I have long dreamed of a fantastical, island-hopping roleplaying game "project", akin to the beloved Ray Harryhausen sword-and-sorcery movies of my youth filtered through something akin to old school Dungeons & Dragons.
The exact flavour remains undecided, but I already have a campaign format in mind.
I've long said my campaigning Holy Grail is to run an open-ended 'forever campaign' that captures the spirit of the first generation of roleplaying campaigns (e.g. Gary Gygax's Greyhawk, Dave Arneson's Blackmoor, and my personal favourite: Dave Hargrave's Arduin).
Maybe this is the adventure that will steer me in that direction.
Today, we’re heading back to the 1950s and looking at American sci-fi films that still feel important to the genre. Some are major landmarks, others are easier to overlook now, but taken together, they make a strong case for just how good this decade really was.
I cannot tell a lie: I love 1950's sci-fi movies, so this offering from the wonderful LuminismYouTube channel is pure catnip.
I'm currently on a bit of a Greek myth kick when it comes to roleplayng games - inspired way more by Stephen Fry's quadrilogy of classy rewrites (Mythos, Heroes, Troy, and Odyssey) than Christopher Nolan's forthcoming movie.
For years, I've had this little itch at the back of my brain about a game that Gublin and I played a few times waaaaaay back in the 1980's, geared specifically towards roleplaying in the Greek myths.
But, for the life of me, I just could never remember anything else important about it. It was definitely Gublin's book, which explains why it wasn't so rooted in my memory, but I was sure it used cards and had an orange cover.
I know I cast some shade in the direction of AI the other day, but, eventually, I bit the bullet and fed what little I could recall into Chat GPT.
After about a half-a-dozen additional questions and clarifications (no, not a board game, video game etc) and wading through a lot of wild inaccuracies from my AI "assistant|", it finally directed me to Odysseus: Role Play For The Homeric Age.
Light bulb moment!
Written by Marshall T Rose, the game was published as a 32-page book, with cardstock inserts, in 1980 by Fantasy Games Unlimited (who, of course, also originally published Villains & Vigilantes which I would go on to play much, much more).
As soon as I saw the cover (pictured above), I knew I had found another - very small - part of my childhood.
I was also then able to find pictures of combat cards and ship deck plans that came with the game.
I've set-up an eBay search alert for the game, despite reading reviews that generally range from scathing to lukewarm. From what I've seen and read now, Odysseus appears to be an uncomfortable hybrid of clunky wargames rules (that that period was known for) and roleplaying aspirations, without much in the way of support.
No doubt this contributed to our games back in the day never finding their sea legs and becoming any sort of long-running campaign. At that time very little could compete with Advanced Dungeons & Dragons in our eyes.
I suspect that even if I can get my hands on a reasonably priced copy of Odysseus: Role Play For The Homeric Age it would be more for the nostalgia than as a potential game for the Tuesday Knights.
One of the deck plans - printed on cardstock - included in the game
The brave solider poses with his gorgeous wife before heading off to war
Short of the amazing props made by people like the HP Lovecraft Historical Society and the contributors to the fabulous Propnomicon blog, old photographs are among the best tools to add an air of verisimilitude to role-playing games set sometime during the last century or so.
However, not everyone has a family history full of explorers, gunfighters and soldiers and this is where those rare photographic studios that offer 'olde time' pictures come in handy.
With a range of period props and costumes, you can create a slice of history - in sepia - that your family never knew it had... and then use the pictures as the basis for role-playing characters!
Timmy The Flea
Whenever I come across one of these studios, I like to take the opportunity to get dressed up and pose for an old time picture. Not only do these make for interesting 'conversation' pieces when displayed around the home (I'm beginning to sound like an advert!), but they are unique role-playing props.
It's not cheap (the last one Rachel and I had done cost £32 at the National History Museum of Walesaround 20 years ago), but then again you don't find these specialist studios in every High Street or on street corners.
