..read more

 from "Ten Days in the Arena of Khazan" by Ken St. Andre, Different Worlds #7 ..read more

..read more

So I've been revisiting N. Robin Crossby's Hârn setting, a cool sorta low-magic medieval world that been around since the 80's. Hârn has its own system, HârnMaster, but no mechanics appear in the setting book. I know Jimbo Eddy Raga-ma-tazz numero 4 thinks early modern Europe is the ideal setting for Lamentations of the Flame Princess, but I think lowkey gritty Hârn would work pretty well. So much so that I am currently converting many of the weird spells in HârnMaster to LotFP. You can hardly do a medieval fantasy setting without some sort of kneejerk self-differentiation from Tolkien a ..read more

At last year’s Philly Zine Fest I bumped into a cool Temple University faculty member who recommended Maria Dahvana Headley’s newish (2020) translation of Beowulf to me. I had heard that she was a bit of a troublemaker, so I was already inclined toward checking out her take on ol' Bee Wolf at some point. Then my friend dropped this on me: “She renders the initial Hwæt as 'bro!'”* Sold, my dude, sold. So here are my favorite lines from Headley’s version. Old grudges recrudesce. Bro, fate can fuck you up. Any season is a season for blood, if you look at it in the right light. not living, b ..read more

..read more

  So this here is a Destroid Tomahawk. Destroids are land-based mecha used by UN forces to fight alien invaders in the anime Macross, which was release in the United States as part of Robotech. This is the edition of BattleTech that I played back in the eighties. That is not a Destroid Tomahawk. It is a Warhammer BattleMech. As I understand it, the company that licensed Macross to make Robotech then licensed the rights to the images to some of the mecha to the nice people at FASA. Through the same deal FASA also licensed some mecha designs from other shows, particularly Cru ..read more

Garth Ennis sends up fantasy? Sounds like fun ..read more

  ..read more

MERP (Middle-Earth Role Playing) is one of my favorite fantasy rpgs that sits outside the "fully compatible with D&D" space. Don't get me wrong, you can introduce a MERP PC into a D&D game and make it work, or use a MERP module in your D&D campaign, but it requires more effort than something written for Castles & Crusades or HackMaster or other alt-D&Ds. I played first edition MERP when it came out and greatly enjoyed it. In a test run with my buddy Dave as GM an ordinary cow kicked my first level elf's scrawny ass (which is totally realistic, if you've never pissed off li ..read more