I am fucking flabbergasted.

As you well know, good reader, Papers & Pencils was recently hacked. I had to tear the whole site down before I could start to fix it. Obviously I made backups before I deleted everything.

Because the default wordpress backup system does not save images my primary backup method was an addon called “All in One WP Migration.” With over a million installs, a 4.8-out-of-5 satisfaction rating, and a frequently updated version history covering many years, it seemed a safe option. My data was backed up smoothly, and I’ve currently got a 2.55gb backup file sitting on my desktop.

After the backup was completed I deleted the database on my server, as well as all the site files, and installed a fresh wordpress on PapersPencils.com. Among the first thing I did with this fresh install was add the All in One WP Migration plugin, and attempted to import that file. An error message popped up informing me that importing from a file would require me to install a separate “importer” addon. This already struck me as skeevy. If such a thing was necessary, why wasn’t it mentioned in any of the documentation I read? Why did the base addon include an “Import” option if that option did not exist?

Clicking the provided link leads to this page.

It will cost me $69 USD to import a file larger than 512mb.

Again: the Papers & Pencils backup file is 2.55gb in size. It is a file the All In One WP Migration addon was able to create easily. A file which is currently stored on MY hard drive, which I would like to upload using MY bandwidth, onto MY server. At no point would any of the addon creator’s resources be used, aside from the code itself which was provided on the explicit understanding that it would perform its job free of charge. No strain would be placed on them for a 2.55gb website that would be greater than the strain for a 20mb website.

Nowhere on the download page is this mentioned. Looking everywhere that a person might be reasonably expected to look while making their backup, I cannot find any reference to this fee.

Essentially, my website is being held hostage.

Reading through some of the addon’s reviews, this seems to be a recent change. Perhaps within the last few months, which would explain how they’ve managed to garner such a positive reputation. The funny thing is that if they’d simply been up front with me, if they’d told m

I sincerely doubt that this is legal. I further doubt that it’s acceptable within WordPress’ own ToS for plugin authors. I don’t see an easy option available for reporting malicious plugins to WordPress, but I’ve gotten in touch with them via twitter to ask how best to report.

Fortunately for me, I’m paranoid enough to create multiple backups in multiple formats. In addition to this scammy plugin, I also used WordPress’ native backup tool (which does not back up any media), as well as doing a full scrape of my site (which did back up media, but cannot be automatically imported back into WordPress). So everything of value has been saved, but it will all require manual adjustment to make it properly presentable.

My current plan is to work on manually adjusting the last 2 years of posts before I relaunch the website. That will cover most of the work that is commonly linked to. Then, while the website is online, I can pick away at fixing the less popular and more numerous posts of the 5 earlier years of the site. Whee.

I’m not too worried about myself in all of this, to be honest. I’ll be fine. But the word should be spread far and wide that this “All in One WP Migration” plugin is not trustworthy.

UPDATE: This morning I checked back to see if there was any reply to my review on wordpress.com calling this addon a scam. There is not, but there are two 5 star reviews there to bury my review, and another similar review made shortly after mine.

Both 5 star reviews were left by accounts with boarderline nonsense names, which appear to have been created for the sole purpose of leaving these reviews. Obviously they are fake.

• 

• 

• 

Teething is uncomfortable for human children. Bits of bone slowly erupt through soft mouthflesh. Armored Boys endure their own “teething,” when plates of bone press their way out from beneath the skin all over their body. Eventually, they’ll be covered from neck to toe in a suit of natural armor, but that protection must first be earned by long, painful weeks. So you can imagine how insulting it is for them to see some soft-skinned human walking around steel plates they did not earn.

Armored Boys haven’t developed much of a language yet, communicating with one another mostly by hand gestures, and low throat-howling that is intensely unpleasant to human ears. They stand about 3’ tall.

Armor 19, Move 120’(40’), 1 Hit Die (4hp), Claws 1d6, Morale 9

Intelligence as Cave Men, 3d6 Appearing

• Reaction to Armor: If Armored Boys see someone wearing any type of armor made from segmented plates, they will focus all of their aggresssion on that target without regard for other dangers. As a single mass, they will tackle the offending character(s), and assuming they succeed, will remove 1d4 points from the character’s armor rating, until that character is completely unarmored.
• Jaw Strength: It would be trivial for an Armored Boy to split a spear or bone in half with a single snap of their jaws. It’s too awkward to properly bring to bear in combat most of the time, but they commonly use their bite to chop down small trees to make tools.

Armored Boys do not sleep. They draw energy from the darkness much the same way a tree can draw energy from the light. They are subterranean nomads, plodding through the endless caverns and passages that form the veins of the earth. They only venture to the surface if they’ve gone too long without meat. Prey is more plentiful there, but the harsh light of the moon and stars is exhausting to them, and the sun is absolutely unbearable.

The creatures reproduce asexually, budding tiny fetuses behind their armor plates. When the eye of the creature that lurks on Mars turns towards earth, these shake free. If the Armored Boy notices, it will wrap the fledgeling in a mash of meat and blood, hide it anywhere that is convenient, then move on. Within six weeks the little one will be grown enough to sniff out other fledgelings and form a new cast. The spawn are born with all their parent’s knowledge, and the new cast will begin to hunt immediately. Their plates will grow in over the course of the next three months.