We're not talking about those online apps where your head gets badly Photoshopped into a fake film poster; this is the full works, as you can see from my examples above, and each one conjures up a string of stories and possible scenarios.
And I know these days you can do this via AI, but that can be very hit and miss - as well as being ethically dubious.
There used to be a photographic studio in the Trocadero Centre in London, which was stocked with Wild West and gangster costumes (Pete has a picture of him and some friends as 1920's Chicago gangsters in his stairwell), but that closed many years ago.
If you happen to stumble upon one of these places, and are looking for that special prop for your role-playing game, an 'old time' picture is a worthy investment of cash (obviously it doubles as an actual souvenir as well!)... and who doesn't like dressing up every now and again?
A tunnel of light carried Marigold away from her dying world... but where to?
When my friend Simon stumbled across his old copy of the Heroes & Other Worlds rulebook and posted online about how it brought back fond memories of the campaign I'd run for the Tuesday Knights back in 2014-2016, it got me thinking about that campaign again.
Rereading some of my old write-ups reminded me of the "great plan" I had hatched to tie the apocalyptic ending of that campaign into the next one I was kicking around at that time: a contemporary superhero campaign set in Knight City.
With that game faltering and my realisation that I'm not really a good "superhero" gamesmaster, I might as well share the "big idea" I had for linking our old fantasy game - The Chronicles of Cidri - to Knight City.
The HOW game ended... with the end of the world (the planet Cidri - an alternate Earth - was transformed into a Hellworld by the ancient god known as The Yellow King).
But that was not the end of the character. I'd decided that she had materialised out the other side of the portal on the world of Knight City, and had taken a job as a fortune teller in the city.
In my write-ups of the HOW campaign, I had "cast" the various player-characters using pictures from TV shows, films etc and trainee sorceress Marigold was represented by Renée O'Connor aka Gabrielle from Xena: Warrior Princess.
Posing as Madame Gold, in Knight City, she set up business in the middle-class to low upper-class residential borough of Fairlight.
Her write-up on the Knight City campaign guide/blog at the time was:
"Psychic to the stars - by appointment only. Generally considered a fraud by most people, Mary Gold is still treated with a great degree of respect by the residents of this borough. She is also one of the few people known to associate with Salem Saberhagen, the mysterious resident of the nearby Saberhagen Mansion."
Madame Gold
There was even a picture (left) to go with the entry, of Renée O'Connor put through a "fortune teller" filter on the Photofunia picture editor.
The "great plan" was then, at some point in the campaign, the new characters the Tuesday Knights would have been playing (ie. superheroes) would contact, or be contacted by, Madame Gold.
She would then warn them of the impending arrival of an apocalyptic Hellplanet (ie. the transformed Cidri, being 'piloted' by the Yellow King) in our solar system.
Part of her prophecy to avert disaster would involve tracking down a collection of "sleeping" heroes and "awakening" them.
These "sleeping heroes" would be the reincarnations of the Tuesday Knights' characters that had died at the end of The Chronicles of Cidri campaign (still with me?)
I had recast all the actors who had been used to represent the fantasy characters in the first campaign as random people in the world of Knight City, totally unaware of their "previous lives".
I'd thought it might have been quite cool if the player's superheroes had somehow come into - innocent, casual - contact with one or two of these people prior to their pivotal meeting with Madame Gold.
Anyway, that was about as far as I had gotten, as I'd planned to firm up details to fit the Knight City campaign as it developed... only it never did.
And my "great plan" never saw the light of day.
But I'm still rather pleased with it.
NB. Some of this multiversal mayhem did, eventually, manifest itself at our table, during Simon's epic 5e Dungeons & DragonsRavenloft campaign (2018 - 2021).
During Lockdown, Meredith, our occasional Antipodean player, returned for a spell (thanks to the magic of Zoom), playing her rogue, Imogen, from the HOW game, who'd stepped out of the legendary mists of Ravenloft to aid our party.
