Meet Dunk and Egg - Your New Favourite Westerosi

Let's Talk About Stats, Baby, Let's Talk About You and Me

I love stats.

It all dates back to my school days and it's all because of Dungeons & Dragons and the other RPGs I was being introduced to in my formative years.

Those early roleplaying games were a gateway drug to broadening my vocabulary and learning the importance of numbers, percentages, chances etc
 
I may not have been the greatest pupil to ever walk the hallowed halls of my prep school or grammar school, but - on top of my creative writing I was developing at the time - I maintained my obsession with the magic of numbers.

Throw comic books into the mix and suddenly the revelation of Official Handbooks and Who's Whos from Marvel and DC were like catnip to me.

I'm pretty sure I picked up all the original run of DC Comic's A to Z Who's Who of their deep character roster at the time, but it was Marvel's Official Handbooks to The Marvel Universe that really blew my tiny socks off.

Entry from The Official Handbook of The Marvel Universe: Spider-Man 2005

These actually went into technical minutiae and even rated characters on strength, durability, fighting skills, energy projection, intelligence, strength etc

This was gold dust for an info-hungry gamer like me. Even if I wasn't looking to adapt a Marvel character directly into an RPG setting (almost certainly 2nd Edition Villains & Vigilantes), there was enough detail (even height and weight!) here to create a character based off of a Marvel character!

Sure, there were official Marvel roleplaying games, but these Handbooks felt like I was getting the details direct from the source.

To this day, I have an eBay alert set-up for Marvel Handbooks, as I've developed a special interest in the later "themed releases", comic book-sized updates featuring current characters from a particular storyline (e.g. the comparatively recent Empyre) or genre (such as 'horror' or Conan The Barbarian) .

People have devoted whole podcasts to these kinds of books (and it's easy to see why, there's just so much to talk about) and smaller companies have also dipped their toe into the "handbook" field (I try and grab them when I see them).

I primarily love comic books for the wild, superheroic, storylines and incredible art, but having these encyclopaedic volumes of facts and figures makes it all the more real for me, building a degree of verisimilitude that I can then port over into my gaming.

Well, that's the idea anyway...  

My treasured collection of The Official Handbook of The Marvel Universe A - Z

Join Sophie Aldred On An Ace Odyssey Through The Whoniverse

This week saw the launch of Sophie Aldred's new Doctor Who-adjacent podcast, Ace Odyssey.

Sophie, of course, played The Seventh Doctor's companion, Dorothy 'Ace' McShane from 1987, has appeared in countless Big Finish audios, and returned to the TV show in 2022 for The 13th Doctor's send-off, The Power of The Doctor.

Depending on the format of other podcasts you listen to, Ace Odyssey might come across initially as a bit unusual, with the host's chatty companions - such as Hobbes, her robotic butler, and Mrs C, the Cockney goldfish - taking a moment to get used to.

However, what shouldn't come as surprise is that Sophie's first interview subject is The Seventh Doctor himself, the marvellous Sylvester McCoy, chatting about his early life and his first exposure to the business known as show. It's a wild and fascinating conversation!

Next up for an interview is Big Finish writer Ali Winter, talking about her own fandom and how she found her way to working on Doctor Who for Big Finish.

For Appleheads, the podcast can be found here on iTunes, otherwise search your podcatcher of choice for Sophie Aldred's Ace Odyssey.

The full show description is shown below:

Strap in, adjust your gravity boots, and mind the Patmats! You’ve arrived on the Nosferatu 2.5, the intergalactic pop-culture research vessel captained by Sophie Aldred herself. Your journey through time, space, memory, and fandom begins here.

At Sophie’s side is her unwavering (if occasionally exasperated) companion Hobbes: a clockwork butler with the heart of a neutron star, a head full of circuits, and more opinions than his maker strictly intended. Between them, they navigate cosmic curiosities, improbable technology, mysterious doors, and the occasional rogue goldfish.

For our maiden voyage, the ship’s unpredictable Time Scoop whirrs to life—summoning none other than Sylvester McCoy, the Seventh Doctor himself. Once the temporal dust settles, Sophie and Sylv settle into the Sofa of Infinite Understanding for a conversation spanning career, chaos, and the curious corners of the Whoniverse.

