THROWBACK THURSDAY: The Whole World Is A Sourcebook!

As a creative, gaming-obsessed, pre-teen I sat in my corduroy shorts in prep school assembly seeking inspiration from the hymns we sang... just what was the to hit/damage bonus of a "bow of burning gold", what effect did "arrows of desire" have and just how fast was a "chariot of fire"?

In 1977, as well as discovering Star Wars, I had been introduced to Dungeons & Dragons and the whole world was suddenly "research material".

Everywhere I looked there were potential magic items or monsters for characters to contend with in dungeons drawn from every imaginable source.

My prep school co-dungeoneer, Tom, even ran me through a D&D adventure based on the first season of The Hitchhikers' Guide To The Galaxy (a radio serial he had introduced me to and also had a major impact on my life).

Television and books (particularly the sword and sorcery tales of Fritz Leiber, and a little later Harry Turtledove's first Elabon stories - Wereblood and Werenight) shaped many adventures and characters in those early years; then later comic books became a major source of inspiration as our games moved away from straight fantasy into the four-colour world of superheroes.

From these I still have three comic book standards that I would one day love to weave into a single, long-running roleplaying game: time travel, alternate dimensions, and cosmic entities.

Yet somehow, even in the games I've run for the Tuesday Knights in the past couple of decades, I have yet to squeeze all three of them in successfully; feeling that a campaign needs to progress at a steady pace for a considerable length of time before such contrasting, incredible elements can have their full, desired impact when introduced.

That said, all three feature heavily in The Sailor on The Seas of Fate, the second of Michael Moorcock's Elric books.

Even dreamier, more surreal and more psychedelic than Elric of Melniboné, this 190-page delight had me joining Elric on a ship sailing a strange ocean that linked not just islands, but worlds and planes of existence in time and space.

In a series of three adventures, Elric discovers he is but one face of The Eternal Champion, travelling to the Earth's future with three other incarnations of the Champion (Hawkmoon, Corum and Erekose) to battle two universe-threatening alien magicians; then he finds himself being chased by a Melnibonean sorcerer from history and swept up in a mythical love story; before finally taking a Heart of Darkness-style river journey to the legendary, lost birth place of his people.

These stories continue to leave me breathless, blown away by the absorbing text, the clever imagery and mental stimuli they spark in my enfeebled brain.

It also made me appreciate, perhaps, why I have never successfully tackled such cosmic themes as I desire to in my roleplaying games - they are best left to the master storytellers!

Jabberwocky (1977)

A Dark Age kingdom is being terrorised by a mysterious monster, driving much of its populace to seek shelter behind the walls of the main city.

Eventually doddery, old King Bruno the Questionable (comedy legend Max Wall) decides to organise a brutal jousting tournament to find "a champion" to slay the beast.

This is despite appeals by his equally aged Chancellor, Passelewe (the always excellent John Le Mesurier of Dad's Army and the Hitchhiker's Guide to The Galaxy radio plays) who would rather the search was conducted in such a way as to not keep killing off the land's knights.

Meanwhile, upon the death of his father, clueless and clumsy Dennis Cooper (future national treasure Michael Palin) decides to leave the village where he grew up and move to the city, to start afresh.

This leads to a series of chaotic, often slapstick, set-pieces as he bumbles his way through every encounter from trying to get into the city to being mistaken for a prince-in-disguise by Bruno's daughter, the princess (Deborah Fallender).

Her hand-in-marriage and half the kingdom are being offered by the king to whoever kills the troublesome monster.

After his only friend, Ethel the lusty squire (Steptoe and Son's Harry H. Corbett), is accidentally killed, Dennis ends up as the squire to the eventual champion of the joust, Red Herring (Dave Prowse aka Darth Vader), and the two brave men set out into the mist-dappled lands, looking for the fearful monster.

However, the church and the rich merchant-nobles of the city aren't so keen to see the creature murdered because it is surprisingly good for business, as people are buying and praying more.

Therefore, they engineer an ambush by the Black Knight (also Dave Prowse), and his small gang of thugs, to take out Red Herring - and Dennis - before they actually reach the monster's lair.