I seem to recall there was mutterings that she might be a trans-dimensional agent of one of the facets of Baba Yaga, who also appeared (in some guise) in both the worlds of Cidri and Ravenloft.
In the week that marked the anniversary of his passing in 2013, what better time to celebrate the creations of the godfather of stop-motion: Ray Harryhausen.
Pre-demolition: The derelict site of the former ABC Cinema in central Tunbridge Wells
These days I rarely see any movies at the cinema. I count myself 'lucky' if I manage the trip once in a 12-month period.
However there was a time - when I had a job - that I'd pop in to the cinema almost every week.
While the Tunbridge Wells town centre cinema (pictured above, years ago and well past its prime, and now - after a lot of faffing about - demolished) was still open, and I was friends with the manager, I saw pretty much everything that came out.
Of course, at the time, I was entertainments' editor for the local paper and self-appointed cinema critic.
I even had my own regular - and well-read (if not well-written) - column: At The Cinema With...
But when Odeon bought out the site then closed it so it didn't draw audiences away from their new, dismal, overpriced grottiplex on the out-of-town industrial estate, the rot started to set in.
I still went reasonably regularly, even though I had to pay(!), and got to see pretty much everything that interested me.
These days, now that I can't drive, it's just too much hassle. It's expensive, as well as inconvenient... and there are "other people" there when I'm trying to watch films.
Despite what you might see elsewhere (in some movies, actually) watching a film is NOT a social experience, especially when you're paying the sort of money now being asked just to get through the doors.
If I've made the effort to go and see a film, I don't want to hear other people chattering, whooping, parroting dialogue, munching popcorn etc
I want to be in my own little bubble where I can sink into the story unfolding before my eyes.
And remember, more often that not, the people telling you that you HAVE to see a film on the big screen are those who will benefit financially from your inconvenience.
Truth be told - and it's probably a product of my age as much as anything - I find that far easier to do at home these days.
With the advances in home entertainment - the quality of TV screens and Blu-Rays, for instance - there is no longer the need to go to the cinema and pay a fortune to get annoyed with the unappreciative crowds of oiks who treat it as a social club.
Sure, I'll have to wait two or three months (sometimes a bit longer) for the movies I want to see to come out on Blu-Ray, Netflix, Prime Video, Sky Cinema etc, but I've realised I don't mind waiting.
It's a small price to pay for being able to watch a film how I want to, in comfortable surroundings with minimum distractions.
Over here in the UK, the rebranded SyFy Channel - now the much more palatable Sky Sci-Fi - christened its late night Asylum Movie Slot in 2022 with the latest from the mockbuster factory: Thor - God of Thunder.
Like the majority of The Asylum's output it's not great, but I've seen far worse and, as I've come to expect with this particular genre of film, it has some interesting Asylum-style twists on established mythology and fables.
Thor: God of Thunder opens with some deceptively decent CGI of an aerial Asgard, clearly "inspired" by the version we know from the Marvel movies, but as soon as it cuts to inside we're back on more familiar Asylum turf, resplendent as it is with amdram levels of set decoration and acting.
Loki (Daniel O'Reilly) escapes imprisonment, stabs Odin (Vernon G. Wells), steals some trinkets and flees to Earth, with the aim of freeing the giant wolf-god Fenrir.
Sadly, in hi-def, Loki's staff - clearly made of cardboard and gold-painted gaffer tape - looks rather cheap and nasty.
The god, who may be Thor's brother or uncle, wants Fenrir to destroy Yggdrasil - The Tree of the Nine Realms - so he can plant a new one and shape the universe to his own designs.
Summoned by his dying father, the titular god of thunder, Thor (Myrom Kingery), follows Loki to Earth and arrives at an archaeological excavation in California.
Grace Choi (Vaune Suitt), the site manager, had believed they were excavating an Indigenous Native American grave, but - just moments before the pair of Norse gods show up - she begins to suspect that the cave system is something more, possibly a prison for Fenrir.
