Urx Quonox

 

Urx Quonox by Adam S. Cantwell
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I'm reading the Occult Press version, gifted to me and signed by Adam, 37/120 limited edition. Thanks, Adam!

I'm a big sword and sorcery fan, have been since the mid-70s, reading Savage Sword of Conan and the old Howard paperbacks. Here, with Grasm the Barbarian, Cantwell has taken S&S to a higher literary level, the inevitable evolution out of pulp and into thinking-man's writing, and I'm here for it.

If Robert E. Howard had cast aside all prudery and collaborated with William Burroughs, this might start to approximate the style of "The Monarch in Disarray," but this tale is much more transgressive, visceral, and psychedelic than that. It's a decadent sword & sorcery tale, pushed to carnal extremes with an emphasis on the sorcery and its deeper effects on the psyche. Grasm > Conan, maybe. The writing is head and shoulders above Howard's.

Another story of Grasm the Barbarian, "Scream of the Bluejay," is a barnacle-encrusted sea-salt soaked rope of a tale about revenental vengeance. While the center of attention in the story isn't the barbarian, it says much about him and twists in such a way as to wring out more of his past. It's a clever tale of sword and sorcery, of regret, betrayal, and murder; a hideously glorious, horrifically beautiful tale.

The final entry in the Grasm trilogy, "Cities Below the Strand," again puts an emphasis on sorcery over swords. No swords are drawn in this tale, but there is a deep cut of nihilism here, particularly as regards both the past and the future of Grasm himself. This is a small window into what could be a large, inglorious panorama both for the barbarian himself and for his world as a whole. Hearts die, nations collapse, the world keeps spinning.

Three tales about the same person, but exploring different aspects of his past, present, and future. Grasm learns about Grasm even as we do. I want to continue this journey!

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Le Livre des Fourmis: The Book of Ants

 

Le Livre des Fourmis: The Book of Ants by Robin D. Laws
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

One of my favorite games is the old Surrealist game Exquisite Cadaver. I'm not only a proponent, I'm a teacher of the game. I spread the gospel of Exquisite Cadaver far and wide, whenever I have the opportunity. My primary reason for loving the game is that it breaks my brain and causes me to look at live in a whole new way. It's the cognitive equivalent of cubism - seeing objects (in this case, either grammatical objects, if you are playing the "sentence" version, or illustrative objects, if you're playing the "three part drawing" version). Through what appears to be an aleotory excercise, but is really a channeling of the sublimated unconscious, one discovers new ways of looking at (or reading or writing or drawing) Things. I capitalize "Things" because I think of those creations as entities - self-sufficient, complete entities created by a group of people exercising the collective unconscious in a double-blind experiment. These Things emerge as we take our disjointed thoughts or pieces of thoughts (memes, perhaps?) and force them into a relational structure that causes disparate bits of our processed perceptions to be ordered in a template that we would normally use to create "meaning" - sentences and/or drawings. Through this, we form a new "reality". Or, at least, we form a new perception of reality. And if perception is reality, well, you get the picture.

In The Book of Ants (I will use the English title, because, to be honest, there is very, very little French in the book, even though most of the protagonists are French Surrealists), we are introduced to all the most famous of the surrealist cadre, and quite a few minor, even peripheral players of that artistic/poetic era. The book is told from the viewpoint of one Henri Salem, but don't go researching him, he's not real. At least not in this reality. In the reality of The Book of Ants, however, he is a young poet who develops relationships (and rivalries, and sometimes downright mutual loathing) with Breton, Dali, Bataille, Magrite, and many others you have likely never heard of, who keeps a diary set in two worlds: The world of the Great War and the interwar years of Paris, and the strange "place" underlying the conscious world, The Dreamlands.

As others have pointed out, this book serves as a sort of addendum to an RPG book, The Dreamhounds of Paris (which I shall review at some future point), written for the Trail of Cthulhu gaming system. It is referenced in the rulebook as a possible history from which players and game-masters might leverage for their own game play.

That said, there is nothing game-specific about the book at all. It reads quite well (outside of some annoying typos). The style is sparse, at times elegant, but not "purple," which is a bit surprising when the narrator and many of the characters are French poets and artists and even more surprising when once considers the overly-ornamented prose of H.P. Lovecraft, who brought The Dreamlands into the popular conscience. It helps to know the Cthulhu mythos and The Dreamlands, specifically, but those aren't absolutely necessary to understanding and enjoying the story, in fact, that knowledge isn't necessary at all. There's enough context and explication to allow the reader "in," though some references, such as the names of certain creatures that inhabit The Dreamland, might miss their full impact. In summary, no experience with the game or the subgenre is necessary, though knowing the subgenre is helpful.

I acknowledged the annoying typos. And I've edited and written enough books to know that eliminating all typos from a manuscript is a herculean task and, in many cases, nearly impossible. But the number of typos in the book can throw one out of the "dreamstate" of the book, which is a real shame. One might be luxuriating in the strangeness of it all, only to be suddenly jettisoned back to grammatical reality by obviously missing words (or obviously "extra" words). Can this be forgiven? Sure, but not without losing a star on my rating.

But when it's flowing, this story will capture you, slowly at first, intriguing you through the historical relationships of the surrealists one to another, then accelerating with the discovery that many of those sensitive enough (note: Breton was not) might enter the dreamlands, then, with the discovery that the surrealists could not only enter that place, they could manipulate it, create, and destroy, the pace becomes almost frantic. A new reality is discovered, then it is manipulated, subverted altogether, and disintegrated by those who have crossed over. There is a strong thread of the responsibility of those who colonize and the heinousness of the erasure of another's culture. Some serious ethical questions are asked and the answers to those questions affect not only The Dreamlands, or early-20th-Century Paris, but our own waking reality today. This isn't a book about strangeness and horrific caricatures of monstrosities - it really is about what it means to have influence, and about the consequences of one's actions, intended or not. This takes the work a step further than any other book I've read that was based on a roleplaying game. This isn't a "real play". It's much more than that. It will cause something that roleplaying games rarely do, and which the best gamemasters will engender in their players: introspection.

