DemonSkull Studios has done a series of animations based on H.P. Lovecraft stories. My favorite is “The Thing on the Doorstep”, above. While i’m not a huge fan of video game-looking computer animation these have a certain charm. They’re very minimalist, with no real dialogue and an appropriate soundtrack. There are subtitles drawn from Lovecraft’s … Continue reading
Locus Online has a thorough review of Fritz Leiber: Selected Stories, as well as some of his other, better known works. It’s a nice piece, and a decent bit of criticism that neither over-praises or bashes the man’s work. Fafhrd & the Gray Mouser are only mentioned briefly (as “Ill Met in Lankhmar” is reprinted … Continue reading
The Tao of Rules Hacking is a walk-through of how I took a few different rules systems and smashed them together into something new and unique. It’s an essay on both game design and getting what you want out of a set of tabletop roleplaying rules. It’s a sort of practical extension and demonstration of … Continue reading
This book was originally released in 1957 under the title Two Sought Adventure. That volume contained 7 of the 10 stories here, plus “Induction”, which was moved to the first chronological volume Swords and Deviltry. Of the stories in this collection, first published in 1970, 8 were published in magazines between 1939 and 1963. The … Continue reading
As an Easter gift my wife Katie gave me this huge tome. She was tired of my frustration, in pursuing my Lovecraft studies, of having to bounce from book to book to find the next story. I have the Del Rey collections, which aren’t presented in the order they were written, unlike the Penguin editions; … Continue reading
This is my personal approximation of the classic supervillain Foxbat, converted into Savage Worlds terms, based on the Champions statistics provided in Foxbat Unhinged. This was created using the Savage Worlds Super Powers Companion, with the intent of using Foxbat as a supporting character in a Necessary Evil-based campaign I hope to run some day. … Continue reading
Abandoned places fascinate me. Deserted amusement parks, forsaken shopping malls, vacated buildings of any sort. Almost all have a combination of beauty and creepiness. They also evoke stories. Why is this place abandoned? What happened here? Where did the people go? Why was this place built in the first place? There are a number of … Continue reading
For some reason I don’t tend to talk about the Pathfinder games I’m in. Don’t ask me why, because I’m not sure. It’s not that they aren’t wonderful games, or that I’m not having boatloads of fun. They are; I am. It’s not because I don’t have an interesting character, with interesting personal plot hooks … Continue reading
Ill Met In Lankhmar Silent as specters, the tall thief and the fat thief edged past the dead, noose-strangled watch-leopard, out the thick, lock-picked door of Jengao the Gem Merchant, and strolled east on Cash Street through the thin black night-smog of Lankhmar, City of Sevenscore Thousand Smokes. In this opening, run-on sentance we learn … Continue reading
A new version of the campaign tiddlywiki is now available for download. Tiddlywiki is a free, easy to use wiki that fits on a thumb drive. It’s simple to update, highly customizable, and it’s portable. This is an example of using a Tiddlywiki to plan and track your tabletop roleplaying campaign. Like many gamemasters, I … Continue reading