I can't believe I was halfway through my sixtieth cycle around the sun before I made time to see Jabberwocky, a wonderfully, very British, dark comedy with smatterings of gory Grand Guignol.

While strictly not a Monty Python movie, it is written and directed by Terry Gilliam, stars Michael Palin and features several Python regular collaborators, as well as a host of British comedy faces of the era.

There's also the visual, grimy Medieval verisimilitude of 1975's Monty Python and The Holy Grail (which Gilliam co-directed) and a similar picaresque throughline to 1979's Life of Brian.

The monster - which may be the Jabberwocky of the title, but is never directly called that - remains unseen until the climax, with Gilliam instead employing canny, low-budget camera techniques as would be used in Sam Raimi's 1981 Evil Dead (and then the rest of that gore-drenched franchise).

Once we finally see it, the Jabberwocky (a man in a costume) is more Classic Doctor Who era alien than glorious Sir John Tenniel illustration, but that just heightens the surreal craziness of the film.

The film's title, and monster's possible name, comes, of course, from the famous nonsense poem in Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There.

Snatches of the poem are heard, Greek Chorus-like, throughout the film, recited by an unseen - and unidentified - Punch and Judy puppeteer, heightening the mythological - or fairy tale - nature of the adventure.

Ultimately, the 105-minute Jabberwocky may not be as laugh-out-loud funny as much of Gilliam's other work, but it still manages to be subversive and smart behind its veneer of blood, guts, and toilet humour.

FLY YOUR GEEK FLAG HIGH AS TODAY IS OUR NINETEENTH WEDDING ANNIVERSARY!!!

The only sensible way to settle domestic discussions

Not only is May the 25th (the original) Star Wars Day Towel Day (in recognition of Douglas Adams and Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy), and The Glorious 25th of May for Terry Pratchett fans, but it also happens to be our nineteenth wedding anniversary!

Rachel and I were married in a Star Wars-themed wedding... on the anniversary of the day the original film made its debut in 1977.

The commercial hubbub around May The 4th as Star Wars Day grows every year, especially since the arrival of Disney Plus, and I'm not adverse to any excuse to celebrate all things Star Wars, but, ultimately, I'm an old school, orthodox, Jedi who will always mark May 25 as his Star Wars Day.

Rachel and I tied the knot at Salomons in Southborough (between Tunbridge Wells and Tonbridge), where I made sure all the guests' tables were named after planets from the Star Wars Universe.

Rachel's arrival music was the Imperial March (still her personalised ringtone on my phone... which always makes me giggle when she calls), and Darth Vader was our ring-bearer.

It was such an amazing day.

And the adventure continues... thanks to the love of my incredibly tolerant and understanding wife.

The Force is strong in Rachel, she supports most of my geeky whims and copes incredibly with the dramatic swings of my unpredictably variable physical and mental health.

Always by my side (metaphorically), she's definitely the best co-pilot since Chewbacca.

Nineteenth anniversaries are usually associated with "bronze", so I could have, for example, asked for something to do with Bronze Age gaming miniatures (yayyyy, Ancient Greeks!) or my favourite footballer, Lucy Bronze, but, as ever, our gifts to each other were an even more eccentric mix of our own hobbies and interests.

I got Rachel a collection of miniature weights (that really have some weight to them!) for her current dolls house project (a modern property), while she got me The Legend of Zelda Encyclopaedia.

Not that I play video games, but I thought this mighty tome would be a useful reference for the Twilight Sword RPG campaign I'm thinking about.

And it's a thing of beauty: so much information, so much world building. Perfect inspiration, no matter what fantasy campaign idea I finally settle on.

It's also weird to think - not that it's important because we both love our presents - that those tiny weights (and their stand) cost around the same price as my fully-illustrated, hardback, 325-page book!

Happy Anniversary To Us

THROWBACK THURSDAY: Gublin

Andrew 'Gublin' Patterson with Matt at Adrian's wedding about 35 years ago

As I reflect on the early days of my gaming life in the occasional Throwback Thursday piece, the name Gublin will pop up every so often.