It's not just a book based on a game. It has, dare I say it? Meaning.


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Metal Hurlant

 

Metal Hurlant: Old Dreams, Young Visions by Brian Michael Bendis
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

If any one piece of media informed my teenage years, it was the movie Heavy Metal . Now, 43 years after I first watched that movie on HBO late night as a early teen (the perfect target for the movie at that particular time), I can honestly say that it still carries a heavy influence on my tastes in art, music, and just plain attitude. It was a significant blip on my cultural radar, but it was, in all honesty, just a blip. I watched it twice on HBO and then . . . the movie just disappeared. Vanished. I looked for news of a videotape release everywhere: magazines (remember, there was no internet back in 1982 - at least none that the military was sharing) such as Starlog or Fangoria , at obscure corners of videotape stores , libraries - wherever. I asked about it a lot. And whenever I asked, I either got a blank stare, or the person's face lit up, then quickly sagged with "Man, I wish. No one can find that." It wasn't until the very late '90s that the movie was released on DVD. There was some kind of legal kerfuffle about the use of the music, if I remember correctly, which prevented its release after the movie was shown on HBO.

But, though the times were dark, they weren't empty. I could always turn to the pages of Heavy Metal magazine, a number of which I usually shoplifted, and sometimes bought, from the gas station down the road from my house. Marvel comics also published a competitor in the form of Epic Illustrated , their first adult-themed publication. I could also rely on my old copy of Mechanismo (which I bought in the 1979, before I even knew about Heavy Metal) for a fix of cutting-edge scifi art. While in those "lean years" I also heard of a magazine titled "Metal Hurlant". It took some asking and researching (again: no internet) to figure out that this was the French version of the English "Heavy Metal". But it wasn't until 1985, when I moved to England, that I saw a copy of Metal Hurlant in the (paper) flesh. Sadly, the magazine ceased publication in 1987. A TV series, "Metal Hurlant Chronicles" emerged in 2012, but to be honest, it had little of the flair of either the original Heavy Metal movie or the magazine Metal Hurlant.

The English variant, Heavy Metal, had a series of misfortunes, mostly caused by abysmal customer service and poor money management, in the last couple of years. A kickstarter was done to re-release the magazine, which I've seen on bookstore (remember those?) shelves, though I hear there were also hiccups involved in getting copies to kickstarter backers.

At the same time, Metal Hurlant was kickstarted by a completely separate entity from Heavy Metal magazine. I did not back the kickstarter, as we were saving for a trip to Europe at the time, among other things. But I book-marked it as something I would look into. Lo and behold, my oldest son bought me a copy of Metal Hurlant for Father's Day. I raised that boy right!

With that long history lesson behind us, let's turn briefly to the book itself. And it is a book, at 267 pages of content. It's a mixture of old, classic pieces that debuted in the pages of the original Metal Hurlant back in the '70s, and newer material that explores contemporary approaches to science fiction illustration. Interspersed are several excellent essays that cover the history of Metal Hurlant, introductions to the newer artists in the volume, and sometimes delve into the punk attitude that informs the art, stories, and even the publication itself of what might be considered a counter-cultural manifesto, as well as an expanded artistic view of possibilities.

Of course, my own attitudes toward art have changed since I was a young teenager. Back then, I was clearly focused on the violence, crazy vistas, and . . . other biologically-driven interests. While those things are still of interest, I've upped my reasoning and critique since those testosterone-fueled halcyon days of yore. It's not enough to be "gonzo," and frankly, I am oftentimes put off by "gonzo for gonzo's sake" in my media consumption. Yes, I'm currently listening to the Heavy Metal soundtrack as I'm writing this review (duh), but my "favorite" songs on this wildly-eclectic album have shifted over time. I like some songs better than I used to and others have grown moldy (though there is one exception that has always been on steady footing for 43 years now - though I prefer the live version to the album version).

The wonder of the current incarnation of Metal Hurlant is that it has chosen "classic" reprints of the highest quality. There are no "dumb" stories in this volume (unlike, for instance, the "snow time" vignette in the Heavy Metal movie - ugh), except for the one overly-indulgent story about Arzach's mount pooping out copies of Metal Hurlant - that was admittedly pretty dumb.

The new stories also create a sometimes subtle sense of wonder at small things and gentle turns of story, among the awe-inspiring and more visceral emphasis of others. "Catching the Wave" and "You Will Remember Me" are downright poignant. Dare I say that I have found a new level of sophistication in the pages of this historically irreverent, "punk" magazine. Yes, yes I dare. I am eager to see what the next volume brings (subscriptions are available). All-in-all, I am rather ecstatic of what we've got here in the "new" (but also old) Metal Hurlant, and I am optimistic about its future, which will contain many futures that we can't even yet imagine.

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Garycon 2025 Rogues Gallery

 

As you can probably tell by my paucity of posts, life has been very, very busy. Particularly with my day job because, well, screw Trump and his lack of actual economic and diplomatic policy. Tariffs are taking a stupid toll on those of us who work in procurement and supply chain. Yeah.

Despite all the intentional chaos our unhinged government is creating, I was able to get to Garycon this spring. Now, not all cons are absolutely amazing. And this Garycon was only amazing because I was able to see an old friend I haven't seen since high school. 38 years later, we were able to get together and hang out a little bit. Man, that felt good. I don't have a ton of contact with people I went to high school with, both because I am avoiding most social media and because I graduated from a small Department of Defense school in England. Upon graduating, we all spread to the four winds. So, the best part of Garycon was seeing my old friend. He'll be coming back next year, too, for which I am very, very grateful.

But this Garycon was . . . well, it was fine. But nothing spectacular. Of course, I had a great time and played in some great games, but outside of one particularly great DCC game (thank you, Julian Bernick), the games were . . . alright. Nevertheless, I'm trying to make it a habit to show the many faces I wore as a player, so here we go.

