Sunday, March 17, 2024

Space Punks II: Nightingale's Song by Anna Mocikat review


    SPACE PUNKS II: NIGHTINGALE' SONG is the sequel to SPACE PUNKS, which is at least a very accurate title to the story. I'm a huge fan of Anna Mocikat's BEHIND BLUE EYES series and really enjoyed the first of this series.  If I had to describe it, I'd say it's close to COWBOY BEBOP except hewing closer to cyberpunk motifs instead of Western. A bunch of sexy cybernetically augmented mercenaries live on the starship Nephilim, doing odd jobs for their mysterious boss, while being involved in both organized crime as well as politics. Most of humanity was exterminated when Earth was destroyed in the wars against the machines but the survivors live in comparative high tech luxury.

    In the previous book, we had the discovery that newcomer David was actually an android that had been sent to infiltrate the crew. We also had Nightingale being horribly injured This book picks up with giving us David's origins as well as a follow-up on Nightingale's condition. Well, it's not good. If he doesn't receive a super rare part then he'll be dead in a week. He also can't have sex with his girlfriend, Aztec, that he has just proposed marriage to in a time when that institute is considered to be obsolete.

    Much of the book is divided between the protagonists showing their complicated and fascinating relationships, world-building so we understand how this new society works, and the "big heist" where they attempt to hit a military depot in order to get the rare part that Nightingale needs to survive. Say what you will about the Nightingale crew but they are willing to do whatever they have to in order to protect one another.

    The best part of the Space Punks series is definitely the cast and all of the characters are interesting with a variety of dark and troubled pasts. They're a rare sight in science fiction in that most are in committed relationships and deeply devoted to one another while still being no less "cool" and edgy for it. As stated, the crew is intensely loyal to one another and seeing how they can rely on one another makes them easy to root for despite they're a bunch of dedicated ruthless cyborg mercenaries.

    We get a good look at Mars this book and find out how he's gone from being first of Earth's colonies to the center of human civilization in the setting. Despite being a space based series, it is very cyberpunk and the Pentad substitutes for the evil megacorporations of most fiction. They are a ruthless oligarchy with control over all of humanity's vital supplies as well as militaries, so they can do more or less whatever they want without fear from the public. We also get regular tidbits from an in-universe encyclopedia that help fill in the blanks on how the universe functions.

    I'm especially fond of Lucien, the villain, who fills all the depraved psychopath folders that make for a good cyberpunk villain. It may be cheating that one of the heads of the cyborg armed forces is also a serial killer but it certainly makes for a delightfully hateable villain. His scenes have genuine menace and you are worried about the protagonists when they are up against him.

    In conclusion, Space Punks II: Nightingale's Song is an excellent dark and edgy piece of science fiction that would make a good television show with a sufficiently pretty cast. Anne Mocikat is one of my favorite indie writers right now and if you want dark, forboding, and yet fun adventure fiction then this is definitely for you.

Available here

Friday, March 15, 2024

GI Joe: Retaliation review


    Oh God, this movie is terrible.

    It's fun but it's terrible.

    There are so many weird and inexplicable decisions throughout this film. The cast is fine, better than fine, I'd argue, but what they're working for is a trainwreck. I was somewhat hard on GI JOE: THE RISE OF COBRA but I felt that it was a movie with a lot of potential. It certainly set up the sequel pretty well with the character relationships and world-building off to a good start. Unfortunately, the sequel throws all of this out the window and the result is a mess that none of the cast can save.

    Part of this wasn't the fault of the writers, directors, or producers. Virtually, the entirety of the cast from The Rise of Cobra didn't elect to return to the sequel. Channing Tatum would only return if they killed off his character, Duke, who was the star of the previous movie. Christopher Eccelston said filming the first movie was like having his throat cut.

    Sienna Miller, one of the most popular parts of the film for multiple reasons (including fanservice), also felt she was a horrible fit for the Baroness. Not even Gordon Joseph Levitt returned as Cobra Commander because he was filming Inception. Given so much of the previous movie was setting up the complicated dynamics between all four of these characters, it effectively meant you'd need a total recast or to throw out nearly everything. They chose the latter. Honestly, it probably would have been better to do a total reboot if they hadn't done a recast because the plot barely makes any sense and when it does tie-in, it makes you upset about what's done. 

