Witch Hat Atelier Season Two Now In Production

With the first season having finished the other week, it has been officially announced that the second season of the gorgeous Witch Hat Atelier fantasy anime is in production, and will come to Crunchyroll in due course.

Final PDFs For Twilight Sword Have Been Delivered

Sample cards from the Twilight Sword roleplaying game

Twilight Sword backers got a lovely surprise today in the latest update from publishers Two Little Mice.

The final PDFs of the core rules, setting book, and starter set are now available for their consumption - along with PDFs of all the cards that come with the roleplaying game, a gamemaster's screen, and a file for using the in-game font (Auran).

Where beta PDFs for the anime-inspired game have been sent previously, backers just need to redownload the updated PDFs from DriveThru.

The only digital elements still missing are the soundtrack, solo rules, and Third Party Licence, which are all due by the end of the year.

The update added:

"The Alchemy VTT module is also still a work in progress, we'll let you know an ETA as soon as we have one!"

Unfortunately there was an issue during the production of the (odd-shaped) print books for the game.

This has now been resolved but means an inevitable bumping of the shipping date for the physical products from the end of June to the end of August.

"We understand that many of you will be unhappy with the delayed shipping, and for that we apologize sincerely, but we also trust that you will appreciate our decision once you have these marvellous books in your hands!"

Says the team at Two Little Mice, wrapping up this latest message to backers on a positive note:

"... the books are already in production and many of the components are ready, so there should be no other issue going forward!"

MUSICAL MONDAY: Tada Utsukushii Noroi (Nakamura Hak)

Backers Can Now Explore The World of Twilight Sword

Radiosa Castle by Wild Blue Studios

The Lands of Radia, the default setting for the upcoming Twilight Sword anime-inspired RPG from Two Little Mice, has been released as a BETA PDF to backers of the its crowdfunding campaign.

The already lavishly illustrated game now includes art by Wild Blue Studios and the latest update on the project explains:

"These amazing artists have created dedicated landscape art for every region of Radia, from the Valley of Aramilla to the Fortress of Evil."

This new book details the eight regions of Radia, atmospheric background lore, key NPCs, area-specific random encounters, and more than 20 new, fully-statted out monsters for the player-characters to face.

I remain enamoured by the brevity (and seeming simplicity) with which this whole system has been created and written, although - obviously - I am still unsure of how this will transfer to the table once dice start to be slung.

The team at Two Little Mice currently seem to be deeply engrossed in their latest crowdfunding campaign, for a huge expansion to their wildly popular and pulpy Outgunned action-adventure roleplaying game.

This runs for about another week and a half, and then I'm guessing their thoughts will return to getting Twilight Sword ready to ship by the end of next month (July).

CURSED ARMOUR: The former attire of fallen heroes, now enchanted to serve the Big Bad

Little-Known Stop-Motion Monster Movies

Rare VHS oddities. Forgotten fantasy films. Handmade monsters hiding in places you’d never expect.

Today we’re digging into some obscure and little-seen movies that delivered surprisingly great stop-motion creatures, from demonic vultures and clay dinosaurs to cyberpunk war machines and prehistoric monsters.

Thanks to the excellent SirBootis Flicks channel for this selection.

MUSICAL MONDAY: Kaze no Anthem (Eve feat. Suis of Yorushika)

More Twilight Sword Material Delivered To Backers

Sasapurr, the Sulcat of Sagratta, is one of many NPCs you will meet in Lands of Radia

In Twilight Sword news, this week has seen the release to backers of the beta PDF of the "starter set".

This introductory package contains four ready-to-play quests on the mysterious, flying Twilight Island, complete with an basic rules set, character sheets for six pre-generated characters, and cards for monsters, equipment, NPCs, locations, feats and spells.

This week's update from publishers' Two Little Mice also added that an updated edition of the core rulebook PDF was also available, which includes new art, rules clarifications and additions, and more balanced monsters.

The next delivery winging its way to the 5,189 backers of the crowdfunding campaign for the anime/video game-inspired tabletop roleplaying game is due to be a beta release of the pdf of Lands of Radia, the example setting for the game.

This is due to arrive by the end of May.

Azumi (2003)

While I enjoy anime as much as the next geek, nothing can beat the sheer visceral thrill of live-action comic book adaptations.

