More Blood and Souls For My Lord Arioch!

Michael Moorcock's Elric may not have been my (post-Tolkien) introduction to the sword-and-sorcery genre (that honour rests with Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd and The Gray Mouser), it was Moorcock's work that truly shaped my taste in reading.

I haven't read any Leiber in an age, but I often revisit the twisted, hallucinogenic, weird fantasy adventures of Elric of Melniboné and The Young Kingdoms.

There's something about the succinctness of Moorcock's early tales of Elric and his soul-devouring sword Stormbringer that I've always found more enchanting than the doorstop tomes so prevalent today.

It was after years of reading Moorcock that I instituted my "Moorcock Rule" (more of a guideline)  that stated that a book REALLY had to work hard to justify itself if it ran longer than 150-200 pages. 

That said, I've never used the Young Kingdoms - nor any of the trappings of Elric's adventures (even Stormbringer, itself) - in my own roleplaying games. 

I don't own a copy of Chaosium's Stormbringer/Elric of Melniboné RPGs (1981 - 2010). I've looked into it in the last couple of decades but those books generally command silly money on the secondary market.

However, in recent weeks, both Goodman Games and Free League have announced they will be releasing games based on this IP next year (after crowdfunding campaigns).

Goodman Games is planning two different iterations: one using Dungeons & Dragons 5e and one using Dungeon Crawl Classics. While I feel the latter system is probably more suited to emulating the demon-fuelled magic of Elric's world, neither of these systems really tickle my fancy at the moment.

However, my interest is well-and-truly piqued by Free League's offering, Legends of Stormbringer, which will run on the Dragonbane engine. 

I know I keep saying I'm out of the buying new games side of the hobby, but to quote Michael Corleone in The Godfather, Part III:

"Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in."

Dragonbane isn't a game I'm particularly familiar with, except from second hand accounts which are a generally overwhelmingly positive... with a few minor niggles about some of the mechanics.

A translated version of Drakar och Demoner, a game system played in Scandinavia since 1982, Dragonbane's definitely been at the top of my "must check out the starter set" list since it was first released in English in 2023.

This recent announcement might be the nudge I "needed" to pull the trigger on yet another game that I may - or may not - run for the Tuesday Knights.

You can read about Free League's forthcoming Stormbringer offering (and a bit about Dragonbane) here.

Lord of The Elves aka Age of The Hobbits aka Clash of Empires (2012)

Okay, confession time. I have a bit of a weakness for Bai Ling. I know she's not the world's greatest actress, but I find her alluringly watchable in whatever awful B-movie she turns up in.

And Lord of The Elves is a classic of that genre. Crafted by the masterminds at The Asylum as a mockbuster of Peter Jackon's first Hobbit movie, this was originally called Age of The Hobbits until the lawyers stepped in and its name changed to Lord of The Elves.

Then, without any warning or explanation, it suddenly underwent a bland renaming to Clash of Empires.

The Blu-Ray I have of this is entitled Lord Of The Elves, but for the sake of clarity I should point out at this stage that not only is the word "lord" never used in this 82-minute flick, but there are also no "elves" in it, nor is that word mentioned either.

Of course, both of these words do have connections with the rather popular Lord of The Rings movies, but that's surely a coincidence, right?

Inspired by real-world archaeology, the action of Lord of The Elves takes place 12,000 years ago on Flores Island, Indonesia (where examples of an early hominid, Homo floresiensis, were found in 2003).

But this is an Asylum movie, not a National Geographic documentary. As well as being populated with giant lizards, some of which can fly (like dragons), and giant spiders, the island is home to three types of human: the diminutive vegetarian Tree People, cannibalistic cavemen called the Rock Men (who ride the flying lizards on occasion), and a tribe of hunters that the Tree People refer to as "giants" but are simply humans.

When the Rock Men raid the Tree People village - to stock up on snacks for their cooking pot - one family escapes, fleeing to the land of the "giants", where they gain assistance from Amthar (Stargate SG-1's Christopher Judge), Laylan (Bai Ling), and a couple of disposable prehistoric red shirts.

Together, despite being severely outnumbered, they stage a rescue mission on the Rock Men's encampment in the hope of saving the captive Tree People.

Shot on location in the jungles and mountains of Cambodia, Lord of The Elves certainly looks mythic.

It just kind of falls apart when people get involved.

Eric Forsberg's script is simplistic, to say the least, and much of the acting is am dram level. While some bad dubbing contributes to this, I have a suspicion that Christopher Judge was the only true actor on set, and most of the rest were Cambodian locals randomly roped in because they 'looked the part'.

I'm sorry, I can't help myself...

Except for eye candy, I'm not exactly sure what Bai Ling or her character really contributed to the movie. Being generous, you could say that Laylan has a basic revenge arc, but she could easily have been excised from the movie and nothing would have changed.

Of course, I might not have been so keen to watch it. But that's a different story entirely.

The giant creatures, and the faux-dragons, are delivered as mediocre CG monsters, but actually they're not so poor that they take the audience out of the moment (come on, you're watching an Asylum joint, what were you expecting? Marvel Studios level CGI?).

The monsters help add some colour to the otherwise human-centric "fantasy" tale , which, barring its prehistoric setting, has an element of Willow about it as well.

Let's be honest, Lord of The Elves (or whatever you want to call it) is not a great movie, and bears absolutely no resemblance to any of the big budget Hobbit movies.