First off, you'll notice that two of my characters have the same name: Dweezel Space Jesus. I think that's going to be my default name for any DCC/MCC character I play at conventions. It fits the mood of DCC and it's easy to remember. Of the two Dweezel Space Jesii that I played, the elven sage in the lower left hand corner of the photo above was my favorite. This was the one I played in Julian Bernick's outstanding adventure "Expedition to Yuggoth," which is just what the label says, a 4th level DCC adventure to Yuggoth, home of Mi-Go, gigantic automata, and other nasties whose names Chaosium has copyrighted (they'll probably sue me for using the terms "Yuggoth" and "Mi-Go," but whatevs). As is usual with one of Julian's adventures, all descended into chaos rather quickly, which is just what I had hoped for. I think Julian exhudes some kind of spiritual force field that drives players insane in his presence. It's a wonderful gift, and I enjoyed it, especially the part where the party cleric was able to charm some Mi-Go into going back and killing off a party of mercenary lizard men who tried to rip us off as we were busy stealing - uh, I mean "transporting" - some . . . goods from the planet. We had trapped them in a building so we could off with the goods, and encountering the Mi-Go and being able to charm them just as we were getting ready to jump off-planet was a godsend. And by "God" I mean the Elder Gods, of course.

Here's our intrepid party of adventurers. Notice the lady in the back trying to sneak up on us and backstab:

Speaking of Chaosium, I played in two Call of Cthulhu games, one put on by the awesome guys at You Too Can Cthulhu, and another put on by the awesome guys at Court of Cthulhu. Both were great, mysteries were had, people died in grisly ways or sold their souls for their own personal gain. Call of Cthulhu always brings out the best in people.

I also played in a Traveller game where we had to infiltrate a red zone planet and find a Zhodani spy. Good times were had by all except the Zhodani spy and one of our party members who, if I remember correctly, lost a good chunk of their face. Important safety note: If you get in combat in Traveller, you've made a grave error. That system is deadly.

Last of all on the roleplaying front, I played the newest incarnation of a Conan RPG, Conan: The Hyborian Age. It's an interesting system with additive dice rolls and well-differentiated classes. I always like to play at least one game I've never played before at a con, and this was it this time. Good game. I'd play it again.

With every con, I try to get into at least one miniatures game, as well. I can't afford to buy all the minis in the world, so I pay good money to rent them at cons. This year, I played Legions of the Petal Throne for the third year in a row. I splurged and bought the rulebook, as well. It's way out of print and bloody expensive, but sometimes you just have to bite the bullet.

Here's a little chunk of my army ready to charge, then in the midst of the final battle. Yon Koryani won. This felt like vindication after the horrific loss I suffered last year!

And this year, I played in two miniatures games. The second was Pulp Alley: The Lost World of Lemuria. It was a little more complex than I like in my mini games, but it was fun, nonetheless. Here are a few of my thugs in action:

So, good times had, as usual. Not quite as spectacular as, say, Gameholecon last year (where I played in one of the coolest adventures I've ever played in, to be honest). But going to Garycon is always great. I'll be there as long as I'm on two feet and breathing.

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Spellburn March Madness

 Okay, nerds. 

You've heard all the office talk about March Madness, but you want nothing to do with sportsball. 

No problem. 

Spellburn is sponsoring its own tournament. The contestants are 3rd party DCC titles, of which yours truly has two entries all his own and more in his collaborative pool.

So, here's your chance to vote for Beyond the Silver Scream (Psst! Here's a free DCC Patron, straight from the book, if it will influence your vote - just don't tell the elections commission!) or At the Mutants of Madness. Or, if you're more fond of my collaborations, you can vote for The Umerican Survival Guide. 

You know what? You do you, man. Just vote for whatever you like. But be sure to support the awesome 3rd party publishers of DCC and MCC content! Scan that there QR code and you'll be teleported to the arena.

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Rogue's Gallery: Gameholecon 2024

 

9 years now, I've attended Gameholecon in Madison, WI. It helps that I used to live in Madison and am about 40 minutes away now. Also helps that my son lets me crash on his apartment floor. Not the most comfortable arrangement, but hey, it's free, and best of all I get to see my son every day, if even for a short time before I crash out. Love that guy.

This year Gameholecon was a little earlier than in past years. If I remember correctly, last year it was on Halloween weekend (or maybe that was the year previous - I forget). So it was just a touch warmer, which suits me fine. I have memories of earlier Gameholecons, when I lived in Madison, walking home in the bitter cold at stupid o'clock (yes, I was within walking distance). So, yay for global warming, I guess . . . 

Below is my "Rogues Gallery" AKA, the masks I wore for the various games. My schedule was like this:

Started off playing Dark Ages Cthulhu, which was just like modern Call of Cthulhu, but with different skills. The rules were essentially the same. It was a good scenario in which my character ended up becoming one with Shub Niggurath, which is de rigeur for such scenarios, no? There was supposed to be a chase scene, but the Keeper generously skipped that or we would have been there all day. 

Next up was an Empire of the Petal Throne game run by my friend Victor Raymond. I always want to squeeze in an EPT game if I can get in. This one played out as a very pulpy adventure, like something from a 1930s radio drama. It was kitsch, but in all the good ways. And, of course, I'm always happy to immerse myself in Tekumel - it's such a great setting. If you haven't played and get the chance to, jump in, but don't be overwhelmed, as Tekumel is thoroughly-recognized. I can guarantee, though, that if you're playing at Victor's table, you will get everything you need. He is very keen on, and very good at, introducing new players to the world.

Last game Thursday was "Catastrophe Island" for Dungeon Crawl Classics, run by another friend of mine, Doug Kovacs. I've been playing with Doug for a long time now, so I knew what to expect: utter insanity. And so it was. I played a punk kid who ended up as a unicorn-riding skeleton. That's . . . never happened to me before . . . that I want to talk about . . . ever.

Friday started with Achtung! Cthulhu! in which I played a special forces type infiltrating behind enemy lines to discover what some Nazis were doing and what they were digging up (whether intentionally or ignorantly). Yes, there was Nazi-punching. Lots of Nazi-punching. It felt cathartic. 