Serialised in comic form since 1994, Azumi is the ultra-violent tale of a teenage girl raised, with nine young boys, in a hidden mountain retreat to form an elite cadre of assassins to restore peace to Japan by killing off warlords who make trouble.

The two-hour movie starts slowly, and at first I wasn't sure where it was going. Then once the 10 assassins were exposed to their "final test" before heading into the outside world to complete their mission, I began to appreciate what a brutally clever film this was going to be.

Obviously it helps that Azumi herself (Aya Ueto) is very easy on the eye and let's be honest to most geeks there are few things hotter - besides our significant others - than an Asian lady with a katana!

And, yes, there is a lot of blood - more than a Victorian slaughterhouse - although few actual graphic wounds (one severed arm and a couple of decapitations that I can recall) but the swordplay and creativity of the stunts distracts from the red stuff anyway.

Azumi and her cohorts are tasked with killing three particular warlords, but to get to their targets they have to carve their way through hordes of samurai, ninjas and bandits in a variety of inventive settings and, often, massively outnumbered.

Mix this in with some incredible characters - the stand-out being the effeminate psychopath Bijomaru Mogami (Jô Odagiri) - and a thought-provoking plot and Azumi surprised me by quickly rising to classic status.

Tackling honour, friendship and the cycle of violence, the film certainly doesn't preach, instead choosing to serve up its lessons with a heavy dose of tomato ketchup through its morally ambiguous protagonist constantly questioning the veracity of her mission, but finding her heritage impossible to ignore.

For those who love their chanbara, I cannot recommend Azumi highly enough.

MORE My Hero Academia... For One Last Time

My Hero Academia final season More is coming to Crunchyroll tomorrow (May 2).

Where's All The Roleplaying Stuff Then?

Photo by Nika Benedictova

When I launched this blog last November (with a hefty backlog of material preloaded) it came with the implicit suggestion - if not an outright statement - that Cowboys, Capes, and Claws would be largely a roleplaying game blog.

Well, that was the idea in my head anyway.

There have been general roleplaying posts, but primarily the blog has been - to date - film reviews and trailers, comic book news, wargames bits and bobs, and some coverage of TV shows and my meandering health issues thrown in for good measure.

Those who read my old blogs will know that sometimes I'd tack gaming material on the end of my film reviews (e.g. monsters and magic items that had appeared in the movie, translated into my own old school mechanics), but there has been none of that so far here.

And I'm very conscious of that absence of "added value".

The big thing - and this has been alluded to in most of the gaming-related posts I have published here - is that I simply don't know what system I want to focus all my attention on these days, what game I want to run for the Tuesday Knights (my gaming group).

The strongest contender is Twilight Sword, the anime and video game-inspired fantasy roleplaying system coming soon from Two Little Mice.

The full game is due to be released to backers of the crowdfunder (such as I) in the next few months.

However, a beta PDF of the core rules - largely absent the setting material, which will be in a second book (all part of the crowdfunding campaign) - has been delivered. And I like what I've seen. It's simple, and seemingly elegant, but I'm still not sure if it offers everything I'm looking for in a game.

But then again, does any rules set?

I tried kludging together my own RPG system a few years ago, to cover everything I wanted in a game mechanically, and it turned out to be a Frankengame with an ease of accessibility somewhere in the region of Phoenix Command or Advanced Squad Leader.

While I knew how it all worked and how each subsystem meshed with the others, it would have been a nightmare to explain to our group - especially as we generally lean towards the more "rules casual" approach to gaming.

The rules and themes of Twilight Sword are quite different from my usual offering, but that just needs a mental adjustment upon my behalf, as I'm sure the players will adapt without thinking or complaint - as long it's clear what they need to do.

Therefore, I don't want to start "tinkering" - coming with scenario-specific houserules, new magical items or monsters - until I have the full game in hand (the actual books, rather than the PDFs) and have probably played more than a handful of sessions with "rules as written".

That said, I'm also lining up at a small number of back-up offerings, in case I decide Twilight Sword isn't actually what I'm looking for. The last couple of times I tried to run games at our table (
Shadowdark and Villains & Vigilantes) both crashed-and-burned because I wasn't happy with the way things were shaping up.