However, if you're a fan of classic cavemen movies, such as One Million Years B.C., Clan of The Cave Bear, Quest for Fire, When Dinosaurs Ruled The Earth etc then you might be able to eke out some silly fun from this nonsense.

Dragon Crusaders (2011)

You have to admire the unrepentant chutzpah of The Asylum for its continued use of unattributed quotes making grandiose claims on their DVD boxes.

For Dragon Crusaders, an "anonymous critic" has declared it: "an epic action adventure in the tradition of Clash Of The Titans and Reign Of Fire!"

The Reign Of Fire angle being that it features dragons and the only Clash Of The Titans (presumably the remake) connection is the use of dodgy CGI - and, to be honest, it's actually a bit better here.

Dragon Crusaders is typical, low-budget Asylum mockbuster fare, but I've always contended that their fantasy, sword-and-sorcery titles are among their best - 2006's Dragon was the first Asylum flick I saw and remains my favourite.

A group of outlawed Knights Templar are fleeing across faux-Medieval England to find a sanctuary from the pursuing soldiers of the king (who we never see and are quickly forgotten about) when they are distracted by sounds of battle in a nearby town, which is being raided by pirates.

The Templars - of course - ride in and save the day, slaying the pirates, and then heading out to the pirate ship (which looks oddly anachronistic) to finish the job.

Unfortunately, as they arrive, a captive witch - Neem (Shinead Byrne) - on the ship has just finished invoking a curse that any who set foot on the boat and have shed blood will be transformed into demonic gargoyles.

The curse has a couple of twists - first anyone affected by it, but slain before the transformation takes place, will rise as a revenant and secondly the purer the soul of the cursed the longer the transformation will take.

Dispatching the pirate-revenants with the aid of wandering warrior woman Aerona (Cecily Fay), Neem reveals that she found the curse in a grimoire she stole from the "Black Dragon" sorcerer who has her people in thrall.

And the only way to break the curse is to travel to the Black Dragon's fortress and slay him. Oh, and Faolon (Steve McTigue) is called the Black Dragon because he can transform into one and has another seven, smaller dragons under his control.

There's witchcraft, bickering, internal disputes, chaste romance and some pretty decent fight scenes (even if one of the largest, against an entire 'village' of the sorcerer's slaves, just seems to suddenly stop without any resolution) along the way and if you can ignore the plot holes, dreadful acting, cheesy dialogue and laughable attempts at banter, Dragon Crusaders is an okay film.

Welsh-location filming certainly adds to the verisimilitude, and the woodlands and sweeping, rolling landscape makes for a dramatic backdrop to the action.

A 'silent' knight turns up at one point, peppering our heroes with arrows, seemingly commanding Faolon's dragons and then challenging the lead Templar, John (Dylan Jones), to single combat... but then disappears from the story as suddenly as he appeared.

Throw in some exploding salt peter for good measure, some slick fight moves from Aerona and the Templar's resident archer (Feth Greenwood) and there's quite a bit to keep you entertained for an hour-and-a-half as long as you aren't expecting a replay of Peter Jackson's Lord Of The Rings or either iteration of Conan The Barbarian.

Snow White And The Huntsman (2012)

Snow White And The Huntsman is the classic tale of Snow White given the full-on Lord Of The Rings treatment.

Director Rupert Sanders was clearly taking lessons from Peter Jackson with his presentation of a fully-developed fantasy world.

Unfortunately, for all its sumptuous production values, the script by Evan Daugherty, John Lee Hancock and Hossein Amini is quite flawed - the pacing is rather measured, to put it politely (most would call it slow), the magic mirror (a key element of the story and a great special effect) is forgotten about a third of the way into the story, and the central characters of the Huntsman (Chris Hemsworth) and Snow's childhood sweetheart, William (Sam Claflin) both serve the same role in the movie. This duplication of roles is further highlighted by the script's failure to resolve either character's personal journey.

And all that brings us to Snow White herself. Kristen Stewart may have the whole Twilight thing under her belt and is reasonably easy on the eye, but she is totally devoid of charisma in this movie - this is never more evident than in her "rousing speech" to her father's subjects hiding out in the castle of Duke Hammond (Vincent Regan).

She is supposedly whipping them up into a frenzy of rebellion against the evil queen Ravenna (Charlize Theron), but totally fails to sell it. I couldn't imagine an army following her to the supermarket let alone into battle against a powerful, magical foe.

That said, the film gave us a well thought-out back story of how the witch Ravenna usurped Snow White's father and took over the kingdom - even if we are supposed to believe that for the decade (or longer) that Snow was kept imprisoned, the lone rebel Duke Hammond - father of William - was able to hold out against the queen and her mastery of the dark arts.

When Snow comes of age (and thus the queen is no longer "the fairest in the land"), she escapes captivity and flees into the well-realised Dark Forest.

Ravenna summons The Huntsman to track Snow down, on the promise that she will bring his dead wife back to life if he delivers. Realising that the queen's offer is an empty one, the Huntsman instead helps Snow to escape the forest and head towards Duke Hammond's castle.

On the way they are captured by the seven dwarf bandits - who count a number of famous faces amongst them: such as Ian McShane, Bob Hoskins, Ray Winstone, Nick Frost and Toby Jones.

And the dwarves are another strength of the film. Once you get over the initial shock of seeing such well-known faces on the bodies of little people, they are wholly convincing and wouldn't look out of place around the table at Bag End when Thorin and co pay a visit to Bilbo Baggins.