    The premise is that GI Joe has gone from being an international team of heroes to an American group of special forces doing missions in places like North Korea as well as Afghanistan. Duke (Channing Tatum) is now the leader but his second-in-command is Roadblock (The Rock), which already raises questions because Dwayne Johnson is about eight years older than Channing Tatum so why is he his subordinate? 

    The President of the United States has been replaced by Zartan (Arnold Vosloo) but, sadly, it's Jonathan Pryce on screen for the most part. Which is fine but he's not exactly projecting menace and I'd prefer Arnold. With Zartan's help, Storm Shadow (Lee Byung-hun) rescues Cobra Commander (Luke Bracey, Robert Bakker) and frames the Joes for terrorism, so they're wiped out by a group of Cobra soldiers pretending to be a new group of American soldiers. The Joes go out to clear their names and, well, screw up.

    The thing is, this is actually a fairly decent premise. Adrianne Palicki is also a great recast for Scarlet and...oh, she's playing Lady Jaye. Just playing her exactly like Scarlet. Okay then. We also have Jinx (Daredevil's Elodie Yung) introduced and the Blind Master (played by RZA), which odd choice in casting aside, sets up a nice ninja arc where Snake Eyes (Ray Park) goes after Storm Shadow to continue their eternal blood feud. If the movie had kept to this premise then it would have been a pretty serviceable flick.

    I'd miss Destro and the Baroness but it would have been a good story salvaged from bad circumstances.
It's not a spoiler since it's in the trailer but there's an utterly insane and stupid plot about nuclear weapons where Cobra ends up getting rid of all of them before destroying London. Yes, London. The Joes fail to save one of the world's most populous cities and ten million people die. That's not exactly a great premise for future movies in the franchise nor does it really reflect well on our heroes who utterly fail to save the day. There's some good scenes but our heroes kind of get their efforts dwarfed by this.

    Yeah, this movie sadly killed the GI Joe franchise for awhile when it could have been every bit as successful as the Transformers one if not more so. It's not hard to do GI Joe as you can do it either like Call of Duty or something much-much sillier. The Fast and the Furious movies basically became the GI Joe movies at one point. Do that. The franchise has since been rebooted with Snake Eyes: Origins but it's been left on the table since. Which is a shame.

4/10

Wednesday, March 13, 2024

Argylle (2024) review


     If Michael Bay isn't willing or able to do the GI Joe movies then Matthew Vaughn might be the person to do so. As the guy who did the Kingsmen movies, he clearly has a great love for the Roger Moore era of James Bond flicks which is something that the more serious Connery and Craig fans turn their noses up. Given GI Joe is basically doing to special forces missions what Bond did to spies, I think it might be a good fit.

    ARGYLLE is basically another entry into the Kingsman franchise in terms of tone, comedy, sending up spy movies, and oddball action hi-jinks. The actual Kingsmen don't appear but easily could have if not for the fact each movie keeps killing them off (that's not a spoiler so much as the films mid-point premise).     It's a gleefully silly spy movie that's only slightly more serious than Austin Powers and wouldn't be nearly as much fun if it was any more dramatic.

    In this case, the premise is Elly Conway (Bryce Dallas Howard) is a writer of cheesy spy novels starring her idealized man, Argylle (Henry Cavill). After releasing her latest novel, a real-life spy named Aiden Wilde (Sam Rockwell) shows up to inform her that her novels are eerily similar to real life to the point that a rogue intelligence agency called the Directorate is now after her. They're led by Director Ritter (Bryan Cranston), who is about as realistic a bad guy as Doctor Claw. Elly must do her best to survive even as she keeps flashing to Argylle. There's also an adorable, sometimes CGI, cat she's carrying around in a little kitty backpack.

    This is a gleefully stupid movie and I know exactly why the critics are lambasting it while audience approval is far more forgiving. This is a live action cartoon for adults and a bloodless bunch of action sequences, great music, and utterly nonsensical twists more at home on a soap opera than anything limited to reality. It's fun and the most I cared about anything going on was wondering about that poor cat and it getting constantly thrown about. The movie is like an even sillier version of Cameron Diaz and Tom Cruise's KNIGHT AND DAY.

    There's a bit of false advertising with the film: Henry Cavill is actually a fairly minor character in the story with Agent Argylle only appearing in a few select (but fantastic) scenes. The real star of this is Sam Rockwell, who I already liked as a spy in Charlie's Angels. I feel like they probably should have tightened things up so that Sam Rockwell or Henry Cavill was the basis for Argylle in her head as well as the "real" secret agent. This is me judging how the movie could have been versus how it is, though. 