Therefore, I really, really want to be certain that the game I choose is the right one before I present my next campaign to the Tuesday Knights.

I have a great deal of lost trust to regain. We only meet up 10 or 12 times a year, so each session is precious and can't (in my mind) be wasted on something that isn't going anywhere.

And this, gentle reader, is why I haven't written anything system-specific on the blog yet. Because I don't have a system to write to.

So, bear with with me, please keep reading the silliness I post (and commenting when you feel so inclined) and one day... hopefully in the not-too-distant future... there will be useful gaming material on the blog.

Along with film reviews and trailers, comic book news, wargames bits and bobs, and some coverage of TV shows and my meandering health issues thrown in for good measure.

Twilight Sword On Track To Ship End Of July

Today's livestream by theTwilight Sword authors

It sounds as though Twilight Sword is still on track to ship at the end of July.

In the latest email update for backers of the crowdfunding campaign for the anime and video game-inspired fantasy RPG from games' publisher Two Little Mice, it was stated that:

"Currently we're wrapping up the Starter Set, which should be ready in a couple of weeks. Soon after we'll go back to finishing Lands of Radia, which will be released around the end of May.

"Once the books are ready and typo-free, we'll send you all the Cards, Maps, Sheets, and the rest of the digital aids. We'll make another update next month to give you additional information about the soundtrack, the Alchemy Module, the Solo Mode, and the 3rd Party License."

Although there was little to add at this stage, in today's livestream by the games' authors, Riccardo “Rico” Sirignano and Simone Formicola, they stressed how proud they were of this game and how different it was to their other products, both in design and appearance.

As well as reiterating the planned shipping schedule for Twilight Sword, Rico and Simone added that they were still in the last round of playtests, which would allow them to work further on - for instance - balancing the monsters, but emphasised that the game was "mostly" finished.

Kokkoros! Art by Daniela Giubellini

A pleasant surprise in this week's email update was the inclusion of a link for backers to the 202-page beta PDF of the core rulebook for Twilight Sword.

While this is nowhere near a finished product, it is very advanced and eminently readable.

That said, I very much doubt I'll be posting a full review of the game until I have the hard copy in hand.

Not only is this beta release not the final iteration of the game, but also I'm no fan of reading massive PDF files on my laptop.

At first perusal though, the mechanics of Twilight Sword appear delightfully simple, but with a vast amount of applications, specific effects and modifiers.

I suspect it's a system that's easy to grasp initially, but then will take a good length of time - and actual play - to really grasp all its nuances.

There are definitely some idiosyncrasies and foibles of the setting and system that I'm going to have to put my thinking head on for if I'm going to run Twilight Sword for the Tuesday Knights (which is the intention).

I am, however, convinced that once the physical game has arrived - along with all the extras I invested in through Backerkit - and I've been able to study it all carefully and see how the various elements interact, it'll all fall into place (fingers crossed).

Casting spells, art by Daniela Giubellini

Well, That Didn't Take Long

Just last week I was mourning the loss (for around 18 months) of fresh episodes of Frieren: Beyond Journey's End.

Not that I'm short of shows - and movies - to watch, both new and old, but I turned to Crunchyroll to see if there were any fantasy animes that could help fill the Frieren-shaped hole in my heart.

I watched a couple, but they didn't really get their hooks into me.

Then I realised that Witch Hat Atelier had just begun, literally a couple of weeks ago. This was another manga that had been on my godson's Christmas list... and this one I actually got him the first volume of.

So, I was inspired to check out this new anime (to date, now, there have been three episodes released).

And it didn't take long for me, once again, to fall in love. This is a simply gorgeous anime, incredibly Ghibli-esque in its design.

It turns out that Witch Hat Atelier is the third pillar of current "fantasy big three" for manga and anime, along with my other favourites: Frieren and Delicious in Dungeon. So, I really should have been all over this before it even began on Crunchyroll.

So far, this is a brief my understanding of what's going on in Witch Hat Atelier:

In an exquisite fantasy world where only witches can cast magical spells, and must be unseen while doing so, young dressmaker Coco discovers she has this gift... as a result of a tragic accident. She is taken under the wing of visiting witch Qifrey, who seems to believe his new apprentice has a grander role to play in the future of their world.

