff put everything back where it was.

Good Points: If you have a complaint, it will be listened to and probably acted upon.

Bad Points: You tend to learn more than you care to know about the problems of running a small service-sector business.

THE OVERWHELMED: It's too intense behind the counter! There's orders to fill, transactions to ring up, spills to wipe — the pressure is too much! When this barista is on duty, even with others on hand to help, everything is a crisis. Expect shouting, swearing, and lots of under-the-breath grumbling. Especially about how much you put in the tip jar.

Good Points: Amusing to listen to.

Bad Points: Treats any request as an intolerable burden.

THE HOT ONE: This Barista is young, fit, ridiculously good-looking, and either has no tattoos or actually chose ones which are flattering. Clothing is cut off, form-fitting, transparent, or all three. Customers of the opposite sex spend an awful lot of time making awkward small talk with this Barista, and the tip jar is always topped-up. Goes home at the end of shift with a partner who is either even hotter or "that?!"

Good Points: Nice to look at.

Bad Points: Out of your league, sir or madam. Actual coffee-making skills are likely to be minimal.

THE TATTOO BORE: "This one says 'Do or do not, there is no try' in Chinese. Or maybe it's Japanese. I don't remember. Anyway, it's a quote from Gandhi. This is a picture of the cat I used to have, and this is a picture of my current kitty. This is the Viking rune for Coexistence. On the back of my leg here I got a unicorn, because that's my spirit animal. And on the other leg I have a pentagram — this one is point up which makes it a silver magic sign. Point down is hurtful magic. Then here on my back . . . "

Good Points: Um . . .

Bad Points: As long as there's some un-inked skin left they can alterate between talking about the tattoos they already have and the tattoos they're going to get.

THE STUDENT VISA: Usually a couple of years older than the normal run of Baristas, the Student Visa dresses like an adult, does a reasonably professional job, and — despite the heavy accent — has interesting things to say. Often the Student Visa is both an expert on some extremely difficult academic subject, and a huge fan of some obscure aspect of American pop culture. Sadly, in a couple of years the Student Visa will move on to  well-paid tech job in California, or go back home overseas to become Deputy Minister For Foreign Trade.

Good Points: Has probably had all the coffee drinks in their original form and knows what they're supposed to taste like. Also: functional human being.

Bad Points: NSA is probably logging your Web cruising while you're in the cafe.

I expect there are some types I've missed. If anyone has additions, please feel free to add them in the comments.

Random Encounters: Martian-Ravaged London

(Yes, the Random Encounters are back! Once again, I'm going to try to put up one table each week.)

The Martians dropped down out of the sky onto southern England in the spring of 1899, and got as far as London before succumbing to Terrestrial germs. They left behind a devastated city, transplanted Martian organisms, alien super-technology — and Victorian society completely shattered. Now survivors are emerging from hiding, and Her Majesty's government is trying to re-establish control over the ruins.

ENCOUNTERS IN MARTIAN-RAVAGED LONDON

(Roll 1d20 if the characters are moving about the city, 1d10 if they remain in one place.)