    Bryce Dallas Howard does an immensely likable character in this role and everyone else is also a lot of fun. Sam Rockwell is also good and is perfectly believable as a ridiculously over-the-top secret agent. Having him show up first as a dirty hippie is a great choice even though we know he's going to morph into the suave superhero later. Bryan Cranston supervillaining all over the place also never gets old. I even liked Catherine O'Hara (you know her as the mom from Beetlejuice) playing Elly's mom and her character going in an odd direction that I won't spoil.

    I give props to the movie's soundtrack as well with a lot of disco-esque and neo-disco-esque beats. David Bowie's "Let's Dance", "Electric Energy" by Ariana DeBose, and "Do you want to Funk" by Sylvester and Patrick Cowley are all standouts but a lot of classics that just add to the weird timelessness of it all. The extended musical number during the train fight is definitely a highlight and I'd buy the soundtrack if they still sold music on compact discs. :rimshot:

    I don't really know what to say about this movie other than it's an all-star cast doing their darnedest to have as much fun with a ridiculous plot as possible (and the movie not suffering from said ridiculous plot either). The cast is so good I barely remember that Samuel L. Jackson is a central character. If there's any flaws with the movie, it's probably the fact there's an extra ten to fifteen minutes at the end of the film that didn't need to be there and they could have just ended with the heroine's plan working. I won't bring up the specifics of the twist but they added a bunch of complications for some silly action sequences that didn't need to be there. Otherwise, a very good movie.

    Well, very fun movie.

    There's a difference.

8/10

Monday, March 11, 2024

Vampire: The Masquerade: Blood Sigils review


    BLOOD SIGILS is a supplement for VAMPIRE: THE MASQUERADE FIFTH EDITION. It is a supplement detailing the use of Blood Sorcery, Thin Blooded Alchemy, and the black market that has emerged around the use of magic among vampires (called “The Scene”).

    Blood magic supplements were quite popular in earlier editions of Vampire: The Masquerade and it is surprising its taken this long to have a book discussing its use. Could the book have contained more information on things like Oblivion and Church of Set magic? Probably but we’ll mostly be judging the book on what it is rather than what it could be.

    Overall, I think Blood Sigils is one of the best books released by Renegade Studios so far. I was not fond of The Second Inquisition or Sabbat: The Black Hand supplements but was much more appreciative of Blood-Stained Love. Blood Sigils benefits from a decision that I hope more books will take heed from in the future: the decision to incorporate more lore from the classic era of Vampire: The Masquerade. Given so many other supplements seem interested in ignoring or quietly retconning classic lore, it’s nice to see this book is best appreciated by those with a decades-long familiarity with the material.

    Seriously, the book’s best parts are updating both Clan Tremere and the Banu Haqim with references to their extensive history. Not just the now-destroyed chantry in Vienna is referenced but also House Ceoris from Vampire: The Dark Ages. “House Goratrix” has taken over the section of Clan Tremere that is attempting to rebuild the Pyramid as it used to be and its leader is someone that will be familiar to anyone familiar with The Transylvania Chronicles. We also get a sense of what happened with the Banu Haqim Schism that was the focus of Clan Book: Assamite Revised.

    This book is perfectly usable by players who have never experienced Vampire: The Masquerade before Fifth Edition and these are just interesting references. However, as Easter Eggs for those who have spent thirty years playing in the World of Darkness, they are a reminder that our fandom is appreciated. I could have done with even more but I’m certainly not going to begrudge the book for including what it did. Sadly, those looking for updates of things like Thaumaturgy Paths and specific rituals will have to look elsewhere. The majority of the book is devoted to the creation of a thriving magical subculture in the wake of the Tremere’s stranglehold being destroyed by the Second Inquisition.

    Everyone who wants to learn magic can learn magic these days, at least among the Damned. But being the immortal parasites they are, this comes with a price. The majority of magic for sale is watered down, erroneous, or from copies of copies. Experimentation is the order of the day and back alley deals are happening in every major city.

    The central conceit of Blood Sigils is that magic is like drugs and especially drug dealing. Quality, ingredients, violence, crooked law enforcement (human or otherwise), and cheats are all things you run into in “The Scene.” It is also strongly related to the Blood Trade where buying nourishment is significantly easier than buying the blood of a specific seven year old that was born under a blood moon. Much of the horror is implied and that is what makes it appropriately punk.