The wolf-god is freed and it's now up to Thor and a handful of humans to stop Loki's schemes before the Earth shakes itself to pieces and a new world is born in the image of the trickster god.
On one - very large - hand, Steve Doucette's script, under Noah Luke's direction, is riddled with weak dialogue and plot holes, but on the other the impressive thing about Asylum films is there is usually no unnecessary padding and they don’t tend to hang around.
Thor: God of Thunder makes great use of its 87-minute run time, with enough momentum and action that - unless you're deliberately hate-watching this - will buoy you along with a wry smile on your face.
Sure, some of the CGI is naff and a lot of the acting is overacting; for instance, Vernon G. Wells (possibly best known as Wez from 1981's Mad Max II: The Road Warrior) has clearly been taking lessons from the William Shatner School of Acting, cranking up the mid-sentence dramatic pause to 11.
And while initially I was disappointed that Myrom Kingery's Thor lacked the golden locks we're accustomed to from the old Norse myths and Marvel Universe, he had the physicality of a Viking and his portrayal grew on me through the movie.
Even if every time he cried out for Odin all I could picture was this scene of the brilliant Matt Berry from The IT Crowd :
But for all the slack I'm cutting Thor: God Of Thunder, there was one scene that was simultaneously pure Asylum and possibly a new low.
At one point, towards the climax of the film, Thor is "rowing" a Viking ship across the sea and absolutely no effort is made to suggest that he is actually anywhere near water, it's almost as if Myrom Kingery is simply waving a paddle around in the air.
Honestly, the film is almost worth watching for that scene alone, even if you're not traditionally a fan of The Asylum's unique oeuvre.
I'm also surprised - and I suspect it's due to the lack of budget, which probably also explains the absence of decent wig work - that The Asylum, when mockbusting a Marvel movie (this one's clearly targeted at the Thor: Love and Thunder audience), don't employ the classic mid- or post-credit scene, potentially setting up a sequel.
Grace even asks Thor: "Will we see you again?"
And I half-expected him to look to camera and say: "That depends on how well this film does!"
However, no matter how much Myrom Kingery's Thor grew on me, I also think it's a shame that The Asylum didn't get back Cody Deal - who played the character for them in 2011's Almighty Thor - as, at the time, he'd said he was up for a sequel.
If they'd also brought back Loki from that flick, Richard Grieco, and Kevin Nash as Odin, it would have gone a long way towards establishing some degree of continuity for their own "Asylum'Verse".
While real life continues to entertain me with alternates to my established "tree safaris", this week has seen several key health-related events that will hopefully show that I'm heading in the right direction.
I've had another (painful) blood test - checking my blood sugar levels - and will get the results, all being well, at the end of next week.
As well as that, I went for my annual eye health check (stinging eye drops and bright lights fired into your eyeballs at point blank range) on Friday, the results of which should take two or three weeks to appear.
However, this week also saw the first meeting of the third iteration of Biscuit Club. The first was my initial NHS run class which lasted about three months, then there was the epic nine-month class which finished just a few weeks ago.
And now this one, run on behalf of the borough council, seems very similar to my previous course, but only runs for 12 weeks. It even happens not just in the same building as the last Biscuit Club but the same room.
There are around a dozen people in this class, and I'd estimate that I'm the second youngest.
This first week was mainly about an extended warm-up and cool-down, as well as a couple of simple "tests" to serve as a baseline for our assessment at the end of the 12 weeks to see if we've improved.
But most importantly the hour-long session ended with tea and biscuits. Not that I had any tea (as I don't drink caffeine these days) and I shouldn't really have had any biscuits (because of my diet) but that three-pack of Jammie Dodgers was calling out to me!!!
A year ago (late April, 2025) we threw a party to mark the 20th anniversary of my life-changing aortic aneurysm, or more accurately to celebrate the extra 20 years (so far) that I have had since the National Health Service (NHS) saved my life.