The dwarves then escort Snow and the Huntsman to their final destination, and play an integral part in the princess's scheme to get her kingdom back and avenge her father's death.

But of course the stand-out performance of the piece is Charlize Theron as the evil queen, who not only acts Kristen Stewart out of the picture but looks every inch the majestic evil sovereign, whatever make-up effects are piled on her to show the ageing cost of her magic.

There are even, early on, strong suggestions of an incestuous, Game Of Thrones-style relationship between Ravenna and her (twin?) brother Finn (Sam Spruell), but this, ultimately, being a children's movie that particular sub-plot also goes nowhere - although there is definitely a link of some kind between them as demonstrated when the Huntsman slays Finn.

Stylistically Snow White And The Huntsman is a visually impressive retelling of Snow White story, but the script has serious, basic issues that really should have been picked up during the film's development.

MUSICAL MONDAY: Deathstalker (Brendan McCreary, Chuck Cirino, Slash, and Bear McCreary)

The ’80s cult classic Deathstalker is back in an amped-up, reverential reboot, courtesy of writer-director Steven Kostanski (Frankie Freako, Psycho Goreman) and executive producer Slash (Guns N' Roses).

The film features a stellar, rousing, equally tributary title track from Emmy and BAFTA Award–winning composer Bear McCreary (The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, The Walking Dead) and Slash.

"Arise, Arise, Riders of Théoden! Eggs Shall Be Eaten..."

Honestly, I wasn't looking for Easter Eggs - just admiring the well-decorated grounds

As I mentioned in my little Easter post, we spent the majority of this afternoon at an Easter Egg Hunt, held in the grounds of Saint Hill Manor, East Grinstead.

This wasn't really my usual "tree safari" (there were way too many people around, for one thing), but a chance to do something a little different.

As I stressed earlier, we weren't there for the egg hunt per se, but there were plenty of other cute animal-themed activities on offer.

We started our afternoon watching - safely at the top of the hill - the "big egg hunt", which, after a countdown, saw hundreds of kids and their parents charging down into the natural bowl behind the manor, and up the other side, hunting for the many, many tiny eggs that had been scattered around for them to find.

Ready, set,,,

GO!!!

It was basically the Ride of The Rohirrim, but chasing down chocolate eggs rather than Sauron's orcs.

There were some impressive customed characters wandering around the grounds of the stately home - including children's TV star Bluey - who, of course, we had to get some pictures with.

I think Alice must have been looking even cuter than usual as she got so much attention and made a ton of new friends.

There was a small petting zoo, but the highlight of the afternoon, for me, was the outdoor talk by Living Things, about the variety of reptiles, creepy crawlies, and mammals that had been brought along to educate the rapt audience of children, their parents, and animal-lovers such as us.

We were introduced to a number of creatures that neither Rachel nor I had even heard of before, and the presenter was great with both the excitable younger members of the audience and the animals she was carefully handling.

The snake was cool, but...

...who doesn't love a meerkat?

Early Thoughts on Personalising The Twilight Sword Setting

As a youngling I had this Pauline Baynes map of Narnia on my bedroom wall

With the impending release of the beta PDF of Twilight Sword, I have begun to noodle around ideas for "personalising" the lands of Radia - the game's default setting. 

World building from scratch is one of my weaknesses as a gamesmaster: all my worlds created whole cloth tend to end up as simply reskinned versions of real lands from Medieval(ish) Earth... and not in a clever, Robert E Howard Age of Hyboria way.

I also have a tendency to "Game of Thrones" things up before the first die is slung, by which I mean I overcomplicate and hyperdetail the setting way beyond anything the players will probably ever have any interaction with.

This is because I tend to fall in love with my settings and then mistakenly believe I'm the next JRR Tolkien, CS Lewis or George RR Martin! When all I'm really doing is creating a backdrop for some wonderfully silly elfgames.

Aware of this fault in my planning process, I'm approaching Radia - which we know is inspired by video games and anime - with broader strokes.

At the moment, clearly, I know almost nothing about the actual, 'official' setting, so am just scraping together notes and bullet points of ideas, locations, names (for places and people) etc that - hopefully - veer away from the usual Western/Tolkien norm of fantasy settings.

For the anime influences for Radia, I shall be looking to pick up cues from my beloved Frieren: Beyond Journey's End, Record of Lodoss War, and Delicious in Dungeon.

My knowledge of anime is limited (although greater than my knowledge of video games), but I remain firm in my belief that these three serials have the best resources in the pure fantasy (Dungeons & Dragons-inspired) genre.

Beyond anime, I'm looking at established settings such as Narnia, Wonderland, Oz, Neverland, Eternia, and Arduin, and films like Labyrinth, The NeverEnding Story, The Dark Crystal, and so on, rather than my usual inspirations, for example Hawk The Slayer and Lord of The Rings. 

Don't get me wrong Hawk The Slayer remains the definitive old school Dungeons & Dragons movie in my book and Peter Jackson's Lord of The Rings trilogy is simply the greatest movie of all time, which I ensure I watch at least once a year from start to finish.

But, in my experience, the thing I find about such intricate settings as Middle-Earth and Westeros is that they are 'fragile'. If you mess around with them too much they break and are no longer the setting you fell in love with in the first place.

Now, I know you can say: but it's your game, you can do what you like with the setting, who's going to know?

But, besides the fact that I would know, it's my belief that these settings are so intricately interwoven that if you mess with, or change, one bit it will have a cascade effect further down the line so that something else isn't going to make sense (just look at George RR Martin's anger with The House of The Dragon tv show because characters were cut out who actually have an important role to play in the story at a later date).

