The Draugr Has Arrived!

You didn't think I'd get all excited about the novelisation of the great horror movie, Draug, without wanting to pick up my own copy?

Well, here it is in all its glory. 

I can't wait to see how writer/director Klas Persson has brought his terrifying and atmospheric tale to the written page as Draugr: A Viking Folk-Horror Saga.

As happens, this 350-page paperback has leapt into second place on my "to be read" list, meaning once I've finished the brain-scrambling, cosmic horrors of Jean Ray's Cruise of Shadows then I'll be picking up Draugr and plunging into the dark creepy, Swedish forests of a thousand years ago.

For those wondering about the change in spelling: as far as I can figure it, Draugr is Old Norse whereas Draug is more modern, but both words mean 'stinking, superhumanly strong, vengeful, reanimated corpses'.

Anyway, I've got one final tale to go in the Cruise of Shadows anthology, The Mainz Psalter, the yarn covered on the Strange Studies of Strange Stories podcast several weeks ago that lured me in to the writings of Jean Ray.

As long as my sanity holds up, I hope to finish it this weekend. 

As well as the rulebook for Dragonbane, I also have some comics and magazines that 'need' reading, but I'm so delighted with this current spell of actually reading novels and anthologies that I want to keep it up. It feels like so long since I've had such a burst of reading.

And that makes me feel very positive (for a change).

TBR: My immediate "to be read" selection

PROJECT 60: Off The Rails!!!

Photo by Pixabay

Some of you may recall in the past I've talked about my PROJECT 60, an ambitious desire to get both a skirmish wargame and a roleplaying campaign all set up and ready to run by the time I turn 60 towards the end of this year.

You might also have noticed that I haven't actually mentioned it since February - when Nick and I went to our local wargames show and I picked up some suitable 3D printed buildings.

I'd like to blame the hot weather and my general ill-health, but honestly it's my fickle nature and life-long inability to stay focused on any one particular aspect my hobbies for long.

PROJECT 60 was, therefore, rather ambitious - but that was the point.

On the skirmish wargame side, I'm still sticking firmly to my plans to build a tabletop Wild West town for games of Dead Man's Hand.

I just haven't sent off any Western figures for painting this year and have actually done nothing concrete towards assembling and painting the buildings, which was always a goal for this Summer.

Everything has simply remained in a clutter in the gamesroom.

I really need to get sorting that before things go missing as I move books, Blu Rays, and bits & bobs around looking for other things.

And this isn't to say my wargaming thoughts haven't gone round the houses from Bronze Age Greece to Fantasy Medieval and 17th/18th Century pirates and highwaymen!

They've just circled back (for the moment) to the American West.

On the roleplaying game front, my initial passion for Twilight Sword has rather dampened (even before the printed materials show up), and been replaced by flickering flames of interest in Dragonbane.

I haven't found the time to read the rules properly yet, so my confidence still swings all over the place and my mind darts off in other directions every now and then (even, most recently, considering a Wild West roleplaying campaign... but with a twist).

However, as well as 40-year history in Sweden, Dragonbane (aka Drakar och Demoner) has a solid core of fans who really, really love the system, which gives me a lot of encouragement. 

I have actually noticed some mechanical similarities between Twilight Sword and Dragonbane, which has led to my brain classifying Twilight Sword as modern Basic/Expert Dungeons & Dragons whereas Dragonbane is modern Advanced Dungeons & Dragons!

Of course, I'm essentially starting from scratch with Dragonbane, and you know how slow I am at reading and absorbing things... especially new things.

So, I'm still hoping to get these games back on track for PROJECT 60, but I know my birthday isn't that far away and I have way fewer years ahead of me than behind.

Even if I can one or both of these games up and running, just how long will these "forever campaigns" actually last now?

Dragonbane Kickstarters Open Up 40 Years Of History

Dragonbane, Free League's English translation of the venerable Swedish roleplaying game Drakar och Demoner, comes with no official setting for its adventures.

However, two current Kickstarters (translating and updating Swedish source materials) are offering the original Swedish campaign setting - Ereb Altor - and the first standalone adventure - Twin Mountains - to modern Dragonbane players.

Both Kickstarters have already funded, guaranteeing their production.

Running until July 16, the Ereb Altor Kickstarter consists of four gorgeous-looking hardbacks, with maps, where you can find - among many other things - the locations of the adventures already published by Free League (such as Misty Vale). 

