Over the Garden Wall returns

 In case you missed it, last week was the 10th anniversary of Over the Garden Wall. They released this stop-motion short that was pretty cool:

A 10th Azurthversary

This week marks the 10th anniversary of our Land of Azurth campaign using 5e. While nothing's for certain, I suspect we will "finish" in this year as the big conflict with the Wizard of Azurth that simmered in the background for several years and finally boiled over the last two will come to a conclusion.

I wrote a post on the last anniversary which felt necessary not only because nine years is a nice run (though it is), but because we had faced adversity due to the pandemic and the loss of two members of our group--Eric due to burnout on tele-anything and Jim to cancer--and I felt like our perseverance needed to be commemorated. 

I don't want to just repeat what I said there, so I won't. Instead, I will say that 10 years of a an elfgame with a group of friends which now includes a new addition, Kathy, who plays the Mortzengersturm pregen, Zabra, gives me completely different insights and perspective on gaming than my nearly 15 years of blogging or the latest wisdom dropped on social media. 

Games are a social activity. While rpgs are fun to theorize, write, or argue about, the real alchemy comes in the playing of them. And, for me at least, the playing of them not mainly in pickup games with strangers, though I don't discount the fun in that, but with the same crew, repeatedly.

Thanks to Andrea, Bob, Gina, Kathy, and Tug, for still being here, and to Eric and Jim who came most of the way. Azurth wouldn't be the same without you. 

Nine Years in Azurth

 

We didn't have a game this weekend, but the 20th (I believe) marked the 9th Anniversary of our Land of Azurth campaign.

The party started in Yanth Country and has now visited 3 of 4 regions of Azurth (and they passed beneath the 4th), as well as taking side trips to  other places like the Land of Under-Sea and Medieval France.

In all that time, we managed to hold on to all but 2 players. Eric dropped out due to life and dissatisfaction with the telegaming we had to adapt to in the pandemic versus in person. Jim passed away earlier this year after a nine year battle with colon cancer.

My imagination tends to wander pretty quickly. I would never have stayed with this world, this campaign, and this system this long without a group of players that it was fun to DM for. 

Thanks to Andrea, Gina, Bob, Tug, and our absent friends for the enjoyment they've given me over the years.

Games I Liked in 2022

The pandemic led to more gaming, and that continued in 2022. In addition to running my long-standing 5e Land of Azurth game, I ran a few other systems:

Broken Compass: I really like this rules lite pulp game, and so do both the groups I've run it for. It makes for a great palate cleanser when you might get tired of a longrunning campaign in something else. I hope to run it more in 2023.

Marvel Heroic: I ignored this game at the time it was released, but I really shouldn't have. After running it for a short-time, I think it will become my go-to supers game in the future. There are somethings I don't like about it, but it runs quick and has a comic book feel. I might "update" a game to Cortex Prime (the latest iteration of the basic engine) if I was to run it again.

Rocket Age 5e: I only ran one session of this. I don't think it's a bad system, but 5e just doesn't seem the best to me for pulpy, retro-sci-fi. I think if I tried to run this setting again, I'd likely do it in Broken Compass. I would still recommend Rocket Age (both 5e and otherwise) for the setting material, though.

The DC Comics Work of Alan Grant

Art by Norm Breyfogle

The Scottish comics writer Alan Grant passed away yesterday. He started his career with 2000AD and Judge Dredd, but I became aware of him when he and co-writer John Wagner teamed up with artist Norm Breyfogle on Detective Comics. For me, and I think perhaps a lot of others, that late 80s-early 90s run really defines the post-Crisis Batman. The run added several interesting villains to the Batman's rogues gallery, and one perhaps the pantheon of all-time greats: The Ventriloquist.

His other big contribution to DC was probably the Lobo limited series with Keith Giffen and Simon Bisley. Lobo had first appeared in the Omega Men, but this series recreated him essentially and catapulted the character to super-stardom for a time--and unfortunately, over-exposure.

To get a taste of Grant's DC work, I would suggest starting with Batman: The Dark Knight Detective vol. 2, The Batman/Judge Dredd Collection, and  Lobo by Keith Giffen & Alan Grant Vol. 1.

A Decade of Weird Adventures

I realized this past weekend that I had missed Weird Adventures' tenth anniversary on December 15, 2021. We are also not too far away from the twelfth anniversary of my introduction of the City on my blog on April 18, 2010.