Hence, why I'm shifting my focus to loosey-goosey, weird and surreal settings that are governed by more fairy tale aesthetics. I believe these will gel more with my vision - and understanding - of how Radia (and Twilight Sword) is supposed to operate.

Of course, I could be completely wrong. But I hope not.

I'd really like to run a setting that was, at once, familiar to the Tuesday Knights but also fresh and original, and not just another Middle-Earth/Forgotten Realms/Medieval Europe retread. 

And has talking animals.

Exploring The Afterlife in Dungeons & Dragons

Image by Nanne Tiggelman from Pixabay

Complementing my thoughts on resurrection in a fantasy setting from back in January, the excellent YouTuber DnDHunter has just released an inciteful 15-minute video on what happens to characters that die in the 'official' Dungeons & Dragons mythologies.

Gor (1987)

Generally I'm not one to complain if a movie based on a novel doesn't stick one hundred per cent to its source material, but this 1987 adaptation of John Norman's Tarnsman of Gor is simply taking the piss.

Branded as John Norman's Gor, the opening credits proudly proclaim that this film is based on Tarnsman of Gor - but the first thing you notice is the marked absence of any actual tarns: the roc-like warbirds the warriors of Gor ride into battle.

Instead they have horses.

This is pretty much on a par with Peter Jackson replacing the eagles with Irish Wolfhounds in The Hobbit or Lord of The Rings trilogies.

But this isn't the only peculiar choice scriptwriters Rick Marx and Harry Alan Tower and director Fritz Kiersch make in this un-faithful of adaptation of Norman's 1966 pulpy sword-and-planet story.

It almost feels as if they scanned through the book, picked out key names and phrases and then scattered them at random throughout the script.

We first meet our protagonist, wimpy physics professor Tarl Cabot (Urbano Barberini) lecturing bored students about the magical ring he inherited from his father and its connection to an alien world known as Counter-Earth or Gor (which is odd because when he actually arrives on this alien world and is told the planet's name he doesn't register that this is the place he was talking about 10 minutes earlier).

Having lost his girl to a campus bully (an early appearance from The Mummy's Arnold Vosloo), Cabot is involved in a car accident and wakes up to find himself on Counter-Earth.

However, it's not the alien world readers of the Gor books would be familiar with - the towering spires of the Gorean cities have been replaced by mud huts and caves, while the verdant nature of Gor is replaced with never-ending deserts (more Barsoom than Gor).

Clumsy Tarl accidentally stumbles into the role of hero when the village of Ko-Ro-Ba is raided by the soldiers of Priest-King Sarm (Oliver Reed) - in the books the Priest-Kings are large insectoid creatures, but not here - who are stealing the village's mystical Home Stone (a big point in the book is how bland and ordinary the Home Stones are) and kidnapping the village's ruler, Marlenus (Larry Taylor).

In the book, Marlenus is, in fact, the villain of the piece and it is his megalomaniacal schemes to take over Gor that Tarl is opposed to. Here, he's just some old duffer that Tarl has to rescue - aided by Marlenus' daughter Talena (Rebecca Ferratti) and other random one-dimensional characters - including an annoying midget called Hup (Nigel Chipps). No, I don't know why, either!

With a two-minute training montage, idiot Tarl is transformed into hero Tarl and the plot devolves rapidly into a run-of-the-mill "lifting the yoke of slavery" storyline - which, again, anyone familiar with Norman's Gor series will appreciate the irony of.

Given the general level of sauciness in the novels, it's bizarre that when Tarl is taken to Sarm's decadent palace of delights, it's more Flash Gordon than Flesh Gordon.

This is possibly the only '80s babes-and-barbarians movie where the women keep all their clothes on!

Then just as you think everything is coming to an end, and you're wondering where Jack Palance - mentioned high in the opening credits - has got to, Jack Palance appears, as another Priest-King, and introduces a whole other storyline which goes nowhere and doesn't appear to amount to anything.

Who could have realised they were actually, rather clumsily, setting up a sequel - Outlaw Of Gor - that was filmed alongside Gor?

While Palance is barely in this movie, mention must be made of the other big name though: Oliver Reed. Clearly the worse for wear from drink in many of his scenes, I hope Oli's towering genius was well-rewarded with alcohol for allowing his name - and talent - to be attached to such a trashy flick as this.

Gor is one of those incredible pieces of cinema that is so changed from its source material you have to wonder why the film-makers didn't go the whole hog and simply make it its own thing. It's not as the Gor books have ever had the same cultural cachet of, say, Lord Of The Rings.

There are only really a couple of minor details that they actually get right, subtle little background details (such as the Gorean drink 'paga'), that it would have far simpler to have changed the character and place names (most of which are already used incorrectly anyway) to something else and dropped the Gor connection entirely.

On the plus side, Gor is full of unintentionally funny moments, crappy fight sequences, no-budget special effects, a plot that meanders all over the place, and a drunk Oliver Reed. And Oliver Reed - drunk or sober - can make anything watchable.

Beastmaster III - The Eye Of Braxus (1996)

The beastmaster Dar (V's Marc Singer) is reunited with his young half- brother Tal (Starship Trooper's Casper Van Dien, sporting a most unconvincing wig) now ruler of the small barbarian kingdom of Aruk, and the warrior Seth (horror legend Tony Todd), both characters from the original movie, but now recast.