I guess my old Pembury pal Andrew "Gublin" Patterson represents all the people I played RPGs in my youth that I no longer have any contact with.

When I was at Pembury Primary School I - and another kid - won a scholarship to the prestigious Tonbridge School (the local equivalent of Hogwarts), although first we would have to attend prep school.

It turned out that this 'other kid' was Andy and he lived five doors down the road from me and was born a week before me.

Although we both went to different prep schools, Andy (who acquired the nickname Gublin at Holmewood House School because of his alleged similarity to the puppet creatures of that name!) and I became fast friends and soon developed a mutual interest in Dungeons & Dragons.

We used to play epic games of D&D, almost all centring around his character, Egghead Aramioc, and mine, Staghind Starlight, and all pretty much of the "kick down door, kill monster, take treasure" school of hack'n'slash.

Deep characterisation was not our thing - although I do remember a particularly heated in-character argument about Staghind's plans to change her hairstyle! A misunderstanding had led Egghead to think she was going for the Princess Leia-style buns on the side of the head ... when she just wanted pigtails!

To be fair, we did take the games out of the dungeon, exploring (and conquering) whole worlds on massive sheets of paper that were like rolls of wallpaper spread across the floor of his parents' house.

But Egghead and Staghind eventually grew apart and began to adventure with other people...

After prep school, we both went to Skinners' in Tunbridge Wells - instead of Tonbridge School - and soon met Matt and Nick and became a 'gang of four'.

Eventually, especially when he went off to university, we drifted apart - as young friends do - because he was of the more "work hard, play hard" ethos and I was just plain lazy.

He also tried to shake the 'Gublin' nickname and return to the more 'mature' Andy... which, of course, we ignored.

Time moved on and the last we saw of Gublin was about 35 years ago. It was Matt and Nick's brother Adrian's wedding reception and Andy announced that he was going next door to check out the other reception going on in the hotel!

Over the years I heard tales from my parents - who met his mum in the village occasionally - that he got married, had a kid, worked for a big City bank, had given it all up, bought a yacht and sailed round the world.

I seem to remember, although it's all a bit of a blur these days, that he sent me a get well card when I was in hospital, but I haven't heard anything since dad passed away. Mum moved out of Pembury and so didn't see Andy's mum anymore.

We tried to track Andy down when Matt died in 2022, but to no avail.

Gublin is just one of many gamers who have come and gone out of my life; for instance, whatever happened to Tom Edwards, who introduced me to the Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy radio series and then ran a wild D&D game based on it? Or Guy Huckle and his coterie of gaming buddies that I befriended at Skinners?

More importantly, are they still gaming?

"The Golden Age of Sci-Fi/Fantasy is 14"

In an old article on his blog about a youthful passion for the Dragonlance novels, Timothy S Brannan shared the wise saying: "The Golden Age of Sci-Fi/Fantasy is 14."

And this is so true.

The things we discover at that age stay with us.

For me, this would be around 1980... the year Hawk The Slayer came out.

I've written often of my love for this most Dungeons & Dragons of all fantasy movies (and probably will continue to do so).

At the dawn of the '80s, I was already engrossed in the stop-motion worlds of Ray Harryhausen fantasy movies (his last, Clash of The Titans, would come out in 1981), and this was also the era of the original Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back (which came out in 1980).

I was reading mainly sci-fi (Hitchhikers Guide to The Galaxy, Stainless Steel Rat etc), if I recall correctly (inspired by the galaxy far, far away), but my young gaming hobby had propelled me to the works of Fritz Leiber.

His Fafhrd and The Grey Mouser stories would come to influence my Dungeons & Dragons adventures as much as Harryhausen's Sinbad at that time.

I was always a player - rather than a Dungeon Master - in my early years, so was interested in character ideas, rather than grander plots and world-building (not that I didn't appreciate them at that time, but they just weren't as useful from a gaming perspective).

I had yet to stumble upon the stack of New Teen Titans in a second-hand book store in Tunbridge Wells and become a fully-fledged comic book collector, but I still dabbled in that medium.