The story hasn't yet quite gripped me in the same way Frieren did straight off the bat, but there is an elegance and beauty in Witch Hat Atelier that is incredibly mesmerising.

Additionally, as a bonus to ignoramuses such as I, Crunchyroll has released all the episodes dubbed, so far.

To be honest, I don't mind subtitles, but I find sometimes when I'm reading the subs I'm miss something happening elsewhere on the screen. 

There was also a massive issue with the release of the later Frieren episodes from season two where the episode would drop (with Japanese dialogue) on a Friday afternoon, but then the English subtitles would randomly appear some time later... sometimes immediately, sometimes two or three days later!

For those, like me, that instantly didn't grok the name of this new show: "witch hat" is because witches wear stylish conical hats as a sign of their status, and "atelier" is a French word for a workshop or studio. In this case, it refers to Coco's new home, the small training facility that Qifrey runs for handful of other aspiring witches.

MUSICAL MONDAY: The Story of Us (milet)

Singer-songwriter milet performs The Story of Us (from the anime Frieren: Beyond Journey's End) live at Nippon Budokan in Tokyo, Japan.

And Now We Wait A Year-And-A-Half For More Frieren

Macht of the Golden Land, season three's big bad,
the most powerful member of the Demon King's Seven Sages of Destruction

It's been two weeks since Crunchyroll aired the final episode of season two of Frieren: Beyond Journey's End, and I'm still thinking about it all the time.

An incredibly intelligent and nuanced anime, it blends long tracts of cosy, lyrical, slice-of-life storytelling with sudden bursts of - usually magical - fantasy violence.

I'd only really heard the name of the series late last year when I was talking to Clare about what manga Alec (her son, my godson) would like for Christmas. She gave me a list of titles and asked me to "report" back on which I thought would be appropriate. Top of the list was Frieren: Beyond Journey's End.

At the time, the first volume of the manga was out of stock, but it looked suitably fantasy-orientated that when I saw the anime was on Netflix I decided to check it out... and the rest, as they say, is history.

I didn't really know what I was getting into when I started season one, but I was in love with the show by the end of the first episode.

Like Delicious in Dungeon and the classic Record of Lodoss War, Frieren's approach to swords-and-sorcery is clearly influenced by Dungeons & Dragons (our inquisitive heroine's passion for collecting magical tomes often sees her accidentally diving headfirst into treasure chests that are actually mimics!).

Frieren in mimic, Fern - her apprentice - being all judgy

In fact, the anime is pretty much a template for a dream character-driven campaign, interspersing dungeon crawls into an epic overland quest.

One of the aspects that really spoke to me was the story's main theme, a fascinating meditation on the different approaches to life between immortals and mortals, different perceptions of the passage of time and so on.

For those not au fait with this incredible Japanese animation, here's my - off the top of my head - summation of Frieren: Beyond Journey's End's general story (I might have some bits wrong and this certainly doesn't cover everything... not by a long chalk):

Immortal elf mage Frieren was part of a small adventuring party that undertook a 10-year mission to slay the Demon King. Then they all went their own way.

Fifty years later, Frieren discovers her former colleagues - including human fighter Himmel The Hero, who she was possibly in love with - are all dead or on the brink of death.

She wants to commune with the ghost of Himmel but the only place she would be able to do this is at the northernmost tip of the continent.

So, she sets out on this new adventure, on the way picking up a pair of young companions, former wards of one of her old party members, including Fern, a stoic mage, and Stark, a cowardly fighter.

On their journey they undertake a number of side quests that earn Frieren magical Grimoires containing seemingly useless spells... which will surely have some pay-off down the line.

The first - 28 episode - season of Frieren: Beyond Journey's End is available on Netflix, while season two, which is only 10 episodes, is - currently - only on Crunchyroll.

Season three is slated for October 2027 and was announced at the end of season two. Production has begun and a teaser visual (at top) of the powerful demon Macht of the Golden Land was released on the day the final episode of the current season dropped on Crunchyroll.

Such a layered and beautiful work, understandably, provokes a lot of discussion and analysis online and below are just some of the short videos examining aspects of Frieren: Beyond Journey's End.