Tal was bequeathed a mysterious amulet by their late father, and this is - of course - the MacGuffin (the titular Eye of Braxus) sought by the warlord-wizard Agon (the ever-excellent David Warner).

After Dar leaves Tal's encampment, it is set upon by Agon's Crimson Warriors (so-called because of their red-coloured sword blades) who kidnap the king and take him back to their master.

You can't go wrong with David Warner

Agon is pissed though because Tal no longer has all of the Eye of Braxus, which is required to open a doorway beyond which lies the imprisoned Lord of The Pit, the evil old god Braxus, and "ultimate power" to any who release him.

Canny Tal had given half of the medallion to his wandering, nomadic brother for safe-keeping.

Driven to rescue his brother, Dar teams up with Seth, who had been acting as Tal's advisor, and roguish-swordswoman Shada (Sandra Hess, who played Andrea Von Strucker in The Hoff's Marvel movie, Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D, and who has surprisingly coiffured hair for someone in her line of work).

Shada's loyalties tend to flip-flop, as she - rather successfully - plays both sides, and eventually picks the winning one.

As a love-interest for Dar, Shada was never going to measure up to Kiri (the late, lamented Tanya Roberts of Charlie's Angels fame) from the original Beastmaster, but she grew on me as her character developed.

Near-naked and constantly oiled-up Dar is never without his small coterie of telepathically-linked animal companions, a pair of ferrets (representing his cunning), a hawk (as his eyes), and a lion (for strength).

Oddly the lion has the same name - Ruh - as Dar's panther from the first film, but I suspect this is a similar naming convention to The Witcher's Geralt of Rivia always calling his horse Roach.

By the way, these aren't CGI creatures, but flesh-and-blood animals on the set, which does make a scene of the lion's capture slightly uncomfortable viewing, but I like to think the noble beast's handlers took good care of it.

After a run-in with some savage hill people, Seth, Dar, and Shada get to Agon's city, and decide to join a circus camped outside the walls, as a cover to smuggle themselves in.

Only the circus (which seems to have just two performers and a stable boy on staff) turns out to be run by an ex-lover of Seth's, Morgana (soap opera stalwart Lesley-Anne Down), who possesses a magical gem in her headband that can turn living things into animals.

Morgana, Dar, and Shada

This all gets a bit awkward, and leads to an another apparent betrayal of Dar, but Morgana actually has a plan and Dar being imprisoned in Agon's fortress is part of it.

I have to admit that I really enjoyed Beastmaster III: The Eye of Braxus, like the previous films in the franchise it neither takes itself too seriously nor sends-up its subject matter.

The low, made-for-TV, budget, and the steady hand of established television director Gabrielle Beaumont (who lists multiple episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation, Hill Street Blues, and L.A. Law, to name-check just a few, on her CV)  lends an air of Xena: Warrior Princess and Legendary Journeys of Hercules to proceedings that prepares us mentally for the "man-in-a-rubber-suit" final Big Bad.

While David Wise's script has its plot wobbles on occasion and isn't going to win an Oscar, there's great evidence of world-building here. More places and people get actual names in Beastmaster III than most B-movie sword-and-sorcery flicks.

The cast may be small - and this makes for some comically empty backdrops to some scenes - but most of the named characters we meet are interesting and quirky.

So much of the story also has a very Conan feel to it, but it's just the budgetary limitations once again that prevent it from going full wide-screen barbarian, instead recasting Dar's band of brothers as a mismatched party of Dungeons & Dragons adventurers instead.

It's all a question of managing your expectations, if you go in expecting another chapter of Peter Jackson's Lord of The Rings, you're going to be disappointed, but if you're looking for something more akin to Hercules or Xena then you can have a great time with this hour-and-a-half movie.

Yes, of course, it could have been so much better, but there's actually so much to enjoy that did make it onto the screen that I must confess I was pleasantly entertained by The Eye of Braxus.

The Sword of Xanten (2004)

Part Dungeons and Dragons romp, part Xena: Warrior Princess and a smidge of Lord of The Rings, Sword of Xanten is based on the Germanic myth Das Nibelungenlied and the Nordic Volsunga Saga, which also inspired the four-opera cycle by Richard Wagner and Tolkien's world famous ring-centric work.

The film is a loose retelling of the legend of Siegfried and Brunhild as swords-and-sorcery viewed through a soap lens.

Weaving a complicated plot, with inevitable unhappy ending, it's easy to see why Wagner would want to adapt this story.

The acting is fine for what it is and you can't help but be distracted by the gorgeous Kristanna Loken (T-X from Terminator 3: Rise of The Machines), perfectly cast as Icelandic warrior-queen Brunhild and the lovely Alica Witt as naïve Kriemhild.

Great scenery, slow-motion bundles (it's a bit of an exaggeration to call most of them 'fights'), arch acting and above-average CGI make for a great little pot boiler.

It's quite long (around three hours) but The Sword of Xanten (aka Ring of the Nibelungs) is non-stop fun and frolics all the way - with a bit of sauciness and a bit of blood - that can hold the attention of a willing viewer.

The Chronicles Of Narnia: The Voyage Of The Dawn Treader (2010)

When Prince Caspian breathed new life into The Chronicles Of Narnia franchise (after the pretty bland Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe), I had high expectations for the next adaptation from the cycle: The Voyage Of The Dawn Treader.

And I wasn't disappointed.

Lucy (Georgie Henley) and Edmund Pevensie (Skandar Keynes) find themselves transported once again from war-torn England to the fantastical land of Narnia.

