Today, a friend involved in the Esna restoration project has shared with me his latest stunning photos of the restored ceiling and columns of the Temple of Khnum in Esna, Upper #Egypt. During a multi-year restoration project, the dirt and soot that had obscured the ...🧵1/3 📷 D. v. Recklinghausen 🏺

Rally the Troops has added yet another World War I game to the line up: Verdun 1916: Steel Inferno. This is a CDG about the trench warfare around Verdun during World War I, designed by Walter Vejdo, with illustrations by Tardi. rally-the-troops.com/verdun

If I see you posting AI slop, it's an instant block. Even if you think it's cute or says a lot about society. If you are purporting that some AI slop is real news, I will report you for misinformation, and then block you. Sloppers should be marginalised.

The Terran Trade Authority series were science fiction art books published in the late 1970s & early 80s, created by British author Stewart Cowley using previously published paintings from sci-fi artists of the era, weaving elaborate fictional histories around the imagery. 1/3

The Mediocre wargame companies really are embracing GenAI quite vigorously. For people who claim to care about history, they sure love depicting faceless mutant handed soldiers carrying deformed weapons, fighting alongside magical choppers that float, but don't disturb smoke.

The art of Chris Moore (1947 - 2025)

Thanks to Nathan Forget, you can finally play Paths of Glory on Rally the Troops! rally-the-troops.com/paths-of-glory

To my friends in Estonia, Germany, Greece, Slovenia, Luxembourg, Romania please call your MEPs. Ireland has been a lost cause, giving into the lies around Chat Control not being a privacy-invading nightmare. But other governments are still debating and they need to be given accurate info.

Hi authors! Please remember to file a claim!

Wir sind das Volk! It's finally back online again! rally-the-troops.com/wir-sind-das...

Early concept art by Chris Foss for Alien (1979)

This is a truly fascinating thread, and discusses an implied cooperation in every game, not matter how competitive. I hadn't thought of it that way and now I am.

Look what just set sail on Rally the Troops ...

Wikimedia Foundation backing off of this after user outcry is good, but IMO not good enough to offset the horrificness of making the decision originally, and the fact that it's "paused" not "cancelled" and they're "still interested in AI-generated summaries" ain't great either. Fuhhhhhhhhhhck.

Scavengers Reign (2023) The best recent sci-fi show that almost no one has seen.

All of Tim Kirk’s art from the 1975 Tolkien Calendar 1/3

This is so ridiculously harmful and has nothing to do with protecting women. It is about social hygiene and the fact that some people think sex work is gross. And it has massive knock on effects.

A recent @newscientist.com cartoon #fungi

Good things can grow in the soil of bad things: The tariff crisis seems to be sparking a creative surge in me. For a decade, my game design life has split between work and personal projects. 🎲✂️(1/9)

The follow-on volume to Coast Watchers - this one set on the Western Front in World War I - has hit GMT's P500. www.gmtgames.com/p-1162-drach...

One of the most powerful pieces of creative advice I've ever come across: Hang out with people who are better than you at things that matter to you. My dad used to say: "Your goal should be to be the dumbest person in the room." In my own life, wow has that turned out to be good advice. 🎲✂️

Great to see The Guardian recycling an article of mine from 2023 without attribution: https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2023/11/dont-create-the-torment-nexus.html as https://www.theguardian.com/books/2025/apr/14/the-big-idea-will-sci-fi-end-up-destroying-the-world

my HORRIFYING cartoon for this week’s @theguardian.com books

also also AI art is theft and ecologically unviable and normalizing it only gives it the continued power to destroy our knowledge & institutions it is soulless and always, always inexcusable, and some people really should know better but I thought I was pretty diplomatic about it frankly

Vijayanagara by @sespagnolie.bsky.social and friends is now out for RTT! A thousand thank yous to Joël Simoneau for programming it. rally-the-troops.com/vijayanagara

#PortfolioDay Sci-fi, ruins, and odd plants

Everyone raised on the AP Style Guide is having a moment with this one, thank you @ellecordova.bsky.social

Hey! You can play Land and Freedom right now for free on Rally the Troops! And the game will even do the rules for you, so learning is a breeze. www.rally-the-troops.com/land-and-fre... #antifascism @ccxvii.bsky.social

Yes! It's here. rally-the-troops.com/land-and-fre...