As well as new kin, heroic abilities, foes, and monsters, the setting guide includes:

"A chapter exploring Ereb Altor's history as one of Sweden's most enduring fantasy roleplaying settings."

Two of the four books concern The Copper Sea: one a player's guide to the region, including rules for seafaring adventures,  and one a gamesmaster's guide and sandbox campaign book.

The final book in the Kickstarter is Call of The Siren, an epic campaign.

Pop over to the Kickstarter's page to learn much more about all the goodness on offer.

Meanwhile, the Return to Twin Mountains crowdfunding campaign, which runs until July 31, will produce a 72-page, softback, standalone sequel to the classic 1983 adventure, Twin Mountains.

Forty years ago, a few daring adventurers from Sarnath left The Bagpipe inn in the small village of Windwoe and set off for the burial mound where the sorcerers Swarzard and Kobbler lay. After a few fierce battles against trolls and reptile men, they managed to enter the burial mound and face the dangers within. But they also found riches and the infamous demon sword Dziggetai.

Four decades have now passed, and something seems to have come back to life down by the Twin Mountains. Rumours of this reach Sarnath, and a new group of adventurers sets off for Windwoe to buy a talkative old man a beer at The Bagpipe. What is happening on the peaks of Simenov and Menov? And where did Dziggetai end up all those years ago?

It is time to journey back to the Twin Mountains.

To learn much more, and make your pledge, you can visit the adventure's Kickstarter page here.

THROWBACK THURSDAY: Kickin' It Old School!

Supreme fantasy author Michael Moorcock admired pulp maven Robert E Howard's brutal barbarian Conan so much that when he set out to create his own swords and sorcery epic he wanted it to be as unlike the tales of the Cimmerian as possible.

And so, he created Elric: the doomed, feeble, albino sorcerer-king kept alive by, first, mysterious narcotics and later by the evil energy of his cursed sword, Stormbringer.

When I last reread the first of the Elric books - Elric of Melnibone - it took just about two days, I still couldn't put it down.

A combination of my insomnia and the power of the writing saw me reading at all hours of the day and night.

Moorcock proves you don't need a ponderous, phonebook-sized tome to tell a thrilling, memorable fantasy tale.

In a 'mere' 190-pages Elric goes from languishing on his Ruby Throne to dealing with elemental creatures, fighting off an invasion, crossing the Young Kingdoms to find his kidnapped sweetheart and finally journeying to another plane of existence to retrieve Stormbringer at the behest of the Chaos demon-god Aroich.

Outside of Tolkien's main Lord of The Rings' characters and Conan himself, Elric and his legendary sword must be two of the best known names in fantasy literature... their dreamy, nightmarish adventures seeping into all manner of related media (e.g. heavy influences on early roleplaying games from Dungeons & Dragons and Arduin to Chaosium's own Stormbringer game; to the prominent technomage in Babylon 5 universe called... Elric).

And next year, we're getting three different new Elric roleplaying games: one for Dragonbane, one for Dungeon Crawl Classics, and one for 5e!

Reading Elric of Melnibone again stirred in me nostalgic memories for the other books of my youth - Fritz Leiber's Nehwon tales with Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser or Harry Turtledove's stories of Gerin The Fox - and the old school fantasy roleplaying games of my teen years.

It filled me with a hankering for that '80s Dungeons & Dragons-style vibe, that feeling of wonder and "not knowing what's around the next corner".

To quote Wikipedia:

"Some fans of pencil and paper role playing games use [old school] to describe RPGs characterized by simple game mechanics and flexible rules. The character generation system in such RPGs tend to lack extensive lists of skills and abilities. Basic Dungeons & Dragons and the first edition of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons are often considered 'old school' role playing games."

All this hankering for past gaming glories was also been stoked back in the 2000's by several great rules-lite, war story-heavy fantasy gaming podcasts I listened to at the time. Sadly, these are now gone - swept aside by the tidal wave of "actual play" podcasts.

The pods I listened to eschewed the attitude of some of the more snobby or 'elitist' podcasts back then which looked down their virtual noses at "game stories" or the "tell me about your character" attitude.

Personally I believe that's a central element of roleplaying games - you are generating collective stories, so why not share them? Isn't this just another form of creating fantasy literature?

As long as the stories are interesting, they are as valid as any other anecdote you may care to tell.

What's To Be Read?