This time the method of transport is a magical painting and they are joined by their obnoxious and cowardly cousin Eustice (the great Will Poulter in an early role).

Plucked from the sea by King (formerly Prince) Caspian (Ben Barnes) on board the sailing ship Dawn Treader, the children soon find themselves swept up in an epic voyage to track the location of seven lost friends of Caspian's father who held seven magic swords that are required to defeat a growing evil in the East.

The evil manifests itself as a green mist that has the ability to project itself as one's fears and doubts.

There is a moment, towards the end, when Edmund realises that the green mist has latched onto his own fears and with the look he gives, and the way he says "oh no", you just know 90 per cent of the adults watching are thinking: "Stay Puft Marshmallow Man".

Voyage Of The Dawn Treader is a classic sea-borne, island-hopping tale, in the style of The Odyssey and Sinbad stories, with every island being a different - increasingly dark - encounter for our party of adventurers as they make their way towards their final destination.

A true family action adventure film, this expands the fantasy world of Narnia beautifully, with some truly amazing visuals - to rival those of Peter Jackson's Lord Of The Rings movies - and high quality special effects that are so slick they never threaten to shatter your suspension of disbelief.

Director Michael Apted ensures there's never a dull moment here and, even though our heroes never actually set foot on the final island, the story wraps up in a suitably magical and convincing fashion that shouldn't leave anyone dissatisfied.

Although there is physical conflict in Voyage Of The Dawn Treader, most of the story revolves around dealing with intellectual and emotional problems - but in ways far more exciting than I've just made it sound!

A clever story, unsurprisingly there are "messages" in the text, but they are reasonably subtle and good natured, working on a fairy tale moral level rather than a sledgehammer approach.

The returning young performers, Henley and Keynes, have grown into their roles.

For completists there are some nice cameos by Tilda Swinton as The White Witch, Anna Popplewell as Susan Pevensie and William Moseley as Peter Pevensie.

Liam Neeson once more lends his vocal skills to Aslan and geek-favourite Simon Pegg replaces Eddie Izzard as the voice of warrior mouse Reepicheep.

The source material's Christian allegory gets a bit heavy-handed at the end when Aslan is talking to Lucy about "being known by another name" in our world (I'm presuming it's not Leo), but given then one of the characters willingly volunteers to travel on to "Aslan's country" (Heaven?) is this also advocating suicide as the character wasn't dead, just satisfied that he had had enough adventures in Narnia?

And, of course, the big difference between believing in Aslan, in Narnia, and believing in God, in the real world, is that Aslan is a walking, talking, breathing lion - not so much a test of faith as a test of eyesight.

Sometimes, I guess, it doesn't pay to think too much about these things!

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe (2005)

Let's get one thing straight - this is not the next Lord Of The Rings. That trilogy set the bar so high for fantasy films that it would take something pretty amazing to even equal it. The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe is not that film.

Amazing (but sometimes a bit wonky) effects sequences, wonderfully animated talking creatures, beautiful sweeping New Zealand scenery and odd flashes of humour can't stop this being very clearly an old school children's' film with a simplistic story, cheesy - yet key, from the source material - bits (like the appearance of Father Christmas to hand out the 'magic weapons') and occasional two-dimensional characters.

While we're obviously supposed to root for our young protagonists - the Pevensie siblings: Georgie Henley as Lucy; Skandar Keynes as Edmund; William Moseley as Peter; and Anna Popplewell as Susan - they are rather overwhelmed by the supernatural elements of the story, particularly the pitch perfect casting of the iconic Tilda Swinton as Jadis The White Witch.

Thankfully the Christian subtext of C.S. Lewis's novel is presented here subtly and Liam Neeson turns in a warm vocal performance as Aslan, but it's the CGI Beavers and wolves that will really stick in the mind.

A mild distraction, The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe is a pleasant piece of gore-free fluff that would have become (in the olden days of limited TV channels) a Saturday afternoon television staple to distract the wee kiddies from their consoles and social media once ITV's copy of the Railway Children had worn out.

A New Excalibur Is Being Forged

Before Tolkien.

Before Narnia.

Before fantasy became English.

From the mist-shrouded mountains of Wales comes a forgotten origin — a myth born in the land itself.

Excalibur returns to the earliest roots of the Arthurian legend — mysterious, magical, ancient, and forged in Welsh myth.

Featuring Sylvester McCoy (Doctor Who, The Hobbit) in the official teaser. Bringing Fantasy Home to Wales. Follow the journey at www.excaliburfilm.com

Multi award-winning writer, director and producer, Dan Freeman's Excalibur, a £13 million fantasy feature drawing directly from Welsh mythological sources, has officially entered pre-production.

Written and directed by Dan Freeman (The Minister of Chance, Death Comes to Time), Excalibur tells the story behind the Arthurian legend as it appears in early Welsh tradition, including material associated with The Mabinogion, rather than later Anglo-French medieval romance.

The film aims to reclaim Arthur as a Welsh hero and place Wales at the centre of the fantasy tradition it helped inspire.

Dan said:

"We're not remaking the English version of Arthur. John Boorman did that in 1981 and it was perfect. We're going back to the source – the Welsh myths that inspired Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and every fantasy epic that followed. This time though we’re making it in Wales, about Wales, for Wales."

You can learn more about Dan's plans, the movie, and the creators involved at the website, and even get involved and support it through a monthly subscription.