    The book contains sample NPCs of dealers, crooked Sheriffs, crooked cops, dabblers, veterans, diablerists, and Thin Blooded alchemists. It contains a large number of blood cults and magical secret societies that vary in quality (my favorite is a Masquerade breaking pharmaceutical company from India). There’s also several magical artifacts meant to show how they might be implemented into the setting. Much of the Storyteller advice is based on creating mood and, for once, actually quite useful.

    Blood Sigils is probably the most “punk” book that Fifth Edition has produced and actually reads like someone who has more than a television show’s familiarity with drugs and the underground night life of a major city. Whether they have or not, it feels evocative and actually manages to live up to the potential of Fifth Edition. Paradox Interactive has continually wanted to capture an adult counter-culture feel for its middle aged veteran audience and newcomers alike. This actually succeeds.

Available here

Friday, March 8, 2024

GI Joe: Classified by Kelley Skovron review

    I wouldn’t normally think of GI Joe as science fiction even if I would normally be quite happy to put it under Young Adult. It is, now that I think about it, a children’s series. I know, right? Crazy. I mean, I’m forty-three years old and I watched it as a child. How strange it hasn’t been consistently updated to keep up with my changing tastes and maturity level like all other media has been.

    Well, unless you count SPHINX from Venture Brothers. Still, I stumbled upon this book quite by accident and wondered what a Young Adult GI Joe book released in 2020 would be about. The very short version would be that it’s basically GI Joe’s version of X-men: Evolution. X-men: Evolution is also 23 years old itself. Wow, I need to get to work on stopping this aging thing. Maybe if I got myself some mutagen. Ninja Turtles are still new, right?

    The premise is original character, Stanislaw (AKA Stan) Migda, moves with his mother into the town of Springfield for her to get a job with DeCobray Industries. Even cursory fans of GI Joe can likely guess who is secretly in charge of this town. Surprisingly, there doesn’t appear to be any GI Joe to actually face Cobra this time despite the fact the terrorist organization is real and conducting EVIL EXPERIMENTS (da dummm) on the local students.

    Instead, the protagonists are Scarlet and Zoro-me (Snake Eyes) who, teamed up with a teenage hacker named Julien, aid Stanley in trying to keep Cobra from their dastardly deeds. The Baroness is a 10th grade student, Zartan is the principle, and Cobra Commander is, well, Cobra Commander. Other characters include the Hard Master and Soft Master running a local martial arts dojo, school guidance counselor Conrad Hauser, and Tommy Arashikage (AKA Storm Shadow) as another teenager.

    You could make a comparison between this book and fanfic school AUs but I hesitate to do that because that might imply I dislike this oddball re-imagining or think its amateur. I use X-men: Evolution as my standard because I think it’s actually quite good. It’s not what you would typically think of with GI Joe or I would have written but the uniqueness is hardly a strike against it. Indeed, I kind of wish they’d added more characters from the cartoon and toy line as students or staff. Is Firefly the science teacher? How about Lady Jaye and Flint as the prom queen and king? There’s a sequel to this novel and I picked it up as soon as I finished this one.

    There’s a fun Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew (or Alex Rider now that I think about it) energy to the piece as they increasingly come face to face with the fact their school is a bunch of guinea pigs for Cobra’s equivalent to AR glasses. There’s some genuinely spooky moments in the book with them, like the fact that Cobra uses them to manipulate people’s perception in real time. I shouldn’t be thinking of They Live during a Young Adult novel about GI Joe but the fact I am reminds me of some of the crazier Sunbow cartoons like when Shipwreck is subjected to mental torture in, yes, Springfield.

    This is definitely one of those novels that I would recommend a reader purchase the audiobook version of versus the ebook or paperback version. Shawn Compton manages to instill a kind of awkward young man’s energy into his narration and it works well for Stan (who I presume is named for OG GI Joe creator, Stan Weston). At just under five hours, it may be less of a book than you’d normally get for an audiobook credit but I really enjoyed it as an afternoon’s adventure.

    Are there some issues? Well, yes. Cobra getting bamboozled by a bunch of teenagers is going to rub some people the wrong way. Even the fact the novel is upfront that Cobra Commander could kill them at any time but doesn’t (seemingly more amused by their antics than threatened) doesn’t really do much to mitigate this fact. I also feel GI Joe: Classified is a poor title for the series and something like GI Joe: Academy or GI Joe: Teen Heroes would have been better. Still, I would recommend this for Real American (or International) Hero readers of eleven to, well, my age.