Here's the pictures - and text - I used to mark the occasion on the blog:
Much to Rachel's surprise, it was actually my idea to host this event (I am, if you didn't already know, notoriously anti-social). I'd seen that 'new' Doctor Who was 20 years old this year and I realised that my brush with death had come several episodes into the regenerated show's first season.
Up until this year, I have been very nervous - almost superstitious - about even knowing we'd reached another anniversary and I never wanted to know the exact date or too many details of the circumstances (beyond the obvious facts that I had suffered a dissecting aortic aneurysm and then a stroke on the operating table).
But, this year, I finally accepted that two decades was far enough removed from the original, awful, event that maybe it was time to invite friends and family round to share a few drinks, have some nice food, and - at Rachel's suggestion - even raise a bit of money for the Aortic Dissection Awareness charity.
While Rachel - who actually organised the whole shindig, invited the guests, prepared the food, decorated the house etc - called the event "20 Years of Tim", others were calling it "Tim Day" and even "TimFest".
I'll confess while it was immensely flattering to have all these people turn up to celebrate "me", it was also incredibly overwhelming and every so often I had to find a few calming minutes of quiet solitude with Alice and Obi (my two favouritest dogs in the whole, wide world).
Poor Alice, who is dealing with her own medical issues, seemed rather out of sorts as well, with so many people in "her space", that she didn't even engage in her usual rough and tumble with Obi (she's renowned for bullying him mercilessly, despite being a fraction of his size!).
I was quite gobsmacked by how much Acrobatic Flea (my signature character from our old games of Villains & Vigilantes) branding there was for the day - from the lovely T-shirt that Rachel's parents had made for me to the cup cakes created by the wonderful baker over the road from us.
Just before the group photograph was taken, Rachel gave a short, tearful, speech about how brilliant everyone had been in the wake of my sudden hospitalisation - from the amazing doctors and nurses of the NHS to all our friends who had pitched in to help us get through this. It even got to me, despite having already heard a dry run the night before, and a good number of other attendees.
On the food table was a small framed poster with a QR code that people could scan, if they wished to, to make a charitable donation to Aortic Dissection Awareness.
There was light-hearted talk about making Tim Day an annual event, which I did relay to Rachel, but I think one social event in 20 years is probably quite enough.
Top Dogs: Obi, the visitor (front), and our beloved Alice.
FAMILY PORTRAIT: Me, Rachel (holding Alice) and Rachel's parents
There were even garden games available for the young - and young-at-heart
EX-CUPCAKE! We're lucky to have a gifted cake maker live across the road from us
Excuse me, there's a Flea on my cupcake!
A mere fraction of the food and drink Rachel provided on the day
While the event was never intended as a "gift giving" day I was stunned by the unexpected gifts I did receive.
Nick and Andorian cosplayer at the premiere 'after-party'
I didn't want to get off on the wrong foot with this David Bowie-themed Throwback Thursday by suggesting I had met the great man.
The closest I ever came (via the laws of Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon) was when Nick and I, 24 year ago, blagged ourselves tickets to the gala celebrity premiere of Star Trek VI - The Undiscovered Country (probably my favourite of the original Star Trek movies). I can't remember if this was through work or through my old Trekkie friend John Carrigan.
The only celebrities there actually connected with the movie were director Nicholas Meyer and Iman - model-turned-actress and wife of David Bowie - who played Martia the shapeshifter.
So I was in the same room as Bowie's wife, which is the next best thing to having been in the same room as him!
As is often the case when someone famous dies you discover all the fascinating facts about their life that you wish you'd known while they were alive.
For instance, thanks to the Times of Tunbridge Wells news website back in 2016, I learned of Bowie's connection to the town of my birth.
His mum came from Southborough (a 'suburb' of Tunbridge Wells that bridges the gap between that town and Tonbridge, where I now live) and she met her future husband (and David's father-to-be) at the old cinema in Tunbridge Wells.
Like the rest of the right-thinking world I've always been a fan of Bowie's music, but in recent years it took on an added poignancy, as his song Where Are We Now? was the only track I remember the radio playing as Rachel and I sat by my mum's bed in her final days.
