A story I wrote for Zeo Genesis has just started being serialised! www.zeogenesis.com/blog/a-pinch...

Prepping to run a short campaign of 7th Sea. It looks like it could be a lot of fun - if I can keep up the pace it seems to demand. Just getting into 2nd Ed as 3rd Ed is about to come out - always moving with the times, me.

Been on a bit of a cosmic horror kick recently. Two great podcasts I can thoroughly recommend: - The Witness of Kitab al Azif by Aaron and Drummis - Modes of Thought in Anterran Literature by Wolf at the Door

I was ordering furniture for work the other day. The phrase "Previously loved furniture" hits different after hearing those stories about JD Vance...

D&D: The PCs had enough of the interdimensional East India Company that are "civilising" their country, and attacked the "Star Fort" that has been built outside the capital city. So far they've succeeded in causing extensive damage to the drains and unleashing a hostile titan as a distraction.

D&D: The party's castle was attacked by the winter-themed tag team of an ancient white dragon, a remorhaz and an abominable yeti. It was a hella close battle, with two PCs being swallowed by the remorhaz, the bard being killed outright and every character being on death saves at least once.

Alien RPG: The PCs are getting twitchy about the synthetic science officer, who seems to be keeping secrets about the biology of the strange girl recovered from the derelict terraforming vessel. The captain seems to be losing the plot and the crew are engaging in acts of atomic mutiny.

D&D: the heroes raided the tomb of a gnomish warlord, noticing that it seemed constructed to keep something in rather than out. They assumed undeath, but he had actually become an archangel of a war goddess (along with his dire-horse and squire.) The gnomes had been happy to see the back of him.

Cryptic crosswords are the jazz saxophone of the crossword world. This is the hill I will die on!

D&D: The heroes returned to their friend, an extremely buff merman-whale-giant who the lusty wizard kept on referring to as "Sea-Daddy". Unfortunately, the giant was being controlled by an aboleth, and the heroes had to fight off hordes of brain-sucking parasites in order to free him.

D&D: Party descended to the lightless depths of the ocean to find the lair of dead dragon turtle. Having no hands or pockets, said turtle had been eating treasure and pooping it out, so PCs faced sifting hundreds of giant turds. Mordenkainen's Mansion provided an efficient way of doing this.

Good lord, Wes Streeting really is a slimy piece of crap, isn't he? While I'm quite happy to see Starmer go, the idea of that smug sack of effluent replacing him is nightmare fuel. He's clearly about to wheel out the same calibre of "experts" for mental health as they did with trans issues.

D&D: The heroes continued their assault on the airship, backed up by their wizard, who had only teleported in to ask if they had seen her keys. After a terrible battle which saw the heroes frozen, stunned, electrocuted and poisoned, the ship crashed and burned in the ocean.

D&D: The group saved the city from a steampunk dirty bomb, fought off assassins wearing unpleasantly rubbery suits, gained the favour of the sea-elf queen, raided an embassy, sold their absent wizard to a symposium on molluscs and magic, and then, oh yeah - raided a massive airship!

D&D: The party undertook an aquatic adventure, battling an underwater "Wild Hunt" led by a froggy fey prince. MVP from the GM's perspective were definitely the giant sharks, who the nature paladin refused to hit even though they were tearing the rogue and the bard limb from limb.

Ran the Fallout RPG, and it was good fun. The group followed an elderly "historian" on a perilous quest to raid the tomb of the ancient war-leader, "General Motors". After fighting off ghouls, radroaches, and raiders, they managed to steal the general's shining chariot - a nuclear-powered truck.

Hopefully going to run the Fallout RPG this weekend. I have been playing about with some of the fan-made tools, and managed to cobble together a map. Yes, it looks very basic, but I was working with MS Paint. (Yes, I'm aware the geography is grievously wrong)

D&D: Party agreed to do weird and dangerous tasks for a bunch of genius loci in return for patronage. The decision to sacrifice a dangerously incompetent ally temporarily led to PVP. As part of making up they all hiked out and fought a dracolich together, resulting in a ludicrous ocean of treasure.

D&D: The party got a Bag of Beans as random treasure, and promptly spent the whole session planting them and then dealing with the various catastrophes it unleashed. No beanstalk rolled, but they did create a geyser of mayonnaise and an enraged gorilla that made bloody snow-angels using the rogue.

Despite my general dislike of GURPS, I have been enjoying playing GURPS Dungeon Fantasy. Luckily our GM knows the system inside out, so he can translate for players. It is like playing old-school D&D. TBF, it's probably a better system than original D&D.

Every now and again I get nostalgic and read through the original Deadlands tpg. The system was gimmicky and needlessly baroque, and it was apologist about the South, but it was a great background. Also, it gave a good rationale for women and poc having equal agency in a civil war era setting.

D&D: The party ventured to the twisting underworld of a foreign god, defeating multiple kappa, a tianak, some evil mirror eyeballs and several hellish magistrates and their guards. They finally located the elder jiangshi and his nest of minions and burnt them to ashes.

Alien RPG: PCs woke to find their transport ship diverted to an old Weyland Corp distress signal. Boarding the research vessel, they found the remains of multiple UPP soldiers and a patrolling soviet synthetic with a flamethrower. Inexplicably, they opted not to open the welded-shut bio-lab aboard.

D&D: The heroes pay exorbitant sums to have the head of the dragon turtle worked into the fortifications of their castle. As winter begins in earnest, one of the Bard's circus performers is found horribly dead. Upon investigation, the party discover an infestation of Jiangshi hopping vampires!