Available here

Tuesday, March 5, 2024

GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra review


    This is going to be less of a review than a retrospective and rant. GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra is fine. It's got a bunch of flaws and die hard nutjobs like myself will nitpick it to death about continuity changes but it's got decent action, comedy, and an update of the GI Joe premise. If they'd changed a few things here and there, it'd go from a three star movie to a four star action extravaganza. It's just the sequel that ran this incarnation of the franchise into the ground.

    The premise for GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra is a perfectly fine one. Duke (Channing Tatum) and Ripcord (Marlon Wayans) are two American soldiers guarding a nano-tech warhead made by MARS arms manufacturing giant, James MacCullen (Christopher Eccelston), who is up to something nefarious. The warhead gets stolen by advanced super-soldiers led by the Baroness (Sienna Miller) and our heroes are recruited into GI Joe before they lose the warhead again. Duke is revealed to be the ex-lover of one of the Baroness and intends to "rescue" her.

    I don't mention it very often but I am very much a GI Joe fanboy. Given I'm an anarchist nutjob, this is a somewhat bizarre thing but I actually consider the toy commercial/military advertisement to be one of the most formulative things of my youth. I think my appreciation for female heroines probably comes from GI Joe (Scarlet, Lady Jaye, Jinx, The Baroness) and why I didn't develop into a weird guy who seems to think that every heroine kicking ass is somehow a threat to my fragile masculinity.

    GI Joe has consistently struggled to find itself a brand identity outside of the comics by Larry Hama (GI Joe's father in the way same Bill Finger is Batman's Stan Lee is Spider-Man's). Part of this may be the premise of a bunch of American soldiers fighting an evil terrorist organization bent on world conquest being a little too "real" after 2001. Part of it may be the fact it doesn't have quite the same broad international appeal as Transformers. Hogwash I say!

    My opinion of G.I. Joe is that I believe the biggest problem it has is that Hasbro is just handling the license terribly. Much the same with Dungeons and Dragons. They seem afraid of embracing the SHIELD versus Hydra sensibility that makes the work clique. It's strange because they have updated it a couple of times with Sigma Six and this very movie having our heroes be a broad collection of international heroes (ala Action Force). Michael Bay was basically made to make this movie and they got the Mummy guy to do it instead and he would have been fantastic...if he'd been allowed to tweek the script like he wanted.

    Famously, this was an unhappy production from everyone involved. Christopher Ecceleston hated playing Destro and I can't help but think it'd have been interesting to get David Tenant (an actual Scotsman and fellow Doctor Who) to do the role. Channing Tatum, an actual GI Joe fanboy about my age, hated the movie from top to bottom. He wanted to play Snake Eyes instead of Duke and, honestly, probably would have done a fantastic job. Both do a great job with what they're doing, Eccelston's bizarre accent choice aside, and aren't the problem with the movie.

    There's much to enjoy about GI Joe with Rachel Nicholson being a great actress I wish I'd seen more of (she was amazing in Continuum), Sienna Miller being the absolute best thing in the movie by far as the Baroness (even if she should be allowed to be bad!), Ray Park as Snake Eyes being the best sort of casting, and Lee Byung-hun is great as Storm Shadow. I even like Marlon Wayans as Ripcord even if they more or less had to invent his character whole cloth versus the comics/cartoons. The action is big, punchy, and electrifying with a great deal of fun to be had with fun toys on display. Everyone is pretty and there's lots of exploding things. It's a colorful James Bond movie and all the better for it.

    So what went wrong? It's tough to say but it's one of those cases where I feel like the minor tweaks lead to bigger problems. Joseph Gordon-Levitt would have been a fantastic Doctor Mindbender (he's clearly the only actor who understands he's in a live action cartoon other than possibly Ms. Miller) or Cobra Commander but combining the two makes no sense. Scarlet being a weird emotionally distant scientist is, again, not really her. Ripcord and her "relationship" comes off more like sexual harrassment and is weird when her two canon love interests are right there. Also, making the Baroness brainwashed gets rid of one of the great female villainesses of children's entertainment and also makes her romance with Destro into sexual assault.