After years of silence, he had surprised the world by announcing a new album seemingly out of the blue, and here I was hearing the first release from it (repeatedly), sitting in a night-shrouded room, swathed in grief, saying 'good bye' to my ailing mother.
When I think back to those days, and I often do, the image in my head is almost like a Nativity scene, with Rachel and I sitting in the halo of light from a bedside lamp, holding mum's hand, in an otherwise dark room, with Where Are We Now? providing the soundtrack for the vignette.
I've been on Archie Comics' mailing list for ages, but never dreamed of ever buying anything from them direct - what with me being on this side of the Atlantic and they being on the other.
There was a time, not that long ago, when I'd think nothing of ordering a book from the States or sending a parcel to a friend across The Pond, but these days, with outrageous postal charges and random tariffs, the idea of doing such things is usually comparable with the prospect of tooth extraction... without anaesthetic.
However, one email from Archie Comics caught my eye with its promotion for the Archie Jumbo Comic Magazine that seemed to suggest, through a combination of offers, that I could not only get the magazine on pre-order at a reduced cost but I could also secure free shipping.
I was sceptical at first - such deals usually turn out to be region-locked. But I did all the clicks, entered my address, and both the deals and my home address were accepted!
So, I pressed the equivalent of "buy it now" and paid what I considered to be an acceptably low sum should the magazine never actually appear. Perhaps someone at Archie would realise this was a mistake and not process it...
But, the gorgeous Archie Jumbo Comic Magazine turned up this week, 112-pages of oversized stories from throughout the decades, classic Archie artwork, full-page character profiles, pin-ups, puzzles, and text introductions to each "age" of Archie stories (Golden, Silver etc).
As I've said before, amidst all the costumed fisticuffs, laser blasts, gorefests, and barbaric fury of the bulk of comic book reading, I've always - since my early days in the hobby - found room for the wholesome antics of the Riverdale crew.
I guess it's a kind of palate cleanser, but that's not really what keeps bringing me back to Archie comics: it's their consistency, both in the art and writing. Not every joke lands, but enough raise a smile or even a chortle to make think "this was money well spent".
The Archie Jumbo Comic Magazine looks like it's going to be a wonderful book to dip in and out of, peeling back of the layers of Archie's history across the last 85 years.
However, the latest marketing email from the company reminded me that it's not just Archie that's celebrating a special anniversary this year... but his homeland as well:
Archie Comics Celebrates America's 250th is a 32-page, one-shot due out on July 1.
"America is celebrating its 250th birthday, and who better to ring in the occasion than the beacons of Americana - Archie Andrews and all his friends and family in Riverdale!
"Take a walk down memory lane (no, not THAT Memory Lane), as we revisit some of the best U.S. and U.S. history stories from Archie’s 85 years!"
I last shared this online in 2019(it's a favourite of Philip Reeve and he recommended it to me), but there have, sadly, been no updates on this crowdfunded labour of love since 2022. Much to the chagrin of the project's backers (check the recent comments on the IndieGoGo page).
At the age of 10, my parents took me to the traditional pantomime in Tunbridge Wells, which happened to be The Owl And The Pussycat that year (based on the nonsense verse of Edward Lear).
At the back of the of the show guide (a four-page A5 pamphlet, essentially a sheet of A4 folded in half) there was a challenge for children to "count how many spots a Plum Pudding Flea has", fill out a form and pop their answer in a box in the foyer.
I have no idea how many spots I counted, but nevertheless I won the competition and got invited back to see the panto again, then visit with the cast afterwards or as the programme put it: "tea with all the inhabitants of 'The Land Where The Bong Trees Grow'" (they were more innocent times then).
The "big names" in the cast that year were John Dryden (who played 'The Dong With The Luminous Nose', stop giggling at the back!) and Glen Stuart (who was The Owl to Cindy Kent's Pussycat).