1. Roll Twice and Combine
2. Plot Advancing Encounter: Something relevant to whatever has brought the heroes to London.
3. Disguised Detective: London's greatest consulting detective, cleverly disguised (roll again on the table to see who he's impersonating). Roll 1d10 to see who he's searching for. 1-2: German Spies (#4), 3-4: Martian Survivor, 5-6: Player-Characters, 7-8: The Professor (#8), 9-10: The Ripper.
4. German Spies: A party of 1d4 technical experts from Friederich Wilhelm University in Berlin, accompanied by twice as many German Army engineer troops. The scientists have Mauser pistols, the soldiers carry rifles. They're officially here to "evaluate the need for assistance" and unofficially to grab any Martian technology they can find.
5. Mobile Plant: A Martian species which has proved resistant to Terrestrial pathogens. During the day it spreads its leaves and stays in one place, but at night it moves about looking for living prey. The plant is blind and deaf, hunting only by scent. It has a lethal sting.
6. Naval Patrol: The near-annihilation of the British Army and London's police have left keeping order in the hands of Royal Navy shore parties. This is a team of 1d6 sailors armed with rifles, an ensign or petty officer with a pistol, and a medical corpsman. Their main priority is to locate and help survivors. They'll ignore minor looting, but meet violence with summary execution.
7. Poisonous Fog: London's infamous "pea soup" fogs have only gotten worse with the smoke of burning buildings, refugee campfires, and the deadly gas weapon of the Martian invaders. The fog covers an area 1d10 times 10 yards across, and anyone caught in it must hold his breath or take poison damage.
8. The Professor: One of England's greatest mathematical minds — and one of its most ruthless criminals. The Professor rode out the invasion in his hidden headquarters, and now is taking advantage of the chaos. He's looking for Martian devices to study, looting carefully-selected houses and museums, and assassinating all rival gang bosses as they return to the city. The Professor is accompanied by 1d6 thugs, all heavily armed.
9. Thieves: An organized gang of looters, searching for food, liquor, weapons, and valuables. With the death of the Martians they've gotten more ruthless about eliminating witnesses.
10. Wandering Lunatic: Unhinged by the horrors of the invasion, this poor individual roams the streets, calling the name of an incinerated loved one. There's a 50 percent chance that the Lunatic will mistake one of the heroes for the object of his or her search, and pursue the party thereafter.
11. Checkpoint: A fortified position at a major road intersection, manned by 2d6 Royal Marines commanded by a Naval lieutenant. Their mission is to prevent looters or curiosity-seekers from entering the city, help survivors get food and medical help, and prevent violence.
12. Flooded Area: The choking Red Weed and the destruction of drainage and water systems left an area 1d100 yards across flooded. The water's 1d6 feet deep — but there's a 10 percent chance the explorers will stumble into a deeper section by mistake. Obviously any basements, sewers, and Underground Railway sections in this area are completely flooded.
13. Gang: A band of survivors don't want you poking around their neighborhood. 2d6 toughs armed with butcher knives and clubs chase the intruders out.
14. Martian Lair: One of several outposts the Martians set up during their brief occupation of the city. It contains 1d6 items of Martian Tech (see below), 1d8-3 Mobile Plants (#5), 1d6-4 captive humans, and 2d6-10 Martian survivors (#12).
15. Martian Survivor! One of the Martian biology experts, who realized the danger from infection and managed to immunize itself. Now it hides out in the ruins, feeding on unwary refugees and plotting to trade its scientific knowledge for survival.
16. Martian Technology: Roll on the Martian Tech table below.
17. Pub: The Queen Victoria pub, in a shabby East End square untouched by Martian invasion, is open for business. The beer's overpriced and the place is lit by kerosene lanterns after dark. Customers include Royal Navy sailors, looters, scientists, Germans, and a handful of neighborhood holdouts. For now there's an unofficial truce in the pub, and troublemakers are quickly taken care of. Permanently.
18. Ruin: The party stumbles across an iconic London building half-smashed by Martians. There's a 50 percent chance that 1d8 Thieves (#9) are searching the place.
19. Trap! During the invasion Army troops and guerrillas planted improvised mines and tripwires to slow the Martian fighting-machines. The booby-trap is a dynamite bomb packed with nails and wire. Roll 1d6 to see how well it's concealed. 1-3: Obvious, 4-5: Average concealment, 6: Fiendishly well-hidden.
20. Tracks: Roll again to see what the party finds traces of.

MARTIAN TECH TABLE

Note that humans may not be aware of what these machines are, or can do, unless they've seen the devices in action. Roll 1d10 to see what the machine is, and then 1d10 for its condition.

Devices

1. Black Smoke Launcher: A tube holding 1d6 Black Smoke rockets. Each rocket flies straight and level for 1000 yards or until it hits something, leaving a trail of poison gas 20 yards wide.
2. Blood Extractor: A system of glass pipettes and flexible tubes capable of draining and storing all the blood in a human body.
3. Crystal Egg:A psychic communication device linked with another Egg back on Mars.
4. Excavating-Machine:A powerful six-legged machine with big digging scoops.
5. Fighting-Machine:A giant war tripod armed with a deadly Heat-Ray and gas projectors. It has metal tentacles capable of snatching up a human from the ground.
6. Flying-Machine:A simple airplane with folding wings, capable of holding two Martians or four humans.
7. Handling-Machine: A multipurpose work machine with multiple tentacle arms and six stumpy legs. It's unarmed, but its powerful tentacles can demolish most Earthly buildings with ease.
8. Heat-Ray: A projector for the devastating Martian heat beam.
9. Power Cylinder: A shiny green metal cylinder capable of powering one of the Martian machines or weapons. It can operate without fuel for a decade, but prolonged exposure to it harms a person's health. If broken it contaminates an area 1d100 yards across.
10. Smelter:A machine capable of turning ordinary dirt into aluminum. It takes about 10 pounds of dirt to make 1 pound of metal.