    But weirdly, my biggest issue with the movie is the fact that GI Joe is a bunch of idiots. Throughout the movie, they fail to get anything done and get constantly outsmarted by Cobra. They fail to save the Eiffel Tower, they fail to stop the bad guys from getting their doomsday weapon, and they also let Cover Girl get killed (which is a problem with Hasbro--everyone is someone's favorite figurine). It's something that gets massively doubled-up on in the sequel when it's hard to say our heroes did anything right when London is destroyed. That's not a spoiler since it was in the trailer for the sequel.

    Larry Hama envisioned Cobra as a sort of populist Right Wing crypto-fascist movement in the Eighties and, basically, had the same idea as George Lucas. Cobra Commander would rise to power as a very American sort of dictator and manipulate events behind the scenes to take over the world. People, especially Americans, join Cobra because they want a better life and no longer trust their government. I can understand if Hasbro doesn't want that kind of political commentary in their books but this version of Cobra is all mind controlled and it undermines anything that would give the group punch. If Star Wars can destroy democracy with thunderous applause, so can GI Joe.

    Still, I occasionally watch this film when I want some entertainment. They are very pretty people and there's a lot of pew-pew as well as boom-boom. It has a sense of fun and adventure but if we'd had some of the character dynamics from the show/comics, I think it would have been slightly better. Okay, no, a lot better.

7/10 

Available here

Monday, March 4, 2024

Ten Tips for using Hauglosk in W5

W5 Chronicle Tips

  1. Ten Tips to running the Cult of Fenris in W5
  2. Why metaplot matters in the World of Darkness 
  3. 101 Adventure Hooks for Werewolf: The Apocalypse 5th Edition
  4. Ten Tips for using Hauglosk in W5

    One of the more controversial elements of Werewolf: The Apocalypse 5th Edition is the introduction of the condition of Hauglosk. Hauglosk is effectively the opposite of Harano. While a Garou suffering Harano is someone who sinks into all consuming despair and depression from the futility of their struggles with the Wyrm, a Garou suffering Hauglosk throws themselves into the jaws of the Wyrm in hopes of clawing their way out from their stomach. 

    A werewolf suffering from Hauglosk is someone who is infected by a form of fanatical zeal that effectively turns them into a Gaian fundamentalist terrorist. W:TA's corebook says it best (page 52): "In a desperate fight against an overwhelming enemy, the ends justify the means. Everything is on the table. Victory at any cost. This is Hauglosk, the conviction that your absolute moral certainty justifies everything you do.Hauglosk is a state of extreme righteousness. A Garou in a state of Hauglosk believes that the cause is all, that their way is the only way."

    Given Gaia is dying, Hauglosk seems less like an overreaction and more like the proper attitude to the imminent end of everything. At least to some Garou. Even some long-time players question its utility as it seems like a mechanization of a roleplaying condition. Here are some thoughts on how I'm incorporating Hauglosk into W5.

1. Hauglosk is a choice

    Hauglosk should not be treated as the Dark Side of the Force or the One Ring of Power. It's more insidious than that but more a series of compromises and choices that a Garou proceeds to make before they gradually destroy everything worthwhile in them as an honorable warrior of Gaia. It is supernatural and a reflection of the Garou's rage and drive combined with their human minds but not so much that it is not identifiable as having a specific cause then effect. 

    Storytellers attempting to use Hauglosk in their games shoudn't rely on the mechanics of it versus the storytelling beats of it. At what point does a Garou cease caring about the collateral damage in their quest to protect Gaia? At what point does culling humans seem right? What about those Garou who are traitors because they're not pulling their weight? Hauglosk is a state that comes in degrees but one that are all too easy to make rationalizations before.

2. Hauglosk is fundamentalist 

    Hauglosk is religious fundamentalism, authoritarian militarism, and "my way is only way" blind unthinking fanaticism. Garou suffering for it believe their way is the only salvation for the world and everyone who believes otherwise is either evil or stupid. It can also manifest itself in multiple ways from the Gaian warrior who will do anything to save her to the Litany zealot who thinks any Gaia who refuses to follow ancient outdated interpretations is a blasphemer to the racial purist who has belief that only certain Garou families should survive. 

3. Hauglosk is self-defeating

    A thing that STs dealing with Hauglosk should remember is the fact that it's a condition that will utimately provide easy answers but, ultimately, wrong ones. The Cult of Fenris turned against the entirety of the Garou Nation because no one would agree with their plan to launch a suicide attack on Malfeas. Now they are warring with their fellow Garou, which certainly is not helping the war against the Wyrm. A Hauglosk infected Silver Fang may decide the only way to save Gaia is to reaffirm their tribes' position of absolute leadership and force all the other tribes to acknowlege it. Another might think the Impergium needs a sequel despite how impossible and stupid said idea is. Hauglosk provides a sense of you having figured out THE SOLUTIONtm and everyone else is just too dumb to see it.