But the adventure doesn’t end there! Every episode journeys into the Ffantaface—the sprawling, shimmering reservoir of collective fan knowledge. Guarding the gateway is Mrs C, Sophie’s Cockney goldfish, who swims in telepathic water from the moon of Helixotrix Minor and ensures no-one approaches the interface uninvited (or unscolded).

Together, Sophie and Mrs C dive deep into fandom’s memories, mysteries, and marvels and encounter Big Finish writer extraordinaire Ali Winter.

Meanwhile, other questions linger aboard the ship, not least the unnerving presence of The Door We Can’t Open! What lies behind it?

Some secrets may have to wait until the Time Scoop is feeling cooperative…

Stuart Gordon's Lovecraftian Oeuvre

Lovecraft’s stories have inspired a lot of horror movies — some good, some not so much. But Stuart Gordon’s take on them always stood out.

NEWS OF ELEVEN: Revisiting Classic New Who

Iconic TARDIS travellers Karen Gillan and Arthur Darvill (aka Amy Pond and Rory Williams) are reuniting for a new podcast, looking back at their adventures with The Eleventh Doctor (as played by Matt Smith).

Former Doctor Who showrunner Steven Moffat has already been revealed as a guest on the upcoming Pondcast, although all other details - including the launch date - remain a closely-guarded secret.

For a teensy-wheeny bit more information pop over to the Radio Times website here.

Meanwhile, Big Finish - masterful purveyors of official Doctor Who audio adventures - has announced a new range of full-cast audio Eleventh Doctor plays, beginning March next year, with Miles Taylor supplying The Doctor's vocals.

He will be joined by a new companion, Eleanor Fong, played by Jasmine Bayes (who appeared on the TV show as UNIT's Corporal Alice Sullivan in The Legend of Ruby Sunday and Empire of Death).

To learn more about the first box set of The Eleventh Doctor Adventures, and pre-order them, click here to be transported to the Big Finish website.

HALLOWEEN HORROR: Archive 81 (2022)

A shy video-restoration expert, Dan Turner (Underwater's Mamoudou Athie) is offered a once-in-a-lifetime financial deal to work on a sensitive project for shady businessman Virgil Davenport (Martin Donovan).

The job involves relocating to an isolated compound, where Dan will be restoring and digitising a fragile collection of fire-damaged video tapes.

He soon learns that these tapes, dating from the mid-90s, were part of a doctoral thesis by student Melody Pendras (Altered Carbon's Dina Shihabi) who was compiling an oral history of the eccentric residents of a New York apartment building.

However, as he watches the tapes, not only does Dan discover a personal connection to the unfolding story but he also sees that Melody seemingly stumbled upon a cult operating in the building.

Told over eight, hour-long episodes, Archive 81 is the latest horror offering from Netflix and I have to say upfront it's as creepy as anything.

Based on a podcast (that I was previously unaware of), for my tastes, this is as close to perfection as anything I've seen in a very long time.

I was also quite surprised - going in spoiler-free - how many coincidences there were between elements of Archive 81 and The Last Ritual, an Arkham Horror story by S.A. Sidor, which I read at the end of 2021.

Both involve cults operating in artistic communities, and, as we go deeper down the rabbit hole the backstory of Archive 81 pays a visit to a very Lovecraftian 1920s. 

The whole cult throughline has incredible Lovecraftian overtones, which made me immensely happy as the series felt like a clever modernisation of the writings of this hugely important and influential horror story scribe.

With its inclusion of another of my favourite tropes - the hunt for mysterious or cursed films - I was also reminded of the comic book mini-series, The Lot (from defunct publisher Bad Idea) and, of course, John Carpenter's Cigarette Burns, and Deadwax.

Initially I'd only planned to watch the first episode (I'd offered to check the show for 'gore content' on behalf of an old friend) of Archive 81, but I was hooked from the get-go.

I binged the whole eight-hour show in a day - with some breaks for 'real life', naturally.

Focusing primarily on Dan's investigation, and then Melody's as a story-within-the-story, some might dismiss Archive 81 as a slow-burner, but it's simply being methodical, with the viewer's close attention being rewarded with subtle clues and foreshadowing.

Some clues are there up front, like the references to Dante's Inferno, with the inclusion of an old film serial called The Circle, and our protagonist, Dan T, being led on this descent into Hell by a gentleman called Virgil.

And I'm sure there were plenty of other references and allusions that I failed to pick up on. 

