Negative Zen

The Palladium Fantasy RPG had this great character class called the Diabloist, who had to inscribe objects/earth/whatever with various symbols/runes before a spell would work (ala FMA).  We had a GM who would make a character who played a Diabolist actually draw out their spells, and if he found the inscription lacking (or was feeling creative, or vindictive from a particularly cheesy loss in SF2 for the SNES) would visit unfortunate things upon said character.  Good stuff.

I always wondered why the folks who were all worked up about TSR’s AD&D stuff never got after the Palladium Fantasy RPG folks.  That game was far more “occult-seeming”, not to mention more gooey, than any AD&D sourcebook or campaign I ever encountered…

As a side note, pixie stix and smarties (which I just learned from Wikipedia are different in the US and Canada than they are… everywhere else, I guess?) are the only candies I really still look forward to every Halloween.  My sugar needs no real special vehicle.  Just flavor it and let me consume!