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.

Teaser For This Week's Alien: Earth

As well as a taste of what's to come (see above), here's a clip from last week's Alien: Earth along with a "how did they do it" look behind the scenes.

Freaky (2020)

The whole Freaky Friday/body swap concept is a tried-and-tested formula for light-hearted romps about mistaken identity and learning to "walk a mile in someone else's shoes", but slasher-comedy Freaky takes this to a whole new level by throwing a serial killer into the mix.

Millie Kessler (Kathryn Newton) is a sweet high school kid who, late one terrifying evening while waiting for a lift home from a football match, discovers that the urban myth of the Blissfield Butcher is all too real.

The night before the brutal deaths of four obnoxious teens had been attributed to this legendary 'mythical' figure in the town of Blissfield, but then he (Vince Vaughn) attacks Millie, and stabs her with an ancient knife - La Dola - that has come into his possession.

This ancient Aztec sacrificial blade has the magical power to swap the souls of the attacker and victim when a person is stabbed with it.

The next day, The Butcher wakes up as a teenage girl, and Millie wakes up in a squat, wearing the face of the most wanted man in Blissfield.

The Butcher adapts to his new form much faster than Millie, immediately realising it's the perfect disguise with which to continue his murder spree.

Meanwhile, Millie has to convince her friends that it's really her in this middle-aged man's body... and avoid being arrested on numerous homicide charges.

Millie and her friends learn that unless they can stab The Butcher again within 24 hours, with the same magical blade, the soul transference will be permanent.

And so the race against time begins. 

Directed by Christopher Landon, who brought us the two Happy Death Day time loop movies, from a script he co-wrote with Michael Kennedy, Freaky is a broad horror-comedy (Vince Vaughn playing a teenage girl in a man's body is brilliant).

But while there is a degree of gore - unsurprisingly - in this slasher flick, the most disturbing elements come from the threats of sexual violence delivered by stereotypical jocks when they think they have the "weak and feeble" Millie backed into a corner.

This is one of those slasher films where you find yourself, while never, of course, siding with the Blissfield Butcher, at least feeling satisfied with some of his victim choices.

The 102-minute film also does a fantastic job when it comes to pacing, to the extent that when you first believe the story is over, you suddenly realise there's 10 or 15 minutes of the film still to run... and there are more shocks to come!

Freaky is neither high art nor trash cinema, skating comfortably down the middle as a teen friendly horror flick that nails its colours to the mast from the get-go, trading largely in stereotypes to keep the action moving.

Ultimately it's a jaunty game of cat-and-mouse between two compelling leads (Millie morphs into a cross between Reese Witherspoon's Elle Woods and Sarah Michelle Gellar's Buffy Summers) that entertains and repulses when it needs to.

HEALTH UPDATE: Baby Steps!

Once again, I am learning how to walk. I did it as an infant, I did it after my stroke 20 years ago, and now - for currently unknown reasons - I am having to do it again.

My MRI last month showed that I had a slipped disc, but the analysis of that was that it didn't explain the loss of strength in my legs and my sudden inability to walk.

While I await next week's appointment at the orthopaedics department, I've been testing the limits of my strength and stability by first walking and down the stairs (using the extra handrail that Rachel's dad installed) - instead of dragging myself up and down on my arse - and am now trying to walk (short distances) from either end of the staircase.

As long as there's something for me to hold on to you with one hand - or even touch with my fingertips - I'm able to make it to rooms off the first floor landing or, on the groundfloor, into the lounge.

I even made it to the backdoor one day this week - essentially walking the length of the house.

The other positive thing I did was finish the two books I was reading: Stephen King's Carrie and "Did You Hear What Eddie Gein Done?", an in-depth, graphic novel biography of Ed Gein, the inspiration for Norman Bates, Leatherface et al. 

I'd read a huge chunk of Carrie while I was waiting around in hospital for my tests in mid-July, but then hadn't picked it up since, due to a combination of physical discomfort and depression. 

But I was determined to finish it this week, as my "TBR" pile continues to grow into a mountain.

To celebrate this achievement, Rachel - not a fan of the horror genre at all - heroically agreed to watch the classic, original Carrie as our Saturday evening film.

However, I couldn't find my blu-ray disc of the movie (as I'm currently unable to fully search my double-stacked library of films), so we watched Psycho instead - which Rachel had already seen.

Hopefully, I'll be able to unearth Carrie by next weekend.

Now that I've cleared the mental blockage in my reading, I've got several books lined up to read next, starting with the incredibly weird-sounding Crypt of The Moon Spider, by Nathan Ballingrud, that was recommended on McNulty's Book Corral.

