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Dracula by Northern Ballet

Dracula by David Nixon OBE and Northern Ballet gives the vampires all the best moves. They show off how athletic and powerful dancers can be, presenting some impressive and creepy movements, while the humans get a lot less to do.

A revival of a 1999 show, where some music cues feel very Interview With The Vampire, some costume and staging choices very Coppola’s Dracula.

Adaptation-wise, it goes for Mina and Dracula being drawn to each other, and presents a shock ending. (I wonder if it influenced the recent theatre version I saw...)

Gingerbread Cuneiform Tablets

For all your edible Ten Commandments needs.

We salute you.

Watch GEAS-er Milo go slowly mad GMing all day in aid of the Red Cross.

In the grim darkness of the toy fair future...

You wait decades for a range of Warhammer 40,000 Space Marine action figures, then two come along at once.

The Empire Strikes Back effects masterclass

A fortieth anniversary online meetup with Bill George, Dennis Muren, Joe Johnston, Phil Tippett, and Lorne Peterson, to discuss the visual effects of The Empire Strikes Back.

Curon

Curon, an Italian creepy teen investigation, starting with the real-life image of a drowned village with the bell tower rising from the waters.

The Two Queens

Les Deux Reines, an official adventure for Vampire: The Masquerade fifth edition in French, coming soon from Arkhane Asylum Publishing, publishers of the French edition of The Troubleshooters.

Update from here, via the Vamily Discord:

Matthew Dawkins is doing some work on the project, and we have learned it's being written in English first to make the Paradox approval process simpler, so I hope for an English release as well.

Star Wars plots from Flash Gordon episode titles

Jamming on Star Wars adventure ideas with as little forethought as possible, taking titles from the first and third Flash Gordon serials. I felt that the second had too many proper nouns in its titles.

Classic “small crew of Rebels, somebody probably uses the Force” kind of setup, and introducing a lot of supervillain-style Imperials and other enemies...

Quite a lot of players

I am flattered by the interest in my summer RPGs, not least the three interested in both of them... and I don’t think I’ve even met one of those three.

Five for Buffy, nine for V5. Which is probably a bit much.

Birth Goth Days

And today, birthdays for Christopher Lee, Vincent Price and Siouxsie Sioux. And this is not World Goth Day.

Bonus: Price co-starred with Peter Lorre in a TV pilot about mystery-solving antique dealers.

Dracula 123

Today marks the 123rd anniversary of the publication of Dracula.

I have never had Dracula turn up in one of my games. When we got to the start of season five of The Watch House, I referenced Buffy Vs. Dracula with Milli Vs. Frankenstein. I haven’t run The Dracula Dossier for Night’s Black Agents. The closest I’ve come is to have the Ordo Dracul be around in Vampire: The Requiem games, but neither any of the original Draculas nor the almost legendary Count F****** Dracula have appeared in-game.

Today also marks the 107th birthday of Peter Cushing! Ever had a hero born on the same day as the villain?

A 1700-year-old boardgame

Archaeologists Uncover 1700-Year-Old Board Game at an excavation in Norway, including game tokens and a rod-shaped die.

When all this evil falls apart

Main takeaway from World Goth Day: The Red Paintings, God Save Silence
(Video features one F-bomb and possible male nudity, possible due to UV body paint)

Update: Currently private, so Gothicat link

Happy birthday Chris!

GEAS Summer

There are ten games. Two of them are me. (Another two are Matthew Barrowcliffe.)

DARKNESS Pinterest!

For World Goth Day, the official World Of Darkness Pinterest boards!

Tenet

The full trailer for Christipher Nolan’s previously mysterious new film Tenet. So it’s like... super-slick espionage Braid?

The Old Guard trailer

Charlize Theron is an immortal warrior. Also, The Old Guard is coming soon, based on the comics by Greg Rucka and Leandro Fernandez, and looking like a guns-y group-game-friendlier Highlander facing modern weird-hunting agents like Vampire: The Masquerade’s Second Inquisition.