2000AD was my publication of choice at that age.

And, of course, all these things still hold sway over me and continue to influence my gaming and broader hobby interests.

I don't think I realised, until just now, quite how important the art we discover at that particular age is in shaping the sort of person we grow into in our adult life and our hobbies, passions, and interests.

THROWBACK THURSDAY: School Daze

Having somehow fluked a scholarship to the prestigious Tonbridge School (I think I used to be smart... but also lazy; some things haven't changed, at least), I attended Yardley Court Prep School for three years and the picture above is our class photo from 1979, when I was a mere twelve-and-a-half years old.

I still recognise about 50 per cent of my classmates; that's me on the front row, at the right end.

My best friends were Nicholas Drewett, to my left - whose dad was an ambassador (or some such) and so often during the holidays Nicholas would stay with us as his parents were out of the country - and Tom Edwards, at the left-hand end of the middle row. His parents owned a massive farm house just outside of Tonbridge that I loved visiting.

Tom and I used to play Dungeons & Dragons in the school dormitory (even though neither of us were boarders, and probably shouldn't have been in there). I particularly recall a series of adventures inspired by Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy (Tom had introduced me to the radio show, for which I owe him eternal thanks).

Our form teacher was the Rev Gary Dobbie, who was one of the first (after one of my primary school teachers) to encourage me in the field of creative writing.

As with much of my past, the combination of time and brain damage means that much of my school days are a blur or simply gone forever, but looking at this array of innocent young faces I can't help but wonder what my peers have all got up in their lives since then.

Sadly, when I left Yardley - not to go to Tonbridge School (as, even with a scholarship, there was no way my parents could afford the fees, and - to be honest - I wasn't that bothered anyway) - I lost contact with them all, to a man.

Either through my parents, or my job on the local paper, I made fleeting contact with a couple of them in later years, but nothing of enduring importance.

IT'S OUR EIGHTEENTH WEDDING ANNIVERSAY!!!

The ritual exchange of gifts and cards

Eighteen years ago today Rachel and I got married.

Yesterday, we marked the occasion with a lovely meal at The North Pole in Waterinbury, with Rachel's parents (who very kindly paid) and later presented us with a magnificent array of lights for our garden.

Lunch at The North Pole

This morning Rachel and I exchanged our own gifts (none - thankfully - matching the official "porcelain" theme of an 18th wedding anniversary, it must be noted): I got her a dinosaur dress and another cheery book about the horrors of Auschwitz, while she gave me a box set of Stephen King's Dark Tower saga and a large bar of chocolate.

The plan had been to visit Raystede animal sanctuary later, but we both fell asleep and when we woke there wasn't enough time to get to the rescue centre.

Instead, we opted to take Alice on a walk around our nearby lake, where we met a lot of other dog walkers, so that was lovely.

Haysden Country Park

There's always time for ice cream on a healthy country walk

Of course, not only is May 25 our wedding anniversary, but also (the original) Star Wars Day Towel Day (in recognition of Douglas Adams and Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy).

Rachel and I were married in a Star Wars-themed wedding... on the anniversary of the day the original film made its debut in 1977.

The hubbub around May The 4th as Star Wars Day grows every year, especially since the arrival of Disney+, and I'm not adverse to any excuse to celebrate all things Star Wars, but, ultimately, I'm an old school, orthodox, Jedi who will always mark May 25 as his Star Wars Day.

Rachel and I tied the knot at Salomons in Southborough (between Tunbridge Wells and Tonbridge),where I made sure all the guests' tables were named after planets from the Star Wars Universe.

Rachel's arrival music was the Imperial March (still her personalised ringtone on my phone... which always makes me giggle when she calls), and Darth Vader was our ring-bearer.

It was such an amazing day.

And the adventure continues... thanks to the love of my incredibly tolerant and understanding wife.

The Force is strong in Rachel, she supports most of my geeky whims and copes incredibly with the dramatic swings of my unpredictably variable physical and mental health.

One of our great wedding pictures: The only sensible way to settle domestic discussions