Blogging about that setting was where my blog really took off, to the extend that it did. While Strange Stars eventually proved to be the more popular setting, at least in terms of sales, I've always felt like Weird Adventures was the more unique setting. While Bloodshadows had been around since 1994 with a combination of high fantasy and noir,  I think Weird Adventures works I bit differently, drawing form not just surface level noir or pulp conceits, but a whole host of early to mid-20th Century pop cultural material. Weird Adventures could sort of do Cast A Deadly Spell, but it's just as much Thimble Theater and Wellman's Silver John stories and American folk- and fakelore--plus whatever period pop cultural ephemera I came across at the moment.

In the past few years, I've been recycling some older posts on my blog, but I've mostly been avoiding Weird Adventures posts because the book exists and an index linked from the blog main page. I think I will start revisiting some of my favorite posts from that series, though, particularly ones with material that didn't make it into the book.

Seven Years in Azurth

 

We played the 7th anniversary game of our 5e campaign last night, having had the inaugural session in the Land of Azurth on October 19, 2014. It hasn't been as many sessions as the time might suggest; we only played once a month over much of that time, though the pandemic and a switch to telegaming led to an increased frequency. Still, it's the longest myself or any of my players have continued a game.

We've lost no characters to misadventure, and only one player has left the game over that time period: the teenage daughter of two of the other players who decided she had been things to do than game with middle-aged folks. 

I can't say my eye hasn't wandered to other games over that time. It has probably helped the longevity that we were able to squeeze in Star Trek Adventures in the pandemic, and I'm able to play some other games with another group. Still, I think the inertia of doing this game for so long actually helps carry it forward. It's much easier to quit something you haven't invested as much in.

I don't think we've plumbed the depths of the setting, yet. There's still a lot more the group could get up too.

5e Santa Claus

'Tis the season for 5e interpretations of that jolly old elf, Saint Nick. Several different versions are already wrapped and under the tree:

HO
HO
HO

2000+ Posts

Today is actually blog post number 2003. It may not be what it was back in 2010, but I still think it's got life in it yet.

Here's a selection of posts to walk you down memory lane, one from every year:
Hateful Glare: The Beholder Examined (2010)
The Night Mail (2011)
In the Belly of the Beast (2012)
Cyclopes (2013)
Ruritanian Rogues (2014)
The Fae Moon (2015)
Mall Security 2020 (2016)
Again the Giants!: Sanctum of the Stone Giant Space God (2017)

This is not a best of but rather a "posts I thought were interesting that were not the most popular in their year."

Thanks for reading!

Three Years in Azurth

October 20th marked the third anniversary on 5e Land of Azurth campaign, though we played our anniversary month game a couple of weeks earlier. The sessions have been about monthly, so it isn't as many adventures as it might be, but still is a milestone for a group of adults with busy lives.

In that time, the party has ventured briefly into the depths beneath the Clockwork Princess's Castle Machina. They defeated the schemes of a witch and cult of jaded gourmands in the Enchanted Wood. They took on the crime lords known as the Baleful Burly Brothers in Rivertown. The escaped the clutches of a manticore named Mortzengersturm. They explored a Cloud Castle and escaped a cloud giant wizard, Zykloon. The cleared out a wererat carnival. They rescued Gwendolin Goode from the Motely Pirates, and almost obtained the Confection Perfection from the Candy Isle.

Then things got really weird. They explored a floating Gelatinous Dome. They headed out into the Etheric Zone to break a Super-Wizard out of the Carnelian Hypercube. The investigated a whole in the ground and fell into a land of mushroom people, then a land of warring clans living in a ruined spacecraft, and hunted by invisible bugbears. Escaping their they were accosted by wooden gargoyle puppets, and encountered a weird control of dragon-wannabes, before finally getting whisked back to Azurth by the timely intervention of Father Yule on a windswept peak.

They were barely back in Rivertown when Shade's estranged mother sent them into the fairy-madness of House Perilous. Their adventures there included a brief sojourn to France. On their way back to Rivertown, they got sidetracked helping a milltown and forest overrun with iron woodsmen.

At the moment, they're looking for a fallen star in the caves of a group of Death Dwarfs.