Edit having seen it: it plays the immortal warrior in a very grounded international espionage way rather than the epic fantasy take seen in Highlander, so while they have melee weapons they use them as well as guns in gunfights rather than haveing swordfights with anyone else and theres a distinct lack of indoor thunderstorms.

The Empire Strikes Back

I was nearly six when The Empire Strikes Back loomed into view, and probably six by the time we got to see it. Star Wars was already huge and now... the Empire was striking back?!

George Lucas anniversary interview at StarWars.

Empire magazine making-of.

Some talk from my 2015 rewatch. Including how to play something like it, with a player definitely having to be up for what happens to Luke in the end...

We got Black Angel in front of it, further setting the “Oh, this is not going to go well...” tone of the title. Especially when, as noted in that introduction, the same step-slo-mo style leaks into the equivalent fight in Empire itself!

Buffy coming back to free TV here

Buffy to show on E4 weeknights at 11, and stream on All4. Announced on the anniversary of Chosen. In case you couldn’t borrow my DVDs.

GEAS summer plans

Solved swithering problem by offering both on weekend evenings, so prepared to run both on different days depending on interest...

--

Buffy The Vampire Slayer: Sounds Like Hell

Buffy The Vampire Slayer using the official RPG rules, with a new cast of characters in modern-day smallish-town and probably campus-based adventures.

Knowledge of the setting and shows and game is useful but not necessary. The system is pretty straightforward. The setting is an urban fantasy Earth with magic and monsters existing in secret, and a mix of action, generally-mild horror, drama and comedy.

Possible specific setup: The characters are a band and one or more of them is mixed up in supernatural trouble.

--

Vampire: The Masquerade - Red Right Hand

Vampire: The Masquerade is a storytelling game of personal horror, playing as people drawn into a society of monsters hunting in the shadows of a world that looks like our own. Knowledge of the setting and system is not required, the setting looks like our world on the surface and the system is straightforward.

Your characters are new to the night in a city where the reigning elder vampire has vanished, leaving the Damned fighting amongst themselves. The oldest cling to their power, the youngest fight for their own survival, and few care about their souls. Will your characters choose a side, find their own path, or die trying - again?

Expect personal connections to humanity complicating existence as a vampire, some violence though not much action, and a backdrop of dark alleys, nightclubs, galleries and graveyards.

--

I am already having second thoughts about the V5 title and trying the Buffy band setup again, but it’s just a few weeks... assuming summer still exists as a concept. This is May and still feels like winter.

Madi: Once Upon A Time In The Future

Madi: Once Upon A Time In The Future, an SF graphic novel from Duncan Jones, Alex de Campi, and various artists.

Blood & Treasure

Blood & Treasure comes to free TV here on Pick, starting Sunday. I hear it’s okayish, but as a globetrotting adventure series about archaeologists and black marketeers it’s the kind of thing I have to look at.

I would tell you when, but the advert during Merlin said 6 and the announcer plug over the credits said 8.

Evil Dead 2: The Board Game

It only took from backing it on July 8th 2016 till May 19th 2020, and a company buying up another company’s assets, but the Evil Dead 2 board game has actually arrived.

Sure I’ll never play it, but...

Val Lewton’s World Of Darkness

The BBC have put a chunk of their library of classic RKO films on iPlayer. Citizen Kane! King Kong! Cary Grant! Fred and Ginger!

The Val Lewton produced horror films represented by Cat People, Curse Of The Cat People and I Walked With A Zombie was already available but well worth mentioning. They’re much more low-key than their Universal rivals, particularly by the 40s when they’d gone for the crossover monster rallies.

They may be of particular interest to World Of Darkness types - particularly Cat People and The Seventh Victim, not included - for their portrayal of very human monsters in a noirish modern world.

The run is particularly impressive because the films famously started with titles handed down from the studio and Lewton and crew left to make something that fit! A skill I greatly admire, as you may know.