Good News/Bad News On Twilight Sword PDF

Way of The Wild

Game publishers Two Little Mice announced today that they would be unable to meet the previously stated April 7 release date for the beta PDF of their highly-anticipated, anime/video game-inspired Twilight Sword roleplaying game. 

However, all is not lost, as the release date has only been pushed back a couple of weeks, so - all being well - backers of the game should be receiving their PDFs in the second half of the month.

Not only that, but we were treated to a 35-page PDF of the first chapter of Twilight Sword, which includes the Champion creation rules, the five core Kin (species/races), Ways (classes), and Feats, which this update says is "[m]ore than enough for you to start making your very own Champions!"

I've only skimmed my PDF so far, but it looks absolutely gorgeous and, after the holiday break, I hope to get down to creating my first Champion.

I'm already excited to see in the "origins" section of character creation that there are, at least, two options that lean into possible isekai backstories for your Champion.

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.

Honestly, I Can Justify Buying These Two New Games

Remember back in February when I implied that I wasn't going to buy any new roleplaying games?

Well, much to no one's surprise, that pledge didn't exactly last. Although I would argue that my recent purchases may have some degree of utility in my proposed 'anime-influenced' fantasy campaign that I'm hoping to run with Twilight Sword.

In the past week, I have acquired the Pirate Borg Starter Set and the core rulebook (and some add-ons) for the new Conan: The Hyborian Age roleplaying game.

Both are peak examples of modern production standards, although I know already my chances of actually running either are next to next to zero.

These are reference works, first and foremost, because I am fascinated by pirates and I am fascinated by Conan, and always imagine slipping elements of both into my fantasy games.

First off, though, I have to point out, for those who aren't already aware, the Pirate Borg Starter Set is probably the best RPG starter set I have ever seen.

For a ridiculously low cost (when you consider what's included), you get all of this in the solid, deep box:

That's an introductory rulebook, a campaign book, item cards, a pack of character sheets, some reusable character sheets with felt pens, three sheets of card counters, several battle mats and game maps, and a full set of  gorgeous (stylishly simple) dice.

None of these are cheap quality or flimsy. These items are designed for use at the games table. Even the inside surface of the box lids (top and bottom) have useful charts and tables on.

Much of this material, obviously, can be used with other game systems - which is good, as I still dream of running a nautical adventure, even if not with this elegant Mörk Borg hack.

My other purchase - this time from eBay - was an ex-Kickstarter bundle of core material for the, as yet, unreleased to retail new Conan roleplaying game, published by Monolith.

Unlike Pirate Borg, I haven't read more than a few lines of this yet, but from what I've seen it looks a reasonable simple and uncluttered system (especially compared to previous Conan RPGs that were overwhelmed by character feats, abilities, splat books etc).

I already appreciate the use of large text and white space (as you can see from the random selection of pages below), which tells me this should be straight forward for a numpty like me to grok.

As well as the core rulebook, my eBay bundle included a large map of Conan's world in the Hyborian Age, two packs of blank character sheets, and a collection of ready reference rules sheets to use when running the game.

The Twilight Sword Will Be Drawn on April 7

Way of The Blade, art by Daniela Giubellini

A beta PDF of the Twilight Sword roleplaying game, along with the starter set, will be released - to those of us who backed the crowdfunding campaign last year - on April 7, according to a recent update from publisher Two Little Mice.

The update added that the:

"...BETA will be pretty advanced, with maybe some typos left to find, and some artwork missing. But you can expect the full Twilight Sword experience, including an introductory mini-campaign ready to play."

Work is also proceeding at a pace on the Lands of Radia supplement, detailing the default setting for the game, so that is also expected to be finished soon.

The company - which is also responsible for the ever-expanding OUTGUNNED catalogue of action movie-themed games, Household, Memento Mori etc - calls Twilight Sword its "most ambitious project to date", which has me even more excited than ever for the game's arrival.

The print edition of the anime and video game-inspired, sword-and-sorcery ttrpg Twilight Sword is still on track to be shipped to backers at the beginning of August.

Lumino Inn, art by Donata Poli

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.

MUSICAL MONDAY: Lulu (Ying & Legendav)

An English-language cover of Mrs Green Apple's Lulu, from the second season of hugely popular anime Frieren: Beyond Journey's End.

Frieren is cosplayed in the music video by meganakamomo aka Momo.