4. Hauglosk has always been there 

    One interpretation of Hauglosk is the fact that it is a Garou condition that has been afflicting them since the Impergium and War of Rage but one that's never been wildly addressed among the Children of Luna. Zeal is a virtue among the Garou after all and blind unthinking fanaticism is something that religious cults (of which the Garou could be described as) often extoll rather than condemn. Recognizing it is a problem is, if not something new, something that the Garou are only now coming to terms with in the Modern Nights. However, that means the Garou have to go up against centuries, if not millennia, of institutional inertia.

5. Hauglosk is (probably) everywhere in the Garou Nation

    The Get of Fenris falling to Hauglosk is something that has massively damaged the Garou's ability to fight as well as their unity as a whole. Blaming it on Hauglosk is almost a cop out because that let's all of the other tribes off the hook. Except, what if they aren't off the hook at all? What if Hauglosk is rampant throughout the entirety of the Garou Nation? What if it has already taken one or more of them (*cough* Red Talons *cough)? 

    What if the only reason anyone noticed the Cult suffering from it was because they chose to turn against their fellows? What if most sufferers of Hauglosk are just on a downward spiral that will end with their "heroic" deaths and becoming examples for others? The Stargazers left the Garou Nation for a reason. Maybe it was because they felt their fellows couldn't be helped.

6. Can Hauglosk be cured? 

    There's no system for recovery from Hauglosk but that doesn't necessarily mean that it is incurable in-universe (or maybe it is--ST's perogitive). However, if you are going to allow it to be cured then there's no easy fix. Cult deprogramming is a debunked practice for good reason. However, people do escape from fudnamentalist views and extremist ideologies. It is just a long and difficult process. Storyteller's should determine whether it's possible to cure Hauglosk with either rites, roleplaying, or cleansing by spirits. However, it should probably be done by convincing a Garou to try to fix themselves.

7. Hauglosk should be tempting

    Despite Hauglosk being best used as a metaphor for fanaticism and single-minded obsession, it should be something that the Storyteller willingly inserts as a temptation for player characters. Think of it as the voice of the Shadow in Wraith: The Oblivion or the Devil on the shoulder. The ST should not necessarily be overt about it but present opportunities to increase Hauglosk through single-minded obsessive zeal. The chance to win over a clan by gutting a Child of Gaia who advocates for a more peaceful solution or mentioning how disgusting a Kin who has abandoned the war for Gaia to live a "normal" life is.

8. The downward spiral is not necessarily to be avoided

    This is something that should be suggested to a player before a ST starts the idea but the roleplaying of a character succumbing to their worst impulses isn't necessarily a bad arc to explore at one's table. If a player is game, his character gradually becoming more radicalized and fanatical in the service of Gaia then it could be a very interesting plot arc. Do they pull out of their nosedive in time or abandon themselves wholly to madness?

9. Identifying Hauglosk should not be easy

    Hauglosk is insidious and powerful because it is something that is entirely in line with a strict reading of Garou values. Its users want to save Gaia, its users want to fight the Wyrm, and its users argue that the situation is desperate--which is all correct. They do not so much hide behind tradition as believe that it is the failure of the Garou to do ENOUGH that has caused them to lose the Apocalypse rather than the idea they have gone too far. Many Garou agree with this sentiment even if they are not in agreement over what "enough" would look like. What is the difference between a Red Talon who wants to cull ninety-percent of all humans and one who has been consumed by their inner rage? Is there? And is the Garou Nation turning a blind eye to how deep the rot is?

10. Purging Hauglosk may require extreme measures

    One of the greatest victories the Garou achieved of the 21st century was the purging of Sword of Heimdall. It was an act that eliminated some of the worst of their kind and was done by the Get to try to redeem themselves. Sadly, it did not work. The Garou have been reforming themselves for the past two decades but that reform did not come fast enough for the Get and may not come fast enough for the Garou Nation to be saved. Ironically, an extreme solution may be the only way to end the extremism that would have the Garou all commit collective suicide by embracing worthless acts of fanaticism over seeking more cunning solutions. Is the man who suggests they slay all the Red Talons' favoring genocide insane, Hauglosk ridden, or correct?