After that should come James Herbert's The Rats, The Tourist's Guide to Haunted Wellman by my Facebook friend Charles R Rutledge and the late James A Moore, and Stephen King's The Shining.

I haven't read The Rats since prep school in the '70s, where the book was a big hit among my young peers and caused a furore amongst the school authorities who banned us from reading it - thus making it more enticing. I couldn't find an affordable copy of the edition I read back then, but did find the 50th anniversary edition... which made me feel old.

The idea is build up a head of steam with my rekindled reading drive to give me the mental momentum to tackle The Shining.

If all goes to plan, I suspect that tome could keep my stroke-addled brain occupied for the rest of 2025 (at the very least).

I thought if I was going to give one of King's doorstop books a go, it might as well be the one whose story I'm most excited to read.

I only really know The Shining from Kubrick's 1980 movie (and Mike Flanagan's powerful 2019 sequel, Doctor Sleep), but am well aware that King didn't like Kubrick's take and much of the source material was ignored or rewritten.

So, I felt I owed to myself to discover the "real" story of The Overlook Hotel.

Conan the Barbarian: Kingdoms and Stories

Dive deep into the savage world of Conan with a full breakdown of the kingdoms, cultures, and lands where his greatest adventures took place!

From The Frost-Giant’s Daughter and Queen of the Black Coast to The Tower of the Elephant, Red Nails, and The Hour of the Dragon — we cover every iconic tale by Robert E. Howard.

Venture across the Hyborian Age, from the brooding hills of Cimmeria to the golden spires of Aquilonia, the haunted jungles of Kush, and the sun-scorched sands of Stygia. Where did Conan face his most brutal foes? Which land tested the Cimmerian’s steel the most? Find out here — your Hyborian journey begins now.

Courtesy of Heroic Signatures

One Piece Sets Sail For Season Two on Netflix Next Year

A new dawn is approaching. The Grand Line is no place for the faint of heart. Brace yourselves, One Piece Into The Grand Line sets sail in 2026! And it looks like Season Three production is kicking off...

In The Earth (2021)

Why, oh why, do I keep doing this to myself? After the pretentious nonsense of 2013's A Field In England, I thought I was done with the oeuvre of auteur Ben Wheatley... but then I saw that he had made a new rural horror film that the trailers managed to make look quite intriguing.

While the world is consumed by the latest pandemic, scientist and city boy Martin Lowery (Game of Thrones' Joel Fry) and park ranger Alma (Ellora Torchia) head into a quarantined area of forest outside of Bristol to deliver equipment to researcher Olivia Wendle (Hayley Squires), who has set up camp deep in the woods.

During their second night of camping on the long journey through difficult terrain, Alma and Martin are attacked in their sleep, their radio is destroyed, and their shoes are stolen.

The following day Martin cuts his foot badly while continuing on barefoot, but they soon run into an apparent homeless man, Zach (The League of Gentleman's Reece Shearsmith) who takes them to his camp.

Very quickly it becomes clear that Zach is up to no good, and is actually trying to make contact with a woodland entity - Parnag Fegg - through symbolism and sacrifice.

Eventually, our protagonists escape his clutches and stumble into Wendle's encampment, only to realise that the scientist is as barmy as Zach.

While, he was using ritual, she using science, but heavily influenced by an old, occult tome that mentions the nearby standing stone around which all this weirdness seems to revolve.

As with A Field in England, In The Earth is largely a pompous, po-faced, mess of style over substance, but peppered with moments of pseudo torture porn and squirm-inducing injury detail, almost entirely inflicted on Martin.

For some reason, this film is allowed to run for 107 minutes, and, boy, does it feel it. When Wheatley isn't bombarding our senses with strobe lighting or flickering subliminal images (which I wouldn't object to if I felt they had some meaning), he's allowing his antagonists to monologue incessantly. 

I guess the writer-director believes he has an ear for dialogue, but more often than not it comes across as peculiarly mannered and stilted, akin to a poor student film.

Echoing 2018's Annihilation, the underlying story of In The Earth suggests that nature is 'fighting back' against mankind (and is possibly responsible for creating the unspecified plague affecting the globe... but I might be giving the plot too much credit there).

Both Zach and Olivia are taking different paths to opening a dialogue with an anthropomorphic avatar of nature, the mycrrhizal mat, a network connecting all the plant life in the area, to, essentially, negotiate a peace treaty.

And this core idea is interesting and worthy of investigation, but In The Earth doesn't do it justice.