Credits:

Dagmar (Cleric): Andrea

Erekose (fighter): Bob

Kairon (sorcerer): Eric

Kully (bard): Jim

Shade (ranger): Gina

Waylon (thief): Tug

Six from the Skull

Today marks the sixth anniversary of this blog. The year saw the release of Strange Stars and Strange Stars Fate, posts expanding the Land of Azurth setting, which will hopefully serve as the site of some adventures published in the year to come.

I'm glad to say, the blog has completely become an infomercial for upcoming products. I re-imagined the Great Wheel cosmology as a futuristic science fantasy setting, beginning with this post and continuing here, here, and here. I came out with some tables for the random generator of Roadside Picnic-esque "zones." I also did a series of tables for the random creation of Masters of the Universe-ish Ultra-Warriors!

What's to come in 2016? Well, Strange Stars OSR, first and foremost. At least one Land of Azurth adventure (and hopefully two!). Beyond that, expect more posts on my ongoing 5e campaign, probably a few more in the vein of Star Warriors, and who knows what else.

Thanks for reading.

The Best of 2014

...Otherwise known as a lazy holiday post with no new material. Here's a selection of posts that you guys liked (based loosely on number of comments and G+ pluses) and posts that I liked. Sometimes they coincide; sometimes not. I stirred away mostly from Strange Stars art posts, though, to focus more on the text content. (A Strange Stars note, since I mentioned it: after holiday delays, the book is in the hands of the last proofreaders, with hopes of submitting the pdf very soon.)

So without further ado, here they my picks:

"Strange Stars Covered": 2014 was the year Strange Stars moved forward. Lester B. Portly's retro-cover designs with Eric Quigley's art made this post garner the most pluses of the year.
"Old Soldier": The lives and wars of Hannibal Tecumseh Early in the Strange Stars.
"In the Days of the Archaic Oikumene": Strange days, indeed. One of the "picture and description" posts that I did a lot in the early days with Weird Adventures, but this is the only one this year.

Moving away from Strange Stars, my current  "Oz by way of Dunsany and Smith" 5e setting, The Land of Azurth, got a number of posts:

"Witches of Ix": My most popular Azurth post, and I think one of my best.
"Azurthite Bestiary": Manhounds: This beastie was elevated above the others by Jeremy Duncan's great art.

Sometimes, my best (and most popular) posts are unrelated to my current setting obsession:

"Ruritanian Rogues": suggested picaresque adventure in faux Europe. People liked it. Jeremy Duncan has picked up the ball and really run with it.
"Baroque Space": I've made Spelljammer weird before, but this post gives it an age of sail and filigreed plate armor spacesuit weirdness.. More posts to come in this series, but this was the first.
"The Finer Points of Inner Planar Adventuring": Are the elemental planes boring? Not if you do something interesting with them.
"A Traveller's Life": Inspired by the Dumarest saga by E.C. Tubb, ideas about how you could run an interesting sci-fi game without FTL and limited to relativistic speeds.

History, Real and Otherwise

Yesterday was the fifth anniversary of this blog. it started all right here. I don't know that anyone has been reading that long, but how ever long you've been coming here: thanks for reading.

I've done a number of setting riffs related to alternate history over the years. In case you missed them or just forgot about them, here's the list:

"Alien Underground": In a 1981 other than our own, Centralia, Pennsylvania was where the world became aware of monsters underground. An alternate history, modern day, conspiracy dungeoncrawl.

"The Weird Frontier": Put Gygax's whole civilization versus strange wilderness theme back where he got it: the American frontier. A Colonial era, points of light fantasy.

"Gods, Heroes & Super-Science": What if the Greek myths were real? And by real, I mean tales of Bronze Age humans having contact with Kirby-esque science fantasy, Chariots of the Gods-style. This one got a number of posts. A Greek mythology science fantasy for Mutant Future.

"The Muvian-American War": In the aftermath of the Spanish American War, a more arcane threat looms. An alternate history, early 20th century, Guns & Sorcery setting.

Pulp Space: The War of the Worlds was only the beginning. By the 1930s, occultism and alien science have taken the empires of Earth to other planets--carrying their volatile politics with them.This one got multiple posts, too, but it started here. A science fantasy, alternate Spelljammer.

1000

This is my 1000th post. That's 180 Warlord Wednesdays, 221 posts about a place called the City, and nearly 7000 comments--some of which are actually by other people.