Cat People director Jacques Tourneur went on to make Night Of The Demon, a fantastic adaptation of M.R. James’s Casting The Runes which complicates cross-Googling Lewton and the World Of Darkness as the term appears in its opening narration.

a|state call for playtesters

Handiwork Games seeks playtesters for the new edition of a|state. Familiarity with Forged in the Dark games a necessity.

Hayley Williams on Petals For Armor videos

As someone who sometimes pulls plots from music videos, Hayley Williams talking through her trilogy of Petals For Armor videos is most welcome.

Congratulations to James Wallis!

Congratulations to James Wallis on his new position as studio manager of Green Board Games!

Gumshoe One-2-One Bundle

Cthulhu Confidential, with NBA Solo Ops in the expansion, from Pelgrane and Bundle of Holding.

GMing over summer?

Very much swithering over what to offer to run this summer across the screens. Buffy for my ease, V5 for likely popularity... nothing space-y, probably.

The Random Crappy Magic Item Generator

Also at Perhance, the Random Crappy Magic Item Generator.

A Bag of Holding - Only slightly larger on the inside than it is on the outside.

A psychic healing wand that doesn't cast a healing spell but says nice things about you when used. Functionally useless, but it's really pleasant, regardless.

Perchance

Perchance, a new-to-me random generator site, as suggested by Rose Bailey, and with Bright & Terrible as an example.

Riddles In The Dark

Riddles In The Dark, from Andy Serkis reading The Hobbit. In case you want to hear him do Gollum in particular...

Virtually Expo

The UK Games Virtually Expo homepage is now up detailing plans and where they are in the planning.

And it will be free, which is also nice, apart from some ticketed events.

August 21-23.

This club is a bit much

The Heaven and Hell nightclubs in 1890s Paris suggest that your club in Vampire is probably okay.

Giant Robot Hellboy Mini!

Following Mike Mignola’s daily charity doodles introducing Giant Robot Hellboy, Mantic will be releasing him as a miniature!

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds

Spinning off from Discovery, and in turn from the original 1964 pilot, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds brings Captain Pike, Mr. Spock and Number One to CBS All Access and presumably either Netflix or Prime or somewhere else here.

Gargoyles

Stone by day. Warriors by night! Greg Weisman talks about Gargoyles, now all on Disney+.

Batman to get his own RPG again

Batman: Gotham City Chronicles RPG, from Monolith, spinning off from their board game.

Superman never got an RPG to himself. No, Smallville doesn’t count.

Unreal

I remember when Unreal came out. It did not look like this.

(And the demo leaves me wondering what this Zelda-y game being imagined is about.)

UK Games Virtually Expo

Coming to screens in August.

Enlightenment In Blood three years on

Three years on from Enlightenment In Blood, the anarchs are back front and centre in V5, the Church of Caine is a big deal, the Tremere pyramid is indeed borked.

World Of Darkness Berlin three years on

World Of Darkness Berlin was a very nice weekend. Though I did miss the Succubus Club night after getting a calf cramp from walking too far on uneven surfaces while LARPing the night before.

Last TV Show / Last Video Game

Quoting a thing from Twitter in the ancient past (February):

“The last TV show you watched is now getting a crossover with the last video game you played. What is the unholy abomination that has just been created?”

Merlin and Star Wars: Jedi - Fallen Order
A young man with mystical powers that can move things with his mind has to act in secret in a realm where his abilities are banned, with villains using similar powers, a few snarky allies, sometimes meeting a supposedly mythical flying beast, and hang on

And my replies include this from Ollie:

The Blacklist and Unreal Tournament - a boots on the ground look at how squad warfare develops when the intel is being provided by a secretive crimelord

And damn, that’s a good action series hook.

Dialogue for time travel

“I can’t tell you what happens in the future. No spoilers!... Oh, damn, spoilers isn’t even a thing yet, is it?”

Thunderbolt Fantasy

Thunderbolt Fantasy - like Supermarionation Exalted. Thanks to Rose for the link!

D&D Comic Relief

The stream has now ended, the VOD is up. And the donation link!