My current "to be read" (TBR) books

As a notoriously slow reader these days, I have been inspired by Booktube (particularly Michael K Vaughan's channel) to really try and pull my finger out this year.

Last week, I actually finished two books: Philip Reeve's latest thrilling World of Mortal Engines offering, Bridge of Storms, and then a short history of the fascinating Mansa Musa, the 14th Century emperor of Mali.

Although I had a vague knowledge of this celebrated - and incredibly wealthy - ruler, it wasn't until he popped up as a character in Apple TV's criminally underappreciated Time Bandits series that my interest was truly piqued. 

I'm currently reading Mark Finn's Sailor Steve Costigan homage Fight Card: The Adventures of Sailor Tom Sharkey, but this week's potentially record-breaking, red-alert heatwave (thanks global warming) is putting the kibosh on reading as its scrambling my already shaky concentration.

Nevertheless, I still have a "to be read" collection of four books by the side of the bed that I am determined to get as soon as possible.

This is, of course, on top of any new comics that arrive and my concerted effort to read the core rulebook of the Dragonbane roleplaying game, which has really taken my fancy of late.

A mix of novels and short story collections, the books on my reading list (as pictured above) are:

• Cruise of Shadows, a collection of early-to-mid 20th Century weird fiction by Jean Ray, a Belgium author I hadn't heard of until a few weeks ago when the Strange Studies of Strange Stories podcast did a breakdown of his short story, The Mainz Psalter, which is included in this collection. It was such a mind-blowing, Lovecraftian tale that I knew immediately I had to read the full thing and some more of Ray's work. I have to thank Rachel for getting this for me as a present, which arrived this morning and immediately jumped to the top of my TBR list.
• The End of Everything, by M. John Harrison. A post-apocalyptic take set on Britain's South Coast. Like the subsequent books on the list, I know nothing really about this story except that its marketing on the Blackwells book store site made it seem really interesting And this special edition - signed by the author - includes a bonus short story.
• Corpse Priest by Carson Winter. I think this one might have been mentioned on Michael K Vaughan's booktube channel, but the fact that it's described on the back cover as a mix of "sword and sorcery and cosmic horror" makes it sound like just the sort of thing I'd like.
• Warriors of The Boundless by Mike Chinn. This was a Christmas present, although I can't for the life of me remember where I first heard of it. It sounds like something Michael Moorcock would have written in the '70s or '80s. The back cover blurb talks of infinite worlds, bizarre lifeforms, and "now something is wrong, something is not where it should be and needs to be returned by any means necessary". The book contains six interconnected stories of epic fantasy.

MORE ARTISTIC INSPIRATION!

If only I'd been a bit patient the other day, I could have added a third art book (well, booklet) to my recent acquisitions of visual inspiration.

Today's new addition - which arrived quicker from the eBayer seller than I was expecting (thank you so much) - is Fighting Dragons and Demons: "a collection of Dragonbane drawings by Jann Galino".

Jann is the primary Dragonbane artist for Dunderdagar, a third-party publisher of material for Dragonbane, the English-language iteration of Sweden's most-enduring and beloved fantasy roleplaying game, Drakar och Demoner (which has been in print since 1982).

The black-and-white art in this 38-page booklet is fantastic, and - as with yesterday's grand, sweeping, full-colour masterpieces - instantly evokes the character and excitement of each particular illustration, transporting you into the fantastical realm it is portraying.

Below are three random spreads from the booklet, poorly photographed by me, to help suggest the excellence of Jann Galino's art:

This picture, The Oracle, should explain some of my love for Dragonbane

Stick That In Your Pipe And Smoke It!

One of my fondest sense-memories of my late father is the smell of his pipe smoke. This has led to me - over the years - making a number of my roleplaying characters, across various genres, pipe smokers as a small homage.

I can now up my game for characters - both player-characters and non-player characters - with Hobree Leafburner's Guide to Pyping, a "pype centric supplement for OSE and the OSR" from Agranak Studios.

As a member of the publisher's Patreon I got the 44-page PDF for free, but you can pick it up via the link here if you're looking to add some cosy details to the verisimilitude of your fantasy gaming world.

It was the passion of Agranak Studios' DM Wisdom aka Brent Douglas Wisdom, host of his own excellent YouTube channel, for Dragonbane that finally persuaded me to invest in that system. 