Next was a Classic Traveller adventure: "Death Station". It's a classic adventure, but I'll be honest, I've never played in it or read it before. Reminded me mostly of Pandorum, for those who know that movie. The best parts came at the end, actually, when we were able to carefully manipulate a no-win situation into something we could not only live with , but which was a satisfying resolution. Things looked very grim, but in-character roleplaying, which involved not a little threat of blackmail, won the day. 

And from there, I played a Boy Scout. Yes, a Boy Scout in a Call of Cthulhu adventure. This was a "black letter" adventure put on by the crew at You Too Can Cthulhu (bless their souls). I learned that a lot of ttrpg nerds were also Boy Scouts in their youth, including yours truly. I have fond memories of playing D&D by flashlight in a tent on a few campouts. This Boy Scout service activity, however, only created horrific memories for all involved. Given the timeline of the adventure, though all the Boy Scouts survived, it's likely they all got killed later storming Japanese-held islands in the Pacific. That's what we thought, anyway. I guess it's good when you speculate together on what happened to the characters later on in life. Wait, did I say "good"? I think I meant "horrible".

At every con, I try to play at least one game I've never played before. This time, it was Warhammer 40K RPG, which I was excited about. I've got to say, though, that it just fell flat for me. The system did not live up to the hype, as far as I am concerned. It was a fine adventure, but the emphasis on tactics just felt a little too video-gamey to me. I suppose the character sheet was cool. Your mileage may vary.

Saturday morning I was up early for a game of Troika!, which is, let's face it, very Saturday-morning-cartoonish. In other words, it was the perfect way to start the day! The scenario was rather simple, but because the Troika! system is also fairly simple, things flowed quickly and we had a good, goofy time. I'm a big fan of the system. It's stripped down the essentials, and the initiative system adds an element of chaos to everything that is a welcome change from going down the numbers list to see who goes next. 

That afternoon, I played Battletech. Now, I was a fairly early adapter to that game, first playing back in 1986. I played a lot (along with the Mechwarrior RPG) for a couple of years, then moved back to the States from England, and just kind of fell off the bandwagon. The last few years, I've enjoyed a renaissance of sorts. No, I'm not crazy about the game, but since I always try to get into at least one miniatures game per con, I saw the slot and took it. This one was a tournament-style wherein once you lose, you are then brought back on to the board in a bigger mech. Then, if that one gets toasted, you move on to a yet larger mech. It was a lot of fun. I put a photo below of my mech about to be absolutely destroyed by the opposing (and much larger) mech's axe. That was the last thing that happened in my participation in the free-for-all. Good fun, getting your head split open (and your pilot crushed to pulp) by another mech. It was pretty epic. 

In between sessions, I went to the dealer room. I was on a mission: I had played Never Going Home at a previous con and absolutely fell in love with it. So, I headed more or less straight to the Wet Ink Games table and barfed up a wad of money for these beauties:

Can't wait to dig in more on those! Given the way I'm trying to structure my time next year (more on that in a later post), I should be able to cook up some craziness and maybe even run a game at a con?

I also stopped in to see Marc Miller, the creator of Traveller. As always, I had a very pleasant conversation with him about games and life in general. I've stated before that it was a childhood dream come true to play at his table a couple of times and other conventions, and now he recognizes my face and knows my name. That might not seem like much to you, but to the 10-year-old that lives deep within my heart, that creates a great deal of excitement and gratitude within. I'm not afraid to say that he's a hero of mine (though he would likely try to brush that off as too-kind).

In any case, I stopped and bought some Traveller dice, something I've needed since childhood, but didn't know I needed. He also proffered a great deal of schwag, for which I'm grateful, including a comic about the Beowulf class of starships and a Beowulf all-access badge. Then, a week or so after the con, I received an envelope from Marc with a(nother) nobility card, among other goodies. To say that Marc's generosity is off the charts is an understatement.

The phrase "saving the best for last" has been so over-used as to become trite. But in the case of Gameholecon 2024, it really was saving up the best for last!

I was lucky enough this year to get into two games run by the You Too Can Cthulhu crew. The last game of the con for me was "Black Sun Rising". If this is ever published, I will destroy anything in my path preventing me from being first in line for this one. Our party was composed of Interpol agents. I played Vitali Kovalev, a Russian ex-pat whose specialty was busting organ trafficking rings. This proved critical in getting clues (i.e., calling in favors) to figure out how the illegal sale of Nazi artifacts co-terminated with a criminal organ harvesting operation. This was a complex, twisting trail of clues that culminated at a pagan folk music festival. You can guess what baddy was involved (hint, I've mentioned her already in this post). I don't want to give anything away, since you might very well play in this scenario at a later date, but this was absolutely THE BEST rpg experience I've had (as a player) at a con so far. I don't have enough superlatives. The scenario was a real test of the player's intelligence and problem-solving skills. The group of players (several of whom I've gamed with before) was just an amazing group of gamers, the kind of table one would die for to be able to play with on a more regular basis. The keeper was (as is always the case) on the top of his game and slipped into character easily. There was more dialogue and ROLEplaying than I've ever participated in for one game. It was absolutely PERFECT! Special thanks to the YTCC crew, who always do a great job, but absolutely knocked this one out of the park. And, yes, many Nazis were punched and shot and killed in the production of this gaming session. And it makes me smile, unlike my character, who, as you can see here is all business.

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Appendix N: The Eldritch Roots of Dungeons and Dragons

 

Appendix N: The Eldritch Roots of Dungeons and Dragons by Peter Bebergal
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

First off, thanks to Peter Bebergal, editor, who graciously sent me a review copy of this book. I've long admired Peter's work and he is definitely one of the better human beings on the planet. That said, I've been careful to keep a critical eye on the ball here.

The question to be answered is: Did the book hit its mark? Of course, the answer depends, in part, on the audience. For me, a reader, a writer, an editor, and a long-time gamer, the answer is yes, with some slight caveats. They will be registered in the reviews of the stories themselves, below.