By the end you will come to realise that everything was important. Other properties may boast that "it's all connected" in their rambling franchises, but in Archive 81 it really is.

If I had a small nit to pick it would be the special effects of a certain creature manifestation, but this is a very small quibble and certainly doesn't detract from the incredible, unnerving nature of the show.

MORE THAN JUST A GAME, IT'S THE GAME!

With its rich storytelling, elaborate campaigns and characters, and immersive fantasy worlds, Dungeons & Dragons is the ultimate tabletop role-playing game.

In 1982, at just 14 years old, Dungeon Master Robert Wardhaugh began a campaign that’s still running many years later.

Based out of his basement in London, Canada, players from across the country gather to take part in one of the longest-running D&D campaigns in history. But how do you play it? And most importantly, how do you play it well?

In this episode, Great Big Story returns to Robert’s legendary game to explore its evolution, the secrets to a campaign’s longevity, and what it takes to play (and master) D&D for life.

Except, of course, it isn't really Dungeons & Dragons per se, as Robert Wardhaugh has replaced pretty much every rule from Advanced Dungeons & Dragons - ship of Theseus-style - with his own personalised houserules.

Not that that, in any way, detracts from the brilliance, and enduring appeal, of this campaign - I'm immensely envious of pretty much every aspect of the group's set-up!

The Game, as Robert's campaign is known, now has its own website (here) and Patreon (here).

This latest episode of Great Big Story is an update on its first visit to Robert's world in 2017, which you can watch here:

History professor Robert Wardhaugh has been continually running this campaign for more than four decades - almost certainly the longest continuous roleplaying campaign.

He began at a teenager in 1982 with his schoolfriends and now, four decades later, has a pool of around 50 players to call upon, both around his native Canada and in the UK.

The adventures, which so far have covered more than 600 years of in-game history, take place on an alternate Earth that includes multiple real-world pre-gunpowder civilisations, as well as Robert E Howard's Hyboria in place of South America, and Tolkien's Middle-Earth (400 years after the destruction of The One Ring) as a bonus continent.

The game has been houseruled from its beginning, and now only bears a passing mechanical resemblance to modern Dungeons & Dragons (I get the impression Robert has been, forever, cherry-picking bits from all kinds of rules systems as he discovers them over the years).

In an interview with the official Dungeons & Dragons podcast in 2016 (see below), Robert revealed an interesting ruling that has shaped the nature of the campaign: death means death.

If a character is killed, the player leaves the game... unless the character has a family member who can inherit the dead player-character's mantle.

This has seen some player-character lineages extend to 20 generations so far!

(Note: there are other ways round this 'harsh' ruling - such as taking over a member of another player's family).

Averaging one or two sessions a week, usually of four or five hours, Robert has pledged to run this campaign for as long as he is physically able.

As well as mountains of custom terrain, he has a tens of thousands of miniatures to help bring his obviously prodigious storytelling to life for his lucky players.

Gamesmaster Robert Wardhaugh discusses his campaign - aka The Game - with Dragon Talk hosts Greg Tito and Shelly Mazzanoble.

You can watch The Twitch videos Robert mentions in the interview here:

Wired produced another mini-documentary about The Game (above).

The Tuesday Knights May Be On An Extended Hiatus, But The Gaming Wheels Are Still Turning

Today is the 17th anniversary of the first gathering of our gaming group, The Tuesday Knights.

However, we are currently on an extended hiatus - for various reasons we haven't gamed since May and now, of course, I'm rather entangled in a medical "mystery" as science tries to figure out why my legs aren't working properly!

I've thus pulled the plug on my supers' game, as Pete has stepped up with a new system he has invested in, to continue his long-running time travel/alternate reality campaign, which has so far bounced from GURPS Atomic Horror to Hollow Earth Expedition.

Next up will be Outgunned, which I'm very excited about as it's a game I was seriously considering picking up when it was launched through some crowdfunding programme or another. It's "cinematic action" vibe really appeals to me, so I'm looking forward to playing this.

I think we might still be playing in the same Indiana Jones-inspired inter-war setting in which our HEX game was set, presumably using the Outgunned Adventure supplement, although, to be honest, I wouldn't mind our characters sliding into contemporary bodies for a bit of John Wick/James Bond action.

In the meantime, I've superficially been kicking around some alternate systems for me to try out on the gang once I'm feeling better and Pete takes his next break from his long-running game (currently 32 sessions over 36 months).