Plates can be harvested from dead Armor Boys, melted down, and reforged like it were a metal. While it is no stronger than steel, its colorful, swirling “tie dyed” pattern makes it highly prized for its aesthetics.

Of all the ideas that were never meant to be, my “Spicing up the Battlemat” series is among those I most regret not following through with. If you’re not familiar with those posts, don’t feel bad, because they’re fuckin’ old. Not just “Back when I used to write about Pathfinder” old. They’re, like, “literally the first post on this blog” old. There are children who were born after I abandoned that series, who are now old enough to attend school.

The premise of the series is solid: combat in D&D is more interesting when the players have environmental factors to play with. Like chasms to push their foes into, chandeliers to swing on, etc. To better facilitate the inclusion of such factors, each post focused on a given biome, and what interesting environmental features might exist there. I even included all those maddening Pathfinder mechanics in an effort to make it quick to run at the table.

Anyway, earlier this year while I was working on Bubblegum Berzerk, my coauthor and I had a minor disagreement about the way rooms should be described. The details of that argument are boring and irrelevant, but by the end of it I had reached two conclusions:

1. He was totally right, and I was totally wrong.
2. The problem I set out to solve with “Spicing Up the Battlemat” is still a problem in my games, and in many other OSR games I’ve played in.

Don’t get me wrong, the OSR engine is much better at handling interesting environments than Pathfinder is. The “rulings, not rules” philosophy is basically meant to cover this exact sort of thing. OSR games don’t need somebody to help them determine exactly what the composition of local trees is. BUT, allowing players the agency to tinker with their environment is only a job half done. The referee also needs to give the players something to tinker with.

If the referee says “Goblins pop out from behind the trees and move to attack,” it creates a mental space for the players that looks like this:

We know we’re in a forest, but that’s just set dressing for a straightforward combat on a flat plane.

Initiative roll,

                attack roll,

                                        attack roll,

                                                                attack roll,

                                                                                                damage roll,

repeat.

With barely any extra mental effort, however, the referee can say “Goblins pop out from behind the trees and move to attack. The trees here are thick, with low hanging branches. There’s a shallow creek a dozen feet to the East.”

Suddenly the players are in a much more diverse environment. Just those two details give them something to think about. And that, in turn, will get them asking questions.

“Are there birds in the trees?”

“Is the creek bank a gentle slope, or is there a drop?”

“Are there roots sticking out of the ground anywhere?”

However you answer these questions–yes, no, or maybe–will impact how the players choose to fight. All you’ve gotta do is get those two details in there at the start.

To aide myself in doing this better, I could write a table. That’s certainly in my wheelhouse, but it wouldn’t actually be very helpful. I’m not going to keep a bunch of tables on hand, and roll them at the start of every random encounter. Instead, I’ve distilled the problem down to two questions: “What is the dominant feature of the environment like?” and “What else is here?”

What is the dominant feature of the environment like?

The dominant feature of most environments should be obvious. If you’re in a forest, the dominant feature is trees. In a desert, it’s probably sand, or maybe rocks. In swamps, you’ve got fetid water. Whatever the dominant feature is, you should be able to come up with some unusual detail.

Trees are an easy example. They can be sparse, or dense. They can be covered in vines, or moss, have rough bark, or be dripping with sap. They can have low hanging branches, or none at all. They can be rotten, or growing at a strange angle. They can have large leaves, or animal nests, or any number of other features.

Likewise, sand can be loose, or packed tightly, or it can rise and fall in dunes of large or small size. Sand  can be still, or blowing into your face, or blowing at your back.

What else is here?

Forests are not just a bunch of trees. The dominant feature of an environment is never going to be all there is, there’s always going to be something else there to play with. Rocks show up pretty much in every environment, for example, and they can be any size, from pebbles that create unsure footing, to stones ready to be used as improvised bludgeons, to boulders ready to be climbed on.

In a forest, there might be bushes or water features. In a plain, there might be tumbleweeds or mima mounds or sinkholes, in a desert there could be a copse of cacti, or some vultures circling overhead. Elevation works in pretty much any environment: the land rising and falling in gentle slopes or steep cliffs.

You don’t need me to write an exhaustive list here. You’ve been outside. When you picture a forest, of course there are trees, but…what else?

If you find this idea appealing in the slightest, you should totally check out Reynaldo Madrinan’s blog Bum Rush the Titan. He’s done a lot of work OSR-ifying Castlevania under the Barovania tag.

Most of a Ghost: Typically, a ghost is an incorporeal manifestation of an individual who has died. While such ghosts may or may not have a full recollection of their lives and knowledge of their present state, they are none the less the spiritual residue of a once-living creature.

A “Most of a Ghost” is less than that. They’re usually created on accident by a careless or distracted necromancer, like skin forming on a pot of soup. Superficially, they’re similar to a ghost in that they’re incorporeal creatures shaped in a more or less human fashion. However, they are not a manifestation of any individual, but rather, a collection of scraps from dozens of individuals, mixed with necrotic energies and other mumbo-jumbo. They’re about as real as Velveeta cheese.