Those who have been playing D&D for some time (I've been playing since 1979) and those who have read extensively in the fantasy genre will, likely, approach with caution. All of us old-skool gamers have read Gary Gygax's "Appendix N" from the first edition of the Dungeon Master's Guide (still, as far as I am concerned, one of the best helter-skelter amalgamations of gaming tools and even some gaming wisdom - though the absolute best guide on how to run a game is found in the Call of Cthulhu 7th edition Keeper Rulebook: Chapter 10). We all know about it, but how many of us have read those works in their entirety? Not me! That might have something to do with a lazy streak, because digging up all those titles is a lot like real work, especially with some of the older, more obscure works.

So, here, Bebergal has done the work for you, and then some. Okay, not every work is collected here (that would take entire volumes), but he has picked out some of the best short work mentioned in Appendix N, and mingled in some pieces not specifically mentioned, but that may have influenced the game, and definitely have influenced players and dungeon masters for decades. But you won't find many direct corollaries with D&D spells, monsters, classes, magic items, or dungeons. No, outside of a few notable exceptions (all noted in the Introduction or Afterword), you'll have to extrapolate from the material provided - you'll have to use your imagination! After all, TSR, the founding company for D&D and many other tabletop roleplaying gems, told you right up front that these are "Products of your Imagination" all the way back in 1983. So, get with it! Get reading and get imagining!

Here's what you have to look forward to:

Right as I started reading this book, my next turn on the Play By Mail game Hyborian War arrived. I read the report on how my Darfarian armies and heroes were doing (not well, honestly - and since then, things have gotten worse). Then I read Lin Carter's "How Sargoth Lay Siege to Zaremm" and I couldn't differentiate between the two. I count that as a very good thing. I can use a lot more epic sword and sorcery on that scale (and yet, in such a short story) in my life.

"The Tale of Hauk," by Poul Anderson: Viking undead undead undead undead. Three stars. The epic "poetic" language came across stilted to me. Even ten-year-old-OMG-I'm-new-to-D&D-and-everything-is-so-awesome Forrest would have balked at the choppy only halfway-historically-accurate prose. What can I say? I was a jaded snob at a very young age. I blame Lewis Carroll. So, not bad, not great. But do not let this stop you from reading more of Anderson's work. He really is an excellent writer!

I've read my share of Leiber's Fafhrd and Gray Mouser tales, but not "The Jewels in the Forest," until now. These are not mere Murder Hobos, but people with real emotion. I could have used these role models in my early TTRPG days (I started when I was 9): Adventurers, but not sociopaths. It's the humanity of the two that I love. There is some genuine pathos here, and Bebergal has slipped other stories into this volume with more emotional impact than you might expect ("Tower of Darkness" and "Black Gods Kiss" most especially). But the pulp-action adventure and mystery here is also up front and real.

Clark Ashton Smith's "Empire of the Necromancers" may be the absolute highpoint of grimdark sword and sorcery (with an emphasis on the sorcery, though swords are utilized). It's difficult to find a darker story, where the level of vengeance would make Poe pale and Evenson blush. The voice is Dunsanian, but a Dunsany gone horribly wrong, which makes this tale horribly right. Machen might have loved this.

I've read "Turjin of Miir" before, but this reread did not tarnish the experience at all. On the contrary, now, more than ever, I can see the subtle genius of Jack Vance's work. There's a cleverness that never becomes self-seeing, a burbling sense of unaware-of-itself humor and a phantasmagoric atmosphere that's weird enough, but not crazy

I have to admit that I haven't read much Tanith Lee. But after the outstanding "A Hero at the Gates," I want more. Cyrion, the protagonist, uses his keen power of observation and quick decision making with even more skill than he shows as a swordsman. Steel may finish the deal, but the critical analysis is made in the hero's head long before a blade is unsheathed. A fantastic character study. In my mind, I couldn't help but picture Erol Otus' D&D character Valerius as I read.

I've read and enjoyed Howard's "Tower of the Elephant" thrice before, and I know why it was contained in the current volume. Still, it's not without it's faults, and I would like to have seen some other Conan story, maybe "Rogues in the House," which, to me, is more of a D&D adventurer's tale. Still, the volume would be incomplete without "Tower," I think, at least for someone new to Sword and Sorcery. So, it's really a must-have. Shame that another Conan piece couldn't have been squeezed in.

Poetry? In Sword & Sorcery? Well, of course. What do you think the old epics were? Here, in Saberhagen's "The Song of Swords," poesis and evocative epic storytelling meld perfectly. This would make any bard proud.

I've had the chance to talk with Michael Moorcock a few times on the phone, while co-editing the Leviathan 3 anthology with Jeff Vandermeer. Mike is a scholar and a gentleman, and I enjoyed some long conversations with him about the writer's craft and his time working with Blue Oyster Cult and Hawkwind. One wonders how he could create such an anti-hero as Elric, but when you read carefully, you realize that Elric might have been a "good man" once. But his world, as shown in "The Dreaming City" is broken. The dream has shattered, and so, the man, who is a shell of his former self, driven by his evil sword.

"The Doom That Came to Sarnath" is one of those tales in which a deep lore is established. Here Lovecraft paints the picture of a lost city saturated by a long-duree history of corruption and fear. Just the sort of place adventurers might go to seek treasure, and just the sort of place where they might meet their own doom!

David Madison's "Tower of Darkness" is amazing. The protagonists, Diana and Marcus, are thoroughly-realized characters that might have been every bit as well-written as Fafhrd and Gray Mouser, had Madison not died an untimely death at age 27. I want to read more of his work. Much more. Absolutely fantastic fantastical work, and such a loss to the world of Sword and Sorcery.

I've often mused on where Gygax found his monsters. I think that Manly Wade Wellman's "Straggler from Atlantis" might be a source for what later became the gelatinous cube (I'm certain his ochre jelly came from Hiero's Journey). Regardless, Wellman crafts a good tale of sword sorcery, and even a crashed flying saucer here. Expedition to the Barrier Peaks , anyone?