More ships should look like they just sailed out of a Chris Foss painting

To me the biggest alarm, and thus the thing worth discussing at all, is the rampant anti-intellectualism of Tom and Zee’s statements in relation to the conversation Amabel is having. They’re not just saying games are toys—which they can be. They’re saying we mustn’t pretend they’re anything more.

It’s finally here! Mechanisms as Metaphors: How Board Games Create Meaning takes a look at how board games make persuasive arguments, how they might move us emotionally, and how the ways we talk about the form might hinder its development. www.youtube.com/watch?v=wG4z...

We are burying my dad at Prairie Creek Conservation Cemetery and I want to talk about what that means and encourage you to look into whether there's something similar near you. 🧵1/

Exciting news! We’re thrilled to announce that tapir Yuna gave birth to a rare and endangered Malayan tapir calf Sunday night. The newborn, covered in distinctive white spots and stripes resembling a fuzzy walking watermelon, is only the second tapir born in our 120-year history.

Hey- it's your girl, the person born in America who fled in the Bush years. I have successfully immigrated to four (4) countries over the course of my life and I have some insight into that process. I think you should try if you want, but know that borders exist to be racist which makes it hard.

I shared this last year when it was written, but now that we're two or three weeks out from the release of Oblique, I thought I'd share this short essay from the back of the book - "Sad Old Fritz". 1/3

Please watch Scavengers Reign if you can. I know that this sci-fi show is only available in very few countries on Max and Netflix. I know there's no Blu-ray. I know it's all stupid. But watch it.

My cartoon for this week’s @newscientist.bsky.social

🧵 On 17 December 1976, Thames TV aired a debate about paranormal beliefs. And it turned out to be one of the greatest half hours in British television history. Believe me: it's the best thing you'll see all week. First off, host Sandra Harris gets things rolling: (1/12)

PSA FOR AUTHORS: some dipshit put a pirate edition of my new book on Apple Books with a "50% OFF" medallion on the cover illo. They used an obscure unicode glyph in the author name so that searches for "Charles Stross" find it but the bookstore won't merge it. Where there's one there'll be others!

The millennial experience is growing up with the internet, and watching it go from a free, open, democratic, and eclectic ecosystem to a wasteland of five websites controlled by billionaires, and now seeing it quickly fill up with AI-generated slop. I want our World Wide Web back.

Per thread started by his friends on CSW, Alan Emrich has passed away talk.consimworld.com... A longtime giant of the gaming world, both tabletop & digital, Alan founded VPG, taught game design in college before it was cool, and coined the term "4X" for those games we all love

Because this CLEARLY needs a wider audience, here is a short German workplace safety training video (with English subtitles): Forklift Truck Driver Klaus is about to experience his first day at work! youtu.be/TJYOkZz6Dck

And just in case anyone here is not yet on Rally the Troops, here is what you can play - flawlessly following the rules from your very first go!

New release RTT! Come and play Maria online. rally-the-troops.com/maria

New Digital Antiquarian post about the early IF community that I got involved with in the mid-90s. Featuring @kevinwilson42.bsky.social as he starts IFComp! www.filfre.net/2024/11/retr...

Here’s a pair of Jim Henson-produced ads from 1969 for Frito-Lay’s Munchos, featuring a proto-version of the Muppet that would soon make its way to Sesame Street as Cookie Monster…

Now that @gmtgames.bsky.social has offered a "sneak peek" of the first Coast Watchers game art - the board by artist Robert Altbauer - I though I'd say a little about its design. ...

If you’re looking for open-licensed art for your bio projects/papers, Phylopic is a good source. Silhouettes only but in theory we could all save ink/money by printing in greyscale. 🧪🧬🖥️ #sciart 🐡 www.phylopic.org

All fifty-one TABLE BATTLES scenarios are available over at Rally The Troops! That's the base game, all six expansions, and even the two battles from C3i magazine. Tor put an exceptional amount of work into this, and I'm very pleased with the results! rally-the-troops.com/table-battles