I'm of an age where I don't need everything explained in a horror movie to get that its conceit is frightening, as long as there is the suggestion of an intelligent design behind it all.

However, Wheatley's "throw everything at the wall and see what sticks" approach actually undermines the uneasiness of the scenario.

There was a moment, in the final act, when Olivia was fine tuning her son et lumière communication devices, that I thought this drivel was about to be salvaged by some Quatermass-level fringe science, but sadly the plot opted to devolve into a psychedelic, early Pink Floyd music video (but without the great tunes).

What should have been terrifying was simply annoying.

Clearly Wheatley has enough fans that he can continue to gain funding for these arthouse horror projects, but I definitely don't count myself among their number.

THROWBACK THURSDAY: Education, Education, Education

It should come as a surprise to no one that I wasn't a great student at school, always being way more interested in my own "stuff" (that was, primarily, escapist movies and TV shows, comics, roleplaying games... and, of course, girls).

That's why the Calvin & Hobbes cartoon above (recently stumbled across on Facebook) struck a chord with me as it particularly reminded me of my English A-Level exam, back in 1985.

I was supposed to be writing essays on Charles Dickens's Great Expectations… only I hadn’t read Great Expectations and so, instead, wrote about the works of HP Lovecraft which I was much more conversant with.

I think I'd read, maybe, the first two or three chapters of Great Expectations, got bored and distracted, and picked up a Cliffs Notes on the book (or some study aid like that), scanning that instead, just before my exam.

As my old school chum Nick pointed out though I still passed (I got an E, which I'm pretty sure was lowest pass rank). He suggested that the examiners were "followers of Cthulhu".

Part of my problem with school was simply that I found subjects I really should have been interested in, such as English Language and English Literature, were taught in such a dry, rote manner. We were told that Dickens and Shakespeare were great and we should worship at their feet, but it was never explained why.

Thus, I found the books and plays we were forced to study to be dull and, largely, uninspiring (although the Dungeons & Dragons player in me loved Milton's Paradise Lost, but I don't recall that being part of my A-Level exam).

I was also a bit of a sucker for the works of The Metaphysical Poets, but, again, I don't remember these being part of the final exam.

It seems to have boiled down to anything that I studied for exams left no lasting impression at the time, while literary works I was allowed to explore "for fun" had a much deeper effect on me in those formative times.

It would be many years after school before I actually came to appreciate the works of Shakespeare and Dickens on my own terms (for instance, I now try to read/listen to A Christmas Carol every December).

By the time I went to university, having been in the workforce for a decade, my attitude to education had turned round completely.

I feel that I thrived much better in the university environment... possibly because, on my scriptwriting course, much of my years of accumulated geeky knowledge stood me in good stead. 

It also helped that coming from a very deadline-orientated career (ie journalism) I was easily able to prioritise my assignments and ensure they were done on time, allowing myself the maximum amount of time for fun and enjoyment.

My well-thumbed Penguin book of The Metaphysical Poets.
Guess I really should see if my old school wants it back after 40 years?

PROJECT 60: Population Explosion In Town With No Name

My "second wave" of miniatures - for use with the Dead Man's Hand skirmish system - have returned from Matt the painter and, as usual, look fantastic. 

He painted up a Plains Indian warband (pictured above) and a miscellany of gunfighters (including Rooster Cogburn, Butch and Sundance, a woman in a tin bath [for the saloon] and a trio of random shootists).

Most of these are 'official' Great Escape Games figures, with a few off-book, scale-appropriate, acquisitions for good measure.

That means, currently, I have one other faction (the religious zealots of The Family) and a dozen or so civilians waiting in the gamesroom in the 'to be painted" queue.

However, my current 'medical science baffling' physical disability means I am unable to actually get into the narrow and deep gamesroom and sort out a "third wave" to send off to Matt. 

This has brought my progress on this project to a temporary halt, as I don't want to build up a huge backlog of Wild West characters gathering dust, especially as my mind is always wandering across a variety of other genres for roleplaying games (which I'll talk about more in the future).

So, unless, Great Escape Games releases a set of Dead Man's Hand miniatures that I "must have immediately", I think I'll be cooling my jets until I'm physically able to resume sorting and processing my purchases.

Until I'm a bit better, this also means these latest expertly painted miniatures have taken up residence within the games table (in our dining area) - rather than where they should be, in the inaccessible gamesroom. 

Honestly, once science has found a cure for my current condition, I'm going to be spending months sorting out all the stuff I've recently acquired - or rethought - and getting everything where it ought to be.