Being both incorporeal and unintelligent, Most of a Ghosts are pretty useless. The best you can usually do with them is have them wander around an area like undead scarecrows, warding superstitious peasants away from your manse.

Fuckface Fish: Sometimes, fishermen jack off using a fish’s mouth.

Hey, don’t look at me. Fishermen are gross.

Anyway, these are the births that result from this act of bestiality. Fish-kind’s revenge against the lusts of man. Fuckface Fish are as large as a man, but have delicate bones and hollow organs which allow them to slip effortlessly through spaces that are seemingly impossibly small. They make their way through water pipes to take up residence in our cisterns, wells, and toilets. When they hear the movements of people nearby, they leap out to attack.

Their goal is to eat human dicks, which are their only source of nourishment, and they will happily beat a person to death if that’s what it takes to access our tasty tasty underpants sausage.

If the target is willing to prove that they have a vagina, the Fuckface Fish will gladly leave them alone.

Sisterhood of the Sine Wave: There exists a mystery cult of women mathematicians, which holds that the Sine Wave is not only a beautiful expression of mathematical perfection, but also, that it is the fundamental bedrock of all truth and beauty in the universe. (They are violently opposed to their counterparts in the Cult of the Cosine, but that is neither here nor there).

Like any mystery cult, they have their little rituals and chants, mostly designed to be spiritually fulfilling rather than efficacious or correct.  Of particular note, however, are their burial rituals, wherein the head is removed, and anointed with sacred equations. It is then released into the air, to bob up and down with constant forward motion, setting the deceased mind into an eternal contemplation of the beauty of the Sine Wave.

These anointed heads are the very definition of an unstoppable force. As such, the Sisterhood takes great pains with their equations, to set each head in motion on a path which can be followed, unobstructed, for all time. If anything does get in the way of the head’s path, the head will smash through it. This would obviously be injurious to any person who got in the way, but worse yet, could be a true catastrophe if the head were to gradually angle its way downward to plow through the earth.

Really Annoying Cat Monsters: Also known as RAC’Ms, will sit completely statue-still until approached by something with enough meat on its bones to look tasty to them.

Despite their stillness, no one would ever confuse these creatures for inanimate objects. It is completely obvious to anyone who looks at them that they’re just waiting for the right moment to spring to life and attack. Yet, despite this complete obviousness it is remarkably difficult to steel one’s self against the inevitable pounce. It always happens during some brief lull in your attentiveness, and they always leap in a slightly different direction than you think they will.

Monkey Kid: Sometimes, human children are born as Monkey kids. Like any birth defect in this primitive time, it is a condition regarded with horror and fear. The child is left out in the wilderness to be eaten by wild beasts, and the parents will be lucky if they are not forever shamed by the community for bringing a tiny monster into the world.

Monkey Kids have small brains, weak spines, and overdeveloped feet. They leap and bounce on all four limbs as they move around, and before Auschuzak, those who survived their infancy lived to a maximum age of about 15 years.

But Auschuzak, Devil Prince of the Yellow Expanse, took a liking to the wretched little things, and adopted their whole race as his children. He extended their lives to that of a normal human, deigned that they could only be percieved by those who already knew they were there, and blessed them with a a purpose.

Once a Monkey Kid reaches maturity (about 4 years old), it will begin to look for a human to latch itself onto. Any human will do, really. Once a suitable target is found, the Monkey Kid will leap onto their back, sink its teeth into their Unhappiness Glands, and begin to feed off their suffering.

The command of Auschuzak prevents the victim from noticing the weight of the creature living on their back, though they may notice how much less pleasant their life has suddenly become.

Twoskulls: A pair of Dragon skulls, one on top of the other. Both are capable of breathing fire, but neither is particularly inclined to do so unless there is some specific reason for it. They’re honestly pretty bored, being largely immobile aside from the ability to spin around, and they much prefer to try and get a bit of good conversation out of intruders.

The top skull is the more talkative of the two. It refuses to acknowledge that the bottom skull exists, referring to the bones beneath it merely as its own “body.” Bodies, of course, don’t have anything of their own to think or to say, and thus, it refuses to acknowledge the bottom skull. The top is arrogant and condescending, but generally pretty friendly.

By contrast, the bottom skull is an unhappy grumbler. It controls the movement, but has a huge inferiority complex about its position rubbing up against the floor. It’s well aware of (and hateful towards) the top skull, and appreciates any gestures of respect show to it.

Firebrain: An oblong skull which flies all around at the speed of sound, and is on fire. They jibber constantly, oscillating between low-voiced, incomprehensible grumbles, to equally incomprehensible screeching. Firebrains are angry, that much is clear. What they’re actually angry about is much less clear.

The real trick of dealing with a Firebrain is figuring out what is bothering it at the moment, using only the few words you can pick out of its speech, and whatever other context clues you can divine from the environment. If a person can appear to empathize with the Firebrain’s plight, they’ll be left alone as a similarly aggrieved comrade.

However, if a passer-by seems apathetic towards the Firebrain’s anger, they’ll be (unsurprisingly), set on fire.