Thanks to everyone that has stopped by over the three and a half years of this blog's existence and the other bloggers (some still going strong, some checking in sporadically, and others long moved on) that have made it a good community to be a part of.

I don't know if I've got 1000 more, but there is more to come. Stick around.

Harryhausen

Gamers & Grognards suggested a blogfest in honor of Ray Harryhausen's passage. I didn't figure I could do much better than this post I wrote back in 2010:

"Swords & Stop-Motion"

Enjoy.

Three Years, Three Skulls

I completely forgot that December marked this blog's third anniversary. Where does the time go?

Thanks to everyone who's been a reader and a supporter.  To commemorate the occasion, here are three of my most popular posts over the past year:

Here's an unusual monster in the form of the Night Nurses. Or you might want to revisit my discussion of using famous monsters of filmland in unfamiliar contexts in "Monster Mashup." Finally, you can check out one of my Hell's Hoods series and learn all about Moloch, "The Bull."

Happy New Year!

It's a new year in the City, too--at least for my online game. 5889 brings the World Exposition to the City, and probably other interesting things, as well. For that new year dawning, everyone should think those forgotten (even by themselves) heroes who fight every new year's eve to save the Material Plane from chaos. It looks like they won again.

In our world, it's been a good year for me in gaming. I've got to enjoy Erik's Wampus Country, Chris's Hill Cantons, Evan's Dark Country, Jeremy's Oriaz, Humza's Bieth and renditions of Call of Cthulhu and Star Trek gamemastered by Robert and Peter, respectively. (And I'm sure I'm leaving something out there, but it's not intentional!)

My own Weird Adventures game has been going well both on G+ and face to face. I'd like to think the players: Chris (Diabolico), Patrick (Creskin), Tim (Boris), Michael (Loone), Lester (Doyle), and Peter (Lenny) online, and Jim (Prof. Pao), Eric (Jacques), Bob (Rob), Gina (Rue), and Heather (Sarah) for helping bring the City and the Strange New World to life.

Here's to another good year for everyone, gaming and otherwise!

The Skull's Second Year

Yesterday was the second anniversary of this blog and, as 2011 draws to a close, it seems a doubly good time to look back on my blogging year.  Here's a selection of my favorite posts from the past year that you may have missed or forgotten, broken down by category.

Several good Strange New World/City posts didn't make it into Weird Adventures:
"The Dead Travel Fast" - What's not to like about drag-racing elder gods?  Johnathan Bingham had in itch to draw these guys, so maybe they will show up again some time.
"The Well-Dressed Man from Elsewhere" - Creepy ultraterrestrials should at least be well-dressed!
"Five Sinister Sorcerers" - Some of these guys showed up in Weird Adventures.  Others were just too sinister.
"Meet at the Morgue" - You're about to enter the exciting world of forsenic necromancy...
"Random Queen Encounter Table" - Six queens, not a one of 'em amused.

Monsters:
"Real Dungeon Hazards: Snotties & Slimes" - What? You thought all those various jellies, slimes, and puddings were just made up?
"They Like You for Your Brains" - With a fresh veneer, all your old monsters are new again.
"The Stalker" - "Cause subway stations are scarier than dunes.

Other Stuff:
"Foul Language" - A review of Pontypool turns into a musing on the possible dangers of arcane memorization.
"AD&D Cosmology: A Defense" - what it says.
"Midnight in the House Tenebrous" - A weird place on a weird world.
"An Alternate Spelljammer Setting" - A little more pulp, a little more occult, a little more real world.

Anyway, thanks for reading.

500 Posts Ain't a Day at the Beach

But this illustration is.  Heironymus Gaunt and his moll taking the Hotel Elephantine on a beach excursion, rendered for Weird Adventures by the very talented Adam Moore.  Check out his gallery here.

In other news, Jim over at the Flashback Universe Blog has posted part 2 of my indepth article on the Fantastic Four from within the Marvel Universe.

Thanks to every one for reading, following, and commenting over these 500 posts.

Happy Independence Day!

A good Fourth of July to all my fellow Americans. I hope everybody enjoys the holiday.

While you're enjoying it, do yourself a favor and check out the very British Small But Vicious Dog B/X-WFRP hack from Chris at the Vaults of Nagoh. It's grim atmosphere might be a useful corrective to all that July sunshne and merriment.