Margaret St. Clair's "The Man Who Sold Rope to the Gnoles" holds no surprises, nor does it need to. This is one of those rare stories where you can sense what's coming, what is almost inevitable, but it is so cleverly written that you gladly come along for the ride. This was a joy to read, alas for Mortensen, and the ending was a delightful (for us, not for the salespoerson) cherry on top. I loved this little story.

I've ,read my fair share of Ramsey Campbell's work, especially his Cthulhu mythos fiction. I didn't quite know what to think when I saw that his story "The Pit of Wings" appeared in this collection. Now I see that it's a brilliant mix of Sword & Sorcery and outright horror; exactly the type of game I like to run! If you've ever worried about stirges, don't read this story. Oh, and stirges are one of my favorite things to throw at a party of adventurers!

I will run out of words before I can explain how absolutely marvelous C.L. Moore's "Black God's Kiss" is. Jirel of Joiry is so well-realized in this one story that I immediately ran off to find more of Moore's work. She is a complex character who encounters turns of emotion and morality that reflect an inner reality absent in most Sword and Sorcery. And Moore's Hell is truly a Hell; terrible, yet beautiful. The image of a herd of fleet-footed blind white horses stampeding through hell will probably never leave me:

As the last one of all swept by her, sweat-crusted and staggering, she saw him toss his head high, spattering foam, and whinny shrilly to the stars. And it seemed to her that the sound was strangely articulate. Almost she heard the echoes of a name - "Julienne! Julienne!" - in that high, despairing sound. And the incongruity of it, the bitter despair, clutched at her heart so sharply that for the third time that night she knew the sting of tears.

"The Fortress Unconquerable, Save for Sacnoth" is everything you'd expect from Lord Dunsany. I have to admit that his penchant for hyperbole in all of his stories is simultaneously endearing and annoying. But he wrote in a epic mythological register, so it's to be expected. Still a great story, especially if you haven't read Dunsany before. Plenty of inspiration here for dungeoneers old and young, though! Note that Stormbringer isn't the only great sword of fantasy fiction. I'm going to venture a guess that Gygax took his idea (or was it Arneson's?) for intelligent swords both from Moorcock and from Dunsany.

I have heard A. Merritt's "The People of the Pit" as a great exemplar of pulp weird fiction. That may be true, but the telling of the tale felt off to me. The mimicry of Lovecraft's prose wore thin, and the high vocabulary of a character that clearly wouldn't use it was also a hindrance, throwing me out of my willing suspension of disbelief. So, it might be iconic, but it isn't particularly good. Didn't hate it, didn't love it.

As much a morality tale as an adventure tale, "Legacy from Sorn Fen," by Andre Norton is told in a register one step down from Dunsany's high flights. This suits the story more, with a grit that will appeal to most gaming tables. The biggest takeaway is to be careful what you wish for. Anyone who has been playing D&D long enough realizes the potential pitfalls of fulfilled desires. "Is that what you really want?"

Following these prose pieces are two comics. The first one is "Crom the Barbarian," a comic from 1950 that reads and looks like, well, a comic from 1950, with all that implies. The plotline definitely informed that of a certain '80s movie staring Arnold Schwarzenegger.

The final piece is "Sword of Dragonus," from 1971, three years before the appearance of the epic black-and-white adult comic series The Savage Sword of Conan. I have a special place in my own Appendix N for Savage Sword. This is where I cut my teeth on sword and sorcery fantasy. While living at San Vito AFB, Italy, my parents dropped me off one night at the base day care so they could go watch Superman. I was 7 or 8 years old. Someone, probably some half-drunk airman, had left a copy of Savage Sword in among the kids books and comics that people had donated to the child care. It was there I read my first Savage Sword story, The Slithering Shadow. I had no idea why the women hardly wore any clothes, but I didn't really care. I was all about the swords and monsters! Thankfully, the guy running the Stars and Stripes Bookstore on base thought I was just buying comics when I bought my own issues of Savage Sword. This was what set me on the path that prepared me for my encounter with D&D about a year later. But that's a different story.

In summation: I'm impressed by the breadth of the collection. The varied tones and excellent writing make this not just a book about stories for gamers, it is a collection of good to outstanding writing in and of itself. What ties it all together is the imagination and the potential for collaborative imagining, riffing off the themes, characters, settings, plots, monsters, and, of course swords (lest we forget them). The book itself is an experience that rewards both the non-gaming reader and the long-time gamers.

I can't end without noting that though this copy is a paperback, there is fold-out endpapers that are - you nerds guessed it - an old blue dungeon map! Would you expect anything less from Strange Attractor Press? If not, you obviously haven't read enough of their books. So, intrepid adventurer, start here!

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Note: I would be remiss if I didn't mention my own, personal Appendix N. There's some overlap here. The Venn Diagram does cross in a few places, but it's obvious that old E. Gary and I might take an oblique view of each other. No worries, there's room under the TTRPG umbrella for just about anyone!




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Dreamland RPG Preview

 If you know me, or if you've read my blog for any length of time, you'll know that three things that inform a great deal of my life are dreams, "weird" fiction, and tabletop roleplaying games. So when I learned, several years ago, that Jason Thompson, artist behind the amazing graphic novel version of The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath & Other Stories was behind a TTRPG focusing exclusively on the dreamlands, I was very excited. 

Then, last year at Gameholecon, I had the privilege to play in a game and, frankly, was blown away. This is a game that rewards creativity, it is not a player's game, but a creator's game, and I am ALL in on it! The mechanics use word cards that players use to influence and create actions and even the environment itself (a malleable dreamworld where creation is the ultimate power). I had been prepared to be disappointed (just in case), but that preparation melted away as the game play far surpassed my cautious emotional hedging. It was one of the most fun games I've played at a convention (and I've played a few). 

So now, you can download the quickstart rules in preparation for the upcoming Kickstarter next year. I'll be saving my gold pieces to be able to splurge on this one. I only get excited about Kickstarter campaigns every few years - yeah, I'm a skeptic and a bit of a cheapskate at times - but 2025 is going to be the year I get excited. 