Although Hobree Leafburner's Guide to Pyping isn't actually written for Dragonbane, it's mostly system-agnostic flavour text, random tables, location and item descriptions etc making it easily adaptable to any old school fantasy system and setting.

This has been a pet project for DM Wisdom - a pipe smoker himself - over the last few years. Upon launching it to his mailing list this week, he said: "This is a supplement near and dear to my heart and I hope it helps to fill your world with whimsy."

The book's DriveThruRPG listing has this overview:

"Hobree Leafburner's Guide to Pyping is an Old School Essentials-compatible supplement that expands the role of pipes, pipeleaf, smoke magic, and smoking culture within fantasy roleplaying games. Inspired by classic fantasy literature, cozy tavern scenes, wandering wizards, and halfling traditions, this book provides everything needed to make pyping a meaningful part of your campaign world."

The Guide to Pyping also makes a wonderful companion piece to one of the quirkier books in my small Tolkien collection: namely Mark Irwin's Pipe Smoking In Middle Earth, which examines the importance of pipes, tobaccos, and pipe smokers in JRR Tolkien's oeuvre.

Know Me, Know My Shelves

Works of, or inspired by, George RR Martin, JRR Tolkien and Jim Henson

Despite the heat wave plaguing our little corner of the world this week, I think I've finished organising my wonderful new bookshelves (put together for me by Rachel's dad last year).

As they are, the shelves are a pretty decent encapsulation of the inside of my brain, focussing on my favourite authors and favourite themes.

From Westeros to the World of Mortal Engines, via the Hyborian Age and Mega-City One, right through to the Planet of The Apes and the Wild West, this is a guided tour of my psyche and my primary, literary gaming inspirations.

Of course, these are not my only book shelves in the house, but are my most recently built and filled.

Pretty sure, now, there's no more room for any more shelves... although there's always room for more books.

Philip Reeve

Conan The Barbarian

Robert E Howard

HP Lovecraft and The Cthulhu Mythos

Westerns - there are more Western paperbacks in another cupboard

Judge Dredd & 2000AD (plus a sneaky little RPG that has yet to find a home)

Planet of The Apes

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.

THROWBACK THURSDAY: My Life and Humanoid Ducks In Roleplaying Games

Part of the reason for my passionate support for Darcy Perry's wonderful DuckQuest roleplaying game - and why I backed several of his anthropomorphic duck-related miniatures Kickstarters - stretches right back to my earliest days of gaming.

In the late '70s and early '80s the bulk of my long-form (rather than random one-shot) gaming was with Gublin, a friend who lived five doors down the road from me.

Although created for a specific Dungeons & Dragons adventure at our local gaming club, my enduring character from those days was a female half-elf fighter/cleric/magic-user called Staghind, who enjoyed a storied adventuring career, before becoming a queen of her own nation and retiring.

At some stage in her life she adopted an anthropomorphic duck called Quincy as one of her many children and he taught her Quack Fu. Or she was taught Quack-Fu by a master and then she adopted Quincy. My memory from those days is like Swiss Cheese!

My ideas about humanoid ducks were entirely shaped by reading Steve Gerber's bonkers Howard The Duck comics, rather than RuneQuest (which officially introduced ducks into the roleplaying consciousness).

This is also why I have a copy of this issue framed and hanging on the wall in our lounge with other key comics from my years of collecting and reading. 

Not just because of the incredible impact it had on me as a nascent comic book reader, exposing me to the gonzo possibilities of the medium, but also for the influence it had on me as a fledgling gamer.

Whilst my anthropomorphic duck gaming ended rather abruptly with Staghind's retirement, the concept endured with the help of one of my mum's delightfully random fandoms.

Once I was of working age (and writing nonsense for the local paper), my mum somehow became a massive fan of the late '80s kids cartoon Count Duckula, so I used my salary to ensure she had an extensive collection of VHS tapes and annuals (as that was the only merch available at the time).

These days duck characters can be found roleplayng games such as Dragonbane (from Free League Publishing), where they are called "mallards", and Twilight Sword (yes, this was a deciding factor in me backing this game).

In the latter game the duck kin are also known as "mallards" and were available, in print form (as a set of cards), as an early bird sweetener to entice backers to get the ball rolling on the crowdfunding campaign.

I hesitated and missed out on this bonus "kin", but understand it will still be available to all backers as a PDF. I can't NOT have ducks as a playable race in my version of Twilight Sword!