In The Name Of The King - A Dungeon Siege Tale (2007)

Forget whatever prejudices you may have against Uwe Boll for his previous crimes against cinema, forget whatever you've read about his eccentricities and conviction that he was the world's greatest film maker.

If you approach In The Name Of The King: A Dungeon Siege Tale with an open mind, you might actually realise that it's a cracking swords and sorcery romp.

Sure, it lifts a lot from Peter Jackson's Lord Of The Rings, but films and books have been ripping off Tolkien for years, even before Jackson's sublime films.

However, despite running about a half-hour too long and having a dialogue quota of two cheesey lines for every decent one, In The Name Of The King certainly ranks as one of my favourite "Dungeons & Dragons" films of the Noughties.

Based on a video game I was totally unaware of, the film has Jason Statham as a lowly farmer (with the required "secret destiny") - called Farmer, for reasons too dull to go into - whose village is attacked by the Krugs, a race of cut-price orc wannabes controlled by the wonderfully evil sorcerer Gallian (Ray Liotta).

Gallian has also seduced Muriella (Leelee Sobieski), the young fighter/magic-user daughter of the King's advisor, the magus Merick (John Rhys-Davies), and has convinced the king's foppish nephew Duke Fallow (Matthew Lillard) that his Krugs will aid him in a coup.

The King, by the way, is Burt Reynolds.

The Krugs carry off Farmer's wife, Solana (Claire Forlani) and so aided by his old friend Norick (Ron Perlman) and Solana's brother he sets off in pursuit.

Meanwhile King Burt gets poisoned and a civil war breaks out.

On his travels Farmer meets some rather naff, bungee-vine-swinging "wood elves" (led by the gorgeous Kristanna Loken), who seem one of the more unnecessary elements in the film, gets captured by the Krug and meets up with Merick - who reveals that Farmer is, in fact, King Burt's son.

With Reynolds, Liotta, Lillard and Rhys-Davies all vying for a piece of scenery to chew, the film reeks of ham, but this adds to its harmless charm.

However, whenever Doug Taylor's script tries to tug at the heartstrings (such as the King's death scene) it is at its weakest, but luckily there's plenty of action and fighting to paper over these cracks. For instance, the climatic wizardly duel between Merick and Gallian, I would say, is less risible than the break-dancing challenge between Saruman and Gandalf in Fellowship Of The Ring.

The big battle scenes between Burt's boys and the Krug probably could have been trimmed and odd gimmicks, such as the burrowing Krug and the King's unit of Chinese wuxia skirmishers, are never really developed or even explained, but, for the most part, at least this film is never dull.

Great CGI scenery and pretty classy special effects help to elevate this above the normal straight-to-video swords and sorcery fare of yesteryear. 

It may not be 100 per cent original, and despite the title there are no "dungeons" and no "sieges", but I really enjoyed it and could happily see myself watching it again.

Although there were no large monsters in it, it certainly felt more Dungeons & Dragons-y than either of the first two 'official' Dungeons & Dragons films, from around the time this was made.

As a gamer I always look at this genre of film to see what I can take away from it. As Taylor and Boll have lifted from Tolkien and Jackson (and probably countless other sources), I reckon I can lift ideas from In The Name Of The King. I don't think I could ask for much more from such pulp fare.

HEALTH UPDATE: We Take The Kingdom!

Seven Sisters: The largest living tree in the British Isles

After last week's wash-out, we were able to get out for another healthy walk and tree safari this weekend, visiting Kingdom in Penshurst, a 13-acre woodland created in the wake of 1987's Great Storm.

I can't believe I've lived around here all my life (and covered the aftermath of The Great Storm as a cub reporter for the local press) and this is the first I've heard of the place.

It turned out to be rather impressive, and popular with fellow dog walkers on a Sunday lunchtime, probably because the recent persistent rain held off all day.

Kingdom is home to The Seven Sisters Chestnut, which, has six trunks (two forking) growing in a close circle that creates a girth of more than 50 feet. It's so large that you can now get married inside the heart of the tree, where a "roof" has been installed to meet the legal requirements of the wedding ceremony (that it has be conducted in a covered space).

There's a nice looping track through the surrounding trees, which we managed most of (I was walking for over half-an-hour this week).

It led us past the outdoor sauna and spa (which was smoking nicely, wafting a lovely aroma into the air) and opened up to some gorgeous vistas across the Kent countryside. 

Oooh, random Georgian mansion in the middle of nowhere... so Bridgerton

I managed to get some more tree pictures for my portfolio, but, unfortunately (for me) there were a few too many signs of modernity and man's influence (e.g. wire and plastic fencing of various types) to get that proper Shire vibe that I'm trying to collate with my pictures.

The trail loop then guided Rachel, Alice, and I back to Kingdom's delightful, elevated café where we decided to have brunch.

Given that I was awoken at 6am by our smoke alarm going off (the batteries were dead... it wasn't a fire) and then I was rather traumatised by the live coverage of poor Lindsey Vonn's career-ending crash during the women's downhill ski competition at the Olympics  (you could hear her screaming out in pain, the commentator was crying, it was not Lindsey's hoped-for fairy-tale return to the sport), I have to admit that I feel better for the brisk walk, fresh air and protein-packed "hearty all-day breakfast".

And we were home in time to see Chelsea beat Spurs two-nil in the Women's Super League.

So, that was good!

THROWBACK THURSDAY: Bitten By A (Non-Radioactive) Spider

Image by Cosplay_Images from Pixabay

In late August, 2023, I woke one morning to realise my hand had been bitten by some insect, possibly a spider.