Got a story ("Unspoken") in Sci Phi Journal at the moment! www.sciphijournal.org/index.php/20...

D&D: The cleric tried to raise the dead nature paladin, who was enjoying roaming the afterlife as a noble badger. After some convincing, he returned to the mortal coil, only to discover that with winter closing in, his castle has been filling up with freeloaders.

Starmer really is the Neville Chamberlain of our times. Anything rather than confront actual problems. Racists on our streets? "I love flags, me." Fascists taking control of our allies? "Come have tea with the king!" Oligarchs robbing Britain blind? "We can't afford disabled people anymore."

Due to allergies, we had to get a hypo-allergenic cat, which meant a pedigree Cornish Rex. She's lovely, but so slender and short haired that she looks a bit like she was raised via "Pet Sematary". It's like Tim Burton designed a cat.

Having bought it ages ago and never really got into it, I decided to try No Man's Sky again after it's recent update. It's very good, and I'm enjoying it a lot. I am struggling with how similar the plot of Starfield now seems in retrospect (I know NMS came first.)

D&D: Surprisingly, the party made a deal with not one but three bizarre extradimensional beings in return for a trip home to their own plane. The only downside being a tiny portion of these weird creatures' essence riding around inside the recipient's head. This will certainly NOT BE A PROBLEM.

Daisy got a call earlier from someone she referred to merely as "damp guy". I can only imagine it was Innsmouth Telemarketing.

At the ripe old age of 49, I am now beginning the process of trying to find/buy a place for myself. Sadly my ADHD/anxiety tends to trigger absolute paralysis in the face of so many forms and things to keep track of. My instinct is to stay very still, in the hopes that the monster won't see me.

D&D: The party raided the underground embassy (definitely not lair) of some interdimensional venture capitalists who were intent on 'uplifiting' the locals to a state of civilisation. Session ended with a massive explosion as the cleric smashed the device powering their interdimensional portal.

Monster that I apparently am, I enjoy a large bowl of mushy weetabix for breakfast. But I can't eat it without saying the line "How does Brundlefly eat?" from The Fly.

D&D: The party discovered their elderly baroness has been alchemically juicing. Also, one of the party previously married her by pretending to be her long-lost love, but they recently met her long-lost love meandering home. Shakespearean schemes are afoot to resolve this tangled situation.

D&D: A mutated dragon vomits up tumerous tentacle creatures thanks to exposure to industrial waste from an alchemist's lab. But the group REALLY want the alchemical goodies. They are fairly confident they can deal with the problem by expelling the waste into another dimension. This is just a blip.

D&D: IC, The party returned to the dwarven lands, got in some legal hot water and fled the city, then enacted a complicated plan to return and rescue Thunderhoof the pony. OC, I made a fruit pie that turned out to be more of a fruit casserole. We ate pudding and laughed at stupid wang jokes.

D&D: The party met a Rakshasa, who projected an illusion of his illustrious magnificence (see below.)

I really enjoyed the new Superman film. Only major niggle was that it really seemed to lift quite a major plotline from The Boys comic. Which, I guess, is in itself a parody, but the implementation was quite specific. Also, why make The Engineer a villain? She was a hero in The Authority.

I'm not sure most human "consciousness" works a lot differently to LLMs, I think we just have an incredible ability to rationalise the stupid things we say and do. We spend so much time and effort building "logical" or "moral" defences of them that they become institutions in their own right.

D&D: Hard fight against a bunch of cat-cultists, including an evil sphinx, a were-tiger and a pack of quaggoths. Some villains may have been based on individual players' cats (including one running around with a bag of food stuck on its head.)

Thinking about the classic RPG, Legend of the Five Rings: 1st Ed - simple, deadly, no power balance 2nd Ed - terrible rules changes, bad art 3rd Ed - hideously over-complicated 4th Ed - close to 1st ed, but still over-complicated 5th Ed - bland excuse to sell funny dice

D&D: The party got to visit the filth and crowding of medieval Avignon during the papacy. They painstakingly explained their plan to one of the arch-villains, who very kindly agreed to leave the back door of the Papal Palace open for them. Session ended with the trap springing, and PCs surrounded.

The other highlight of D&D - three characters taking turns to try and punch out a glowing mole before it could burrow away.

An Elder Brain with a taste for the theatrical runs away to join the circus. It is towed around in a brine-filled wagon. But the so-called "heroes" can't stand to see its dream of showmanship succeed. And yes, they surfed it again. Absolute last time I put in a villain with standing room up top.

Best. Pub. Name. Evar!

Also in D&D: The party faced off against the floating skull of an undead cyclops titan. Naturally the fighter and the bard had to surf it.

D&D: The party met a fallen angel of matrimony who had grown tired of cheating husbands, and started dispensing justice one stolen manhood at a time. Some of the party were even considering busting the wards on the dwarven city to let her make some examples out of the hypocritical leadership.

The Iron Giant: starts weird, just gets weirder. Like, cosmically weird. Couldn't get any weirder. The Iron Woman: Hold my beer! Don't know what triggered the memory of those books this morning. Maybe the vague wish that a giant metal monster would surface and force us to grow up as a species.

The original Tron really is the archetypal cyberpunk movie. It's got scheming corporate bosses, a rogue AI and street-level hackers fighting the power. The sequel had amazing soundtrack and visuals, but the plot just wasn't as compelling. Not optimistic about skeezy Jared Leto for the threequel.