These two gentlemen were the stars of The Sunday Gang, a very earnest Sunday morning Christian kids show that ran from 1976 to 1981.
However, the highlight for me was meeting a member of The Sunday Gang who wasn't in the panto, but had turned up anyway to support her colleagues: Tina Heath. She had played the lead in Lizzie Dripping and would then go on to front Blue Peter for a year before leaving to have a baby.
Besides rubbing shoulders with some '70s celebrities, I was also given a copy of Edward Lear's Book Of Bosh, with the inside cover autographed by all the performers in the show (see below).
I originally posted this piece online back in 2015, and five years later I got a lovely comment on the article from Cindy Kent herself:
"Hi. I am the Cindy Kent mentioned and was delighted when someone sent this to me! Wow - what memories it brought back just seeing the poster. I’m so glad you enjoyed it. It was my first panto and I loved it. I am now a semi-retired Anglican Priest living in Kent and look back on that time with fond memories. I wonder what happened to the other cast members? God Bless you"
Set in 1993, estranged Street Fighters Ryu (Andrew Koji) and Ken Masters (Noah Centineo) are thrown back into combat when the mysterious Chun-Li (Callina Liang) recruits them for the next World Warrior Tournament: a brutal clash of fists, fate, and fury.
But behind this battle royale lies a deadly conspiracy that forces them to face off against each other and the demons of their past. And if they don’t, it’s GAME OVER!
Helmed by director Kitao Sakurai, Street Fighter is set to bring the battle from the arcade to the big screen with Hadoukens, roundhouses, and all your favourite characters.
Anyone who has read my drivel for long enough - and is into old school gaming - will be aware that Dave Hargrave's Arduin is one of my favourite settings and one that, to this day, shapes my ideals of what a "perfect" RPG campaign world should be like.
Over the years I have joined a number of Arduin groups on platforms that no longer exist, but I thought, today, I'd share a couple of pieces from those old groups that will - hopefully - go some way towards explaining my eternal love for Hargrave's legendary campaign.
In one group, a gentleman who went by the handle of Mourn Storm recounted a legendary tale from Dave's game and shared the picture below (by insanely talented Russian artist Leo Hao) to illustrate the story of the Battle of Fort Blood.
Storm's story read as follows:
"I patched together the tale of Fort Blood based solely upon what tidbits
David passed along to me and interviews over the years with one or two
players who were there. You also may remember the dedication to "Koryu,
leader of the 47 Ronin" in [Arduin Grimoire, Volume 1].
"This crew was part of a world spanning
quest he ran WWWAAAYYY back in the day, The players changed, characters
died or were taken out of play, but there were always 47 'ronin' on this
quest of Koryu's to retrieve/rescue his lover's soul.
"They found
themselves at a place called Fort Blood and were about to camp for the
night when one of the mages declared it was the Eve of the Black
Solstice and that THIS place was a focus point. Long story short, they
fought against the very Hordes of Hell from the moment the sun dipped
beneath the rim of the world until dawn the next day."
At some point I joined an Arduin discussion group on Yahoo and nothing sums up the spirit of Arduin better than the group's poetic, introductory text:
What dreams and glories we have all beheld!
I have travelled through the Ebon Gates on the Plateau of Forever, seen the highest peaks of the Misty Mountains and looked down into the dark swirling mists of The Devils Footprint.
I have delved deep within foul Skull Tower, wintered on the northern border of far Ghorfar where the Blue Barbarian Amazons wield their deadly skills and felt the oppressive heat rising from the jungles of Green Hell far to the south.
I have ridden the trails with brave men and craven, mad men and priests; I have known warriors, thieves, mages, treasure seekers, glory hounds, fools and wisemen. I call Deodanths my blood enemies, Dwarves stout hearted, Elves fools and Centaurs gallant foes. I have seen true honour and nobility in the bug folk called Phraints and courage unheard of from Halfling bakers.