Condition

(Roll 1d10 to see what shape the device is in.)

1 to 3: Wrecked. Completely smashed and inoperable. There is a 25 percent chance that the machine is leaking toxic substances. It still is instructive to study.

4 to 6: Damaged. The machine is obviously damaged, but one might try to operate it anyway. When operating there is a 10 percent chance of catastrophic malfunction per turn, and a 10 percent chance of leaking toxic material. Useful for study.

7 or 8: Subtly Damaged. It looks intact, but there is hidden damage. As above, there's a 10 percent chance per turn of catastrophic malfunction. Useful for study.

9: Undamaged. It's ready to go! All you need are eight tentacles and a superhuman intellect, and you can use it easily. Invaluable for study.

10: Still Running. Not only is it intact, it's powered up and functioning. The "industrial" devices like Handling-Machines or Smelters will still be executing their last instructions. All you have to do is figure out how to shut it down . . .

SITUATIONS IN MARTIAN-RAVAGED LONDON

For each encounter, roll 1d6 to see what that individual wants.

1. A desires B
2. A wants to capture B
3. A wants B dead
4. A wants to go somewhere
5. A wants to solve a mystery
6. A wants X

 

A Curious Omission

Like most people, I went to see the Disney/Marvel super-epic Avengers: Endgame a couple of weeks ago. It was good; I give it an A overall. This post isn't a review or analysis of the film. It's just one question.

The question is this: during the Big Final Battle with all the heroes against the villain's legions with the fate of the Universe at stake (again) . . . where are the U.S. armed forces?

Seriously: the battle takes place in upstate New York, on American soil and within range of at least two Air Force bases, three or four Air National Guard bases, two Army bases, and an Army National Guard division dispersed around the state. This doesn't even include any local assets of the fictional military/intelligence agency SHIELD.

Now while the battle might well have ended while ground units were still rolling down the New York Thruway, there should at least have been some aircraft overhead. It's especially odd given that three of the Avengers are current or former Air Force officers themselves.

This isn't the first Marvel movie in which major military forces have been conspicuous by their absence. The climactic battle of the previous film, Avengers: Infinity War, took place in central Africa — but there was time for various superheroes to reach the scene and prepare for battle, which means "mundane" military forces have could been involved. However isolationist the rulers of Wakanda may be, they surely wouldn't turn down outside help in the face of an invasion by aliens bent on destroying half the Universe. Ethiopian Air Force MiG-21s could show up, or U.S. Marines in Ospreys from Djibouti, or carrier-based planes from the Indian Ocean.

No doubt the fictional, "in-universe" explanation is that the conventional military units simply couldn't arrive in time, or were engaged off-screen, or something. But why didn't the moviemakers at least acknowledge the existence of real-world armed forces?

After all, the trailer for the upcoming Godzilla: King of the Monsters shows the big G stomping into battle against King Ghidorah with an escort of F-35 fighters. (As I commented to my family, the only thing cooler would be if Godzilla was riding a Harley and holding a big American flag. Maybe they're keeping that for the sequel.)

I think Godzilla provides a clue. Real-world military forces are very powerful. A couple of A-10 Warthogs can turn a column of tanks into scrap metal. A B-52 can rain down 70,000 pounds of bombs in a single sortie. Compared to that, even a mighty hero like Thor or the Incredible Hulk seems kind of redundant. And the more human-scale heroes like Hawkeye or Black Widow become simply insignificant. What can a guy with a bow, or a woman with a Beretta pistol and a taser wristband do when there's serious firepower around?

Godzilla, at least, is an indestructible city-sized monster with atomic fire breath. He's in the same weight class as a military force. So he won't be overshadowed by some jet fighters. They can join in the fight without reducing his star power. Superheroes get left in the shade. So the armed forces have to stay off-screen in Marvel movies.

Still . . . just a couple of computer-animated jets in the background, or a line about the army being half an hour away, would have satisfied my nitpicker's soul.

Unleash The Wild Hunt!

No, not the one with mythical hounds and/or Celtic deities crossing the sky on dark nights. The one with University of Chicago students taking a break from being obsessive overachievers in order to overachieve obsessively. Here's this year's list. Can you get all these things before noon Sunday?

 

And if you haven't got the time or energy for that, you could always read my book.