Top contenders for further investigation on my behalf are:

GO FER YER GUN! But rather than a straight Western, I'd be looking to "Dark Tower it up" by easily blending some magic and monsters into the mix. This would be very easy to do with the simple d20 rules of Go Fer Yer Gun! 

ALIEN RPG (EVOLVED): I haven't read enough of the original edition to really get my head round the system, but there's a new edition out later this year (I didn't back the Kickstarter) and I really love the setting.

STAR TREK ADVENTURES (2nd Edition): I've never really grokked the 2d20 system that Modiphius uses to power most of its RPGs, but I know a lot of online buddies talk of playing in ongoing, long-running campaigns with this game. And who doesn't love Star Trek, right? I have the starter set for the new edition, just need to get round to reading the books.

PLANET OF THE APES: Another setting I adore. I can't help imagining the team as crashed astronauts on a post-apocalyptic Earth being pursued by trumpet-blowing gorillas.

The rules are variation on the old West End Games d6 system, which many, many people speak highly of although I've never played it. I didn't back the Planet of The Apes Kickstarter in the end, but the rule books are due out early next year.

BEYOND THE VEIL: While my previous possibilities are essentially variations on a theme, just with different settings, Beyond The Veil is nothing like any of those.

It's a roleplaying game about ghost-hunters in contemporary times. Not superheroes or trained astronauts, but members of the public - both believers and non-believers - brought together to scientifically investigate claims of the supernatural. It's The X-Files, Uncanny podcast and Stephen King horror, mingled with UFOs, cryptids and ghost stories, as read about through the pages of The Fortean Times.

Beyond The Veil is due to hit Kickstarter in a couple of months, but I already have the introductory Prologue booklet, which I'm halfway through reading.

Conan The Barbarian Hits His Quarter-Century

Painted wraparound cover for by Alex Horley

The blockbuster Conan The Barbarian comic, from Titan and Heroic Signatures, releases its landmark 25th issue this October.

To mark the occasion, this issue will be a 48-page, standalon King Conan adventure from celebrated Conan scribe Jim Zub, fully painted by Alex Horley.

In his weekly newsletter, Zub stated:

"Solicits and preview pages are making the rounds and it’s so nice to be able to show people some of the jaw-dropping work I’ve been staring in awe at since Alex and I started working on this epic back in September of last year.

"This issue is my first King Conan story, it’s a self-contained adventure, and it’s a fist-pumping sword-swinging celebration of our series – past, present, and future."

He added:

"And just as a reminder – Conan the Barbarian will keep going after issue #25! I know a lot of current comic series seem to be getting cancelled or constantly relaunched, but we are going strong and our latest issues have defied typical attrition patterns and are going up in sales.

"There are many more adventures to come as long as readers and retailers keep supporting the series the way they have so far."

Fully-painted preview of interior artwork by Alex Horley

At last weekend's San Diego Comic-Con, it was also revealed that the popularity of Patrick Zircher's recent Solomon Kane mini-series means a second series is coming next year; and a new title called Savage Sword: Reforged is being launched, reprinting select stories from the original black and white Marvel run of Savage Sword of Conan but in colour.

A sample of Barry Windsor-Smith's coloured art from The Frost-Giant's Daughter

The first issue of Reforged comes with a choice of covers:

A new podcast, called Legends of Conan, was mentioned; Jim Zub hinted at his four-year plan (with annual 'event' pillars) for Conan The Barbarian, including the arc in issues 26 to 28 which will show how Conan became the king of Aquilonia; and a forthcoming, brand new Kull comic book series was also announced during the busy Heroic Signatures panel.

It's a great time to be a comic book-reading fan of the creations of Robert E Howard!

Art tease from Patrick Zircher's next Solomon Kane miniseries

Building Up The Old Western Library!

Today saw the arrival - all the way from the Good Ol' U.S. of A - of Deadwood's Al Swearingen: Manifest Evil In The Gem Saloon, penned by historians Jerry L Bryant and Barbara Fifer.

According to the Wild West Extravaganza podcast episode on Swearingen, this book is the closest we'll get to knowing the actual person - rather than the charmingly vile anti-hero version portrayed superbly by Ian McShane in the great Deadwood TV show.

This 140-page tome has immediately jumped to the top of my reading pile, as I just finished my first Louis L'Amour novel yesterday (The Tall Stranger)!