And now the Youtube link!

VE Day

Victory in Europe, seventy-five years ago today.

Riddles In The Stream

Andy Serkis reading The Hobbit for charity tomorrow. Which will take about as long as watching the films.

DTRPG charity bundles

DriveThru RPG supporting three different charities with biiiiiig PDF bundles. The separate bundles include the likes of Scion Origins, Night’s Black Agents, Spire and The Witcher, for about the price of one of them.

Wathammer Age Of Sigmar: Soulbound

Soulbound, the Warhammer: Age Of Sigmar RPG, is loosed upon the Mortal Realms.

Dungeons & Dragons & Comics & Charity

Art for the Comic Relief D&D game.

Beyond The Wall

Fisher (not his real name) the aspiring thief who will probably end up a sheriff instead.

Style choice: It’s dark and it has a hood. Also, needs a haircut. May one day try to grow a beard. If not stopped.

Dialogue

“That guy seems...”
“I hear Nicolas Cage is going to play him in the movie.”
“... Yeah.”

Trinity Continuum: Anima

Trinity Continuum: Anima

The year is 2084. Do you know where your reality is?

An augmented reality cyberpunk setting in the aftermath of the Aberrant war and before the found of the Aeon Trinity.

Setting advice

Campaign development from TableGoth. Funnily enough, their example is setting Vampire: The Masquerade in St. Louis. They’re based there, unlike me. No mention of the Crack Fox as a hangout yet...

No 2020 Nationals

The Nationals is to take 2020 off, having previously been postponed to late July, and return to its 2020 base of Sheffield hopefully around the usual Easter-ish slot about a year from now.

This is a solid call for everyone’s safety. It’s too play-intensive to run virtually, too.

And that’s the last (already rescheduled) thing I might have been doing this summer cancelled until next year. My events calendar is now clear till October. But in the words of Nine Inch Nails, as played over the Avengers teaser trailer, we will make it through somehow.

Merlin

Returning to TV on Pick, Merlin is the most successful of the various shows to take on the post-revival Doctor Who slot, running for five years. It’s basically a Smallville game using Pendragon as a sourcebook.

Camelot has already been founded by Uther, Arthur is his known son and heir, magic is banned, Merlin has to use his powers undercover as Arthur’s servant, and Morgana is Uther’s war and Guinevere is her maid.

May the Fourth IS with us!

Taika Waititi to direct a new Star Wars film, co-writing with 1917 screenwriter Krysty Wilson-Cairns. Can it be now please?

George Lucas and Dave Filoni

Talking the end of The Clone Wars on The Star Wars Show.

May the Fourth

It’s been a ride, but hey, last May the Fourth we didn’t have Baby Yoda.

Do the magic hand thing!

And thank you to Alan Tudyk...

Free Onyx Path Jumpstarts

Nine Onyx Path Jumpstarts free this week until Wednesday!

Electropunk: Children Of The Future

Electropunk: Children Of The Future, a monster-fighting Tesla graphic novel, created and written by B. Dave Walters (L.A. By Night, Werewolf: The Apocalypse Fifth Edition, A Darkened Wish) with co-creator and artist Jeff Wamester and background painter Natalia Bacetti, Kickstarting now.

Dialogue for later use

“You couldn’t pay me enough to do that - okay, maybe you could, but if you can you should probably invest in property.”

This is the Way.

All of The Mandalorian season one is now up on UK Disney+, so you can meet the most instantly hated character in the history of everything ever in the pre-credits for chapter eight.

Danny Boyle’s Frankenstein

The National Theatre production of Frankenstein directed by Danny Boyle, with Benedict Cumberbatch and Jonny Lee Miller as Frankenstein and the creature, or the other way round depending which night you went. The films of both versions are now free in Youtube for the week. Steampunk staging, flashing lights, theatrical slightly more horror than usual, and duelling Promethean Sherlocks.

Summer is a-coming in, apparently

After Beltane, the sun has risen.

Most years I wouldn’t feel the need to check.