Go here to download the quickstart rules. And have a gander at this art! This is just a sample of the goodness that is and will be the Dreamland RPG

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Blood and Pomagranates

 I have the privilege, once again, of having been published by the unstoppable Mount Abraxas Press. This time, I present toyou Blood and Pomegranates, a novella of the fantastic, wrapped up in luxury, as is usual from Mount Abraxas. Like all MA books, this is a limited edition, and I'm not sure how many are left, but you can find out by emailing the publisher direct at exoccidente@gmail.com. Usually, Ziesing's Books carries copies, but I don't see any there at the moment, unfortunately. 

Blood and Pomegranates is the tale of conjoined twins who carry the brunt of a family curse levied generations ago. After a journey into the bowels of the Earth beneath Renaissance Brindisi, Italy and an audience with The Five-Headed Emperor and his angelic eremitic herald, the twins, one a beautiful imbecile, the other a deformed genius, become enmeshed in matters criminal and arcane.

Here are some photos of the artifact itself:

And with that little bit done, it's high time I returned quill to paper! More to come, I'm sure!

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Sky ov Crimson Flame by Dunjon Magic

 

First off, thank you to Thorin Thompson for this little magnetic wonder. For those not in the know, the musical genre known as "Dungeon Synth" is, well, just what it says it is: Synthesizer music about and for dungeons. You don't have to play Dungeon Crawl Classics or Dungeons & Dragons to enjoy it, but it helps.Truth be told, you've probably heard this genre before and didn't even know you were listening to it. I would consider the opening lines to Ozzy Osbourne's "Mister Crowley" to be proto-dungeon synth. And if you've watched any really bad late-'70s or '80s fantasy, science fiction, or horror movies, you've probably unwittingly heard the genre before. Why "really bad"? Well, the technology for music back then isn't what it is now. If you're a Generation-X nerd like me, this is the sort of thing you wish you could have played on that cheap Casio-tone your mom bought to practice church hymns on because your family couldn't afford a real piano. But you only wished you could reach the heights and depths of Dungeon Synth. Simply put, you could not. The technology wasn't quite there unless your name rhymed with Ron Rarpenter and had a movie-level budget to buy all the best synths.

Thanfully, technology has progressed and become more affordable to the masses. Queue in mid-90's Black Metal and the need for creepy, melodic intros to more raw, powerful music. This is where the Dungeon Synth movement really began to take hold. I don't have the time or the wherewithal to trace the history of Dungeon Synth. Others have done this (I strongly recommend this reddit post on the subject). 

So what do we have here? Thorin has created a soundtrack for his Sky ov Crimson Flame adventure for Dungeon Crawl Classics (free quick-start rules are here!). It's as creepy as you would expect (I mean, look at that cover!) with an air of menacing mystery. Would I play this in the background while running Sky ov Crimson Flame? Of course. Would I play this in the background while running any weird or eerie dungeon crawling adventure? Absolutely. Would I just listen to the awesome music for the sake of listening to the awesome music? I'm doing that right now! Strongly recommended for your macabre moods!

And I would strongly recommend picking this up. Don't worry, non-cassette-player-owners. You can get the digital download over on Bandcamp. What are you waiting for?

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The House of the Moon

 

Benjamin Tweddell has a gently diabolical touch. Whether it is the claustrophobic-um-ecstatic The Veneration at Polwheveral Manor or the decadent apotheosis of A Crown of Dusk and Sorrow Tweddell's tone floats freely between the sacred and the obscene, from light to darkness and back again. The House of the Moon is no exception. Tweddell's literary chiarascuro, for lack of a better term, contrasts hopeful light and hopeless darkness as dissonant foils to one another, but also, behind it all, pieces of the same completeness, ends of a spectrum, rather than a stark duality. 

As with all of Mount Abraxas books, the production values are outstanding, but in this case, I think the publishing house has outdone itself. This is absolutely exquisite in form and execution. This little work is a treasure, especially with the deft hand of Luciana Lupe Basconcelos at the pen and brush. Her works are the gems on the crown here.

As with Tweddell's other work, a looming building looms large in this story. Here it is the titular House of the Moon, so-called by those who see beyond it's facade as an empty, if disquieting, Cavendish Hall. Julian Ashford moves to the estate of his recently-deceased mother and sees a mysterious, beautiful, yet sad young lady near the grounds of Cavendish Hall. He discovers, in time, the secrets of the House of the Moon, the identity of the young lady, and his mother's own connection to the strange edifice and its inhabitants. This is a moody and seemingly serene bit of poetic prose, until a certain point, where Julian's perceptions about the place and his place in the universe are shattered. To say more than that is to give too much away, but I end with one word of warning: be careful when looking up into the night sky and staring at that blackness between the stars. You may learn something about reality that you aren't ready yet to know. And rather than reality coming crashing down upon you, you will be lifted up and swallowed by it.

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A Man Worth Killing

 Oh, what an existentialist web Douglas Thompson has created here in another volume of Mount Abraxas press's series The Old Ways Remain. In this short decadent novella, one sees, as the opening remark claims, "a forensic record of an ordinary man's descent from staid normality towards a moral void". We begin, as one does in this sort of story, with a murder, then work our way back to the initiation of the abandonment of morality that eventually leads to the trap of an inescapable conscience wherein one cannot even confess the truth to find some absolution in guilt. It truly becomes a "moral void". Debauchery may be fun, and the discovery of guilt might offer a cathartic, if terrifying relief of tension from holding guilt within. But what if one is trapped in an in-between state, a static purgatory that promises neither punishment or salvation. This is the conondrum we are presented with here. It is every bit as horrible as it sounds: a certain kind of undeath of the moral being, forever hungry, never satisfied, but never released from bondage. There is no resting in peace for that sort of psychological noose. It ever tightens, but never strangles, Tantalus unleashed.

Did I mention a lost Scottish village reappearing in a time-slip that seems to mirror the moral entrapment of the narrator? There's that, too. It's a nice piece of psychogeography, a form that I don't see often enough in weird fiction. If you've ever wondered what it might be like to be trapped by the fey, this might be your tale. It's not all magic dust and laughter, though. Far from it. It's an uncomfortable slippage into some sort of liminal hell, if anything. Venture forth, if you dare.