I know the terrors of the Night of the Black Solstice, the fear that grips men when Amazons close to battle screaming like Furies from legend and the sweet thrill of victory when the last foe dies or flees the field. I've seen the deadly ballet of combat between TIE fighter and Dragon played out with lethal finality over the Mountains of Madness. I've fought in the blood games of Melnibone, traded skins with a Marmachandian merchant and walked the streets of Talismonde' side by side with Vampyr and Paladin companions.
I've searched for the Yabander stone, found the Blood of Sorkar, and once I saw Stormbringer unsheathed and lived to tell the tale!
More often than not, when I'm kicking around an idea for a fantasy campaign in my noggin, my first port of call for inspiration will always be Hargrave's legendary Arduin Grimoire (particularly the first three books, which I purchased as an eager Dungeons & Dragons-obsessed 12-year-old so many years ago).
As I begun one such expedition into the depths of the Grimoire, I came across the following quote on page two of the first book, on a page about experience point rewards.
Bear in mind that the Grimoire used an experience/level system very similar to that of old school Dungeons and Dragons.
In this particular entry, Mr Hargrave was counting down various events and giving guidelines to what experience points they would earn in his campaign.
For 375 experience points a player character would have to have been:
"sole survivor of an expedition acquiring the mightiest of artifacts (Satan's own pitchfork, nuclear weapons, phasers etc.)."
What kind of wonderfully, whacked-out and over-the-top campaign must Dave Hargrave have been running that such treasures were available to lucky (foolhardy?) player-characters?
And how gutting to only earn a mere 375 experience points from probably the most dangerous adventure of your life?
It's no wonder that The Arduin Grimoire blew my pre-teen mind and continues to hold an amazing fascination for me even after all these decades.
Map of Robert E Howard's Hyborian Age, from Titan Comics' Conan The Barbarian
In 1932, Robert E. Howard wrote an essay describing an advanced civilization at the end of the last Ice Age, destroyed by catastrophe and flooding, followed by a final period of glaciation. He called it the Hyborian Age. Today, Graham Hancock argues for essentially the same sequence of events using modern geological evidence. But Howard got there first, drawing on sources that go back over a century.
In this video, I trace the intellectual roots of Howard's fictional prehistory through Ignatius Donnelly, the Theosophical tradition, Charles Hapgood, Jack London, Yogi Ramacharaka and B.G. Tilak, who argued that Vedic myths preserved memories of an Arctic civilization destroyed by glaciation.
Featuring rare first editions from my personal collection including the 1938 LANY first publication of The Hyborian Age, one of fewer than ten known copies.
A fascinating half-hour presentation by Howard scholar and essayist Jeffrey Shanks (his erudite writings appear in every issue of Titan Comics' bestselling Howardverse books).
In this feature, he looks into the early 20th Century (and prior) archaeological, historical and pseudohistorical, mythological, and occult ideas on prehistory and the Atlantis myth that fed into Robert E Howard's fictional setting of the Hyborian Age.
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-sorceryis 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.
When you're a very young kid reading comics you don't really pay attention to the credits.
Before I became a serious collector in my late teens/early 20s, I was picking up random issues as and when I could find them - either the original colour American comics or the black and white reprints that came out over here.
But I couldn't tell you who drew them. To be honest, I doubt I could have even told you who had written them!
I'm not sure when it happened, but the first artist whose style I recognised as distinctively different, and actively sought out, was that of Gil Kane. I liked his stark lines.
Then my tastes expanded to being able to pick out the work of Carmine Infantino whose art, to my untrained and uneducated eye, I thought was quite similar to Kane's work.
But it's Kane's illustrations that have always held a particular nostalgia for me, taking me to being a little kid, with my comics spread across the bedroom floor, following the adventures of sundry superheroes around imaginary cities, throughout space, and even into different dimensions.
Monday (April 6) was the 100th anniversary of Kane's birth.
My pop culture Odyssey: a slice of super-powered geek life with heavy emphasis on pulp adventure, superheroes, comic books, westerns, horror, sci-fi, giant monsters, zombies etc
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