I wasn't tightly bound in webbing like Frodo after his encounter with Shelob nor, rather disappointedly, did I later develop spider-themed superpowers (à la Spider-Man).

The morning after the bite before

By the next day the dome-like structure that had grown where I was bitten was very itchy and my hand had puffed up a bit. But I coated the bite in Savlon, kept it covered as best I could, and about a week later the wound had gone down and nearly vanished.

While I have to say I feel I handled this odd situation well (given my usual habit of catastrophising and freaking out about any kind of change, particularly in regards to matters of health), it was still an unusual week.

Puffing up!

This isn't something I recall ever happening before and I had to rely on Google for medical advice and guidance.

The lasting impact has been that I am now very wary about going to sleep with my hand under the pillow, or even hanging over the end of the bed. Which is daft because if an insect, for whatever reason, wants to nip you while you're sleeping it's going to do it!

Return to normality

Architecture In Middle-Earth

A fascinating pair of videos from geeky architect Dami Lee about the reasons and ideas behind different construction styles in Tolkien's Middle-Earth.

And as a bonus, below, I've shared DnD Hunter's Building Landmarks in D&D Worlds video for some added gaming inspiration:

THROWBACK THURSDAY: Before The Tuesday Knights

After my aneurysm and stroke, I was looking for ways to keep myself entertained and so Nick, Pete and I started our Formula Dé League, playing monthly motor races and eating a lot of very hot curry.

As the Tunbridge Wells Formula De League we would race little plastic cars around boards representing a variety of Grand Prix circuits from across the globe.

The game uses the very clever mechanic of having the vehicle's different gears represented by different polyhedral dice. 

A moment of high drama during the Chinese Grand Prix

As with our current gaming we didn't always stick to the monthly schedule that we had drawn up in advance, but we still managed to rack up enough races for a couple of years (2006/2007) to give our league a sense of verisimilitude.

We each controlled a stable of two racers, competing for both individual and team glory.

Pete was Team Clover (Paddy O'Doors & Muhat Mecoate), I was Team Zerro (Damien Dash & Brian 'Whitey' Whitehouse) and Nick was Team Flamer (Antonio Wasp & Nick Nastily). Nick's Nick Nastily retired during the '06 season and was replaced by Jock Saway.

Press coverage of Nastily's retirement

During 2007, Steve joined us as Team Classic Rock for one race.

As well as creating newspaper clippings of key race-related stories, we even held "prize giving" ceremonies at the end of each year in local restaurants, handing out trophies and wooden spoons to the winners and losers.

A third year's racing was scheduled for 2008, but a resurgence of interest in roleplaying games led to the creation of the Tuesday Knights and that overtook our toy car racing exploits.

The TWFDL: Pete, Nick & I

The release of the Hollow Earth Expedition pulp adventure system had reignited Nick's enthusiasm for roleplaying games and he ran a short and sadly unfinished Edwardian campaign for Clare and I.

But it was the publicity around the publication of the Fourth Edition of Dungeons & Dragons that got me thinking about starting our own broader gaming group, replacing our board game nights (we also played the collaborative Lord Of The Rings games) with regular roleplaying sessions.

And so was born The Tuesday Knights. In the end we didn't play Fourth Edition, opting for the more old school Castles & Crusades, which was then replaced by Labyrinth Lord, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Regular board game meet-ups resumed in 2023, with the launch of Monopoly Club, where Pete gets to show off his ever-expanding collection of themed Monopoly boards for Clare, Rachel, and I.

Why Would Your Character Want To Be Resurrected?

Buffy tells Spike about where she went when she died

I'm far too cynical/sceptical and logical to be a religious person, but I'd like to be able to believe that if there was some kind of life after death it would be along the lines described by Buffy in the early sixth season episode After Life:

"Wherever I... was... I was happy. At peace. I knew that everyone I cared about was all right. I knew it. Time didn't mean anything, nothing had form... but I was still me, you know? And I was warm and I was loved... and I was finished. Complete. I don't understand about dimensions or theology or any of... but I think I was in heaven."

Of course, Buffy had just been yanked out of there by her well-meaning friends resurrecting her after she sacrificed her life to save the world (at the end of Buffy The Vampire Slayer's Season Five), but that doesn't stop it from sounding wonderful.

Before things get too maudlin or I start waxing philosophically, let's drag this round to gaming. A lot of games fixate on their universe/world's answer to Hell (because that's a good battleground/rescue zone/artefact retrieval site), but how would you go about depicting your world's equivalent to Heaven?

In Peter Jackson's The Return of The King movie we have the famous Gandalf quote:

"No, the journey doesn't end here. Death is just another path, one that we all must take. The grey rain-curtain of this world rolls back, and all turns to silver glass, and then you see it... White shores, and beyond, a far green country under a swift sunrise."

Meanwhile in The Chronicles of Narnia novels there is an enormous, standing wave at the edge of the world, beyond which are the "impossibly tall" mountains of Aslan's Country (i.e. Heaven).

The final Narnia book, The Last Battle, concludes thus:

"All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page; now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story, which no one on earth has read; which goes on forever; in which every chapter is better than the one before."

So let's imagine your character dies in a hard-fought conflict, and wakes up in a place like those described above (or Valhalla, if that's more their speed).

But then - back in the "real world" - they get resurrected by, or on behalf of, their companions, dragged out of this idyllic afterlife... don't you think there's a chance they'd be as pissed off as Buffy was?