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The Book of Antitheses

 

The Book of Antitheses by Jobe Bittman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Massive trigger warning: If the practice of magic, extreme violence, and/or strong sexual themes offend you, skip this review and never, ever read this book. Now that that's out of the way . . .

Lamentations of the Flame Princess again presents one of the more obscene and transgressive roleplaying game works out there. Say what you will about LotFP, they have a brand identity, and they unapologitically stick with it. This is not a book for children or the easily offended - not. at. all. If you're looking Saturday morning cartoon Dungeons and Dragons, this ain't it. Now, I'm guessing that if you read this far, you are not easily offended. But you might be a child. After all, I started playing D&D when I was 9 years old . . . a long time ago. As a preteen and early teen, I was enamored of the game. And, yes, it did introduce me to some . . . alternative ways of thinking/viewing/believing. And, yes, the bare-chested illustrations of the harpy, sphinx, and others were *ahem* attractive to this young man and, I'm guessing, just about every other young man out there.

So, while the Satanic Panic was overblown, there were some elements of truth to it. The original D&D game was filled with Devils and Demons (sanitized into "Tanar'ri" and "Baatezu" in some later editions) and there were, occasionally, straight-up occult elements in the game (c.f. the booklet of monsters and magic items module S4: The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth - which is, incidentally, my favorite module of all time).

In The Book of Antitheses, Jobe (yes, I know him - more on that later) fully embraces something that I've realized in my later years - the ritual nature of roleplaying games. Whether you believe in magic or not, you must admit that playing RPGs is highly ritualized. Gaming groups typically meet at a set time and place (even if said place is virtual), surround a table (again, sometimes virtual) and delve into a realm of imagination, fate, and, (dare I say it?) faith. We create alternate personas, much like an initiate into magic arts, we oftentimes concentrate to a state of near-meditation, we use dice as divinatory or soothsaying tools and bind our characters (a piece of ourselves?) to the results. Often, we laugh and joke, which seems to contradict my argument until one notes that magical practice, by and large, is ended by "banishing" the ritual space so that the things summoned there don't creep into everyday life. Magicians engage with the demons, get what they want (or not), and banish the entities at the end of the ritual.

A few years back, these commonalities struck me quite profoundly. If I recall correctly, this thundering revelation took place in 2019. I was so struck by the thought that I immediately contacted several people who were gamers and who had a deep understanding of magic and the occult and set up an improptu online meeting. Two of the people who came into the discussion (I think there were seven of us total?) were Jobe Bittman and the person who would later write the profoundly-insightful foreword to this book, JF Martel (who is the co-host of my favorite podcast, Weird Studies). In fact, I like to think that I facilitated Jobe getting in contact with JF and having him write the foreword. Then again, maybe I am deceived by some whimsical spirit.

I also sat at the gaming table with Jobe at Garycon one year and played through a game he ran. Well, partially, I had to leave about halfway through, unfortunately. He began the session by letting those at the table know that they would be participating in a ritual exercise and that any who wished to not participate should leave. He then rang a clarion, a singing bowl, and effectively invoked and opening to the session. We then played an RPG with Jobe randomly determining how encounters would go, not by rolling dice and consulting tables (the "normal" way one would), but by casting a number of small objects ("charms," if you will) and "reading" the results to determine what would happen during the encounter we were involved with by examining the relation of the objects (each of which represented different persons or elements) to (or against!) each other. These seemingly strange methodologies really helped immerse us into the game and the imaginal plane (though he would argue that this "imaginal" plane was an actual real place, though it is only visible in our minds). We felt that we were a part of something, much as one normally does while playing an RPG, but more intensely, in this case. We had more "buy in," all-in-all.

And this is one of the techniques that is outlined in The Book of Antitheses, a step-by-step guide to gaming-as-ritual. Jobe claims that the book is a real book in a real place as real as the book you hold in your hand. In fact, one of the adventure threads involves characters seeking and finding The Book of Antitheses, which is, in reality . . . well, The Book of Antitheses!

Several other techniques are outlined here, as well. The thrust of all of these is this: When running a roleplaying game, don't use pre-existing structure as a crutch. Toss aside those adventures that have a numbered encounter that shows exactly what is "in the room". Let fate decide for you! You'll never have to prep again, so long as you have a good grasp of setting, non-player character personalities and motivations, and "resonances".

This last piece is important. A resonance can be anything from a rumor to an event. The gamemaster should have several one- or two-sentence descriptions of possible or even probable encounters for a given area. This doesn't mean the old "wandering monster chart," though monsters can be a part of the lists. It is important that these lists are NOT numbered, like the wandering monster charts of yore. The gamemaster needs to decide which element presents itself to the party based on intuition and, potentially, casting the charms as outlined above. The presentation is much less proscriptive than say, rolling a "4" on the chart which gives "1d6 ogres," which sometimes gets ridiculous, even when such charts are tailored to the environment in which the encounter takes place. Resonances are much more loose and free than this, allowing the gamemaster to divine which of the potential events, rumors, interactions, etc., will happen at any given time. it's a much more nuanced approach than the old tables.

The last half of the book is composed of an "adventure," though I hesitate to use that term. There are several locations, several non-player characters with strong motivations, a cultural milieu with conflict brewing just under the surface (waiting to explode at any moment), and a couple of potential "problems" that the party of adventurers can try to resolve. There are multiple possibilities here that can only be explored at the table. No need to worry if your players have read the adventure ahead of time - it won't help. There are just too many variables and the stochasticity of throwing and interpreting the charms ensure that you will never run the same adventure twice, even if nothing has changed with the book itself.

There is also a section on monsters that give more insights into their motivations and ambitions, along with, yes, a stat block (LotFP stats).

I'll end on a side note. In my Dungeon Crawl Classics game this morning, one of the players' characters spun some crazy yarn (this happens every time we play) and one of the other players (but not his character, this was an "out of character" comment) said "I think you're just making crap up". To which the response was:

"Dude, it's ALL made up!"

et sic est


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