Skating Polly, Tiger At The Drugstore

Fakin’ it just doesn’t feel like home...

From the new album Chaos County Line.

The Ray Harryhausen Awards 2023

The Ray Harryhausen Awards 2023 with Jason And The Argonauts on the big screen afterwards. Hell yes. Though seeing the trailer for the winning feature Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio up there too made it being exclusive to streaming seem even more of a waste.

Indiana Jones And The Dial Of Destiny

Indiana Jones And The Better Examination Of Some Of The Same Themes As The Bloody Awful Last One, And The CG De-Aging Was A Bit Distracting In The Prologue, Still Not As Good As Last Crusade Or Raiders Itself Obviously But Mostly Worked Overall

Which considering it’s been fifteen years since the last Indiana Jones film (three weeks after Iron Man so not quite the entire run of the MCU) and thirty-four years since the last half decent one, I’ll take it.

Spoiler post scheduled for next week.

Secret Invasion 1.02

Marvel’s Secret Invasion

1.02: Promises

Nick Fury falls out with people.

Juliet Stevenson in a two minute cameo?

We have a Skrull Prime Minister? Good for us.

Your new Clark and Lois

David Corenswet and Rachel Brosnahan to lead Superman: Legacy.

Well, they look the parts.

Band Adventures

Today is my birthday - I’d like adventures for bands!

This seems like a sensible RPG birthday request, as I’m currently running two games and they’re both about bands.

I don’t want to do “you’re playing a gig when Unrelated Adventure Hook happens” too often.

Both are not very famous modern sort of rock band in urban fantasy settings, but don’t feel limited to that.

Thank you!

Birthday!

Birthday!

So far 49 feels much like 48, i.e. a bit too warm.

Haul - Superman: The Animated Series, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season one, The Batman, Thor: Love And Thunder and a ticket to Indiana Jones And The Dial Of Destiny.

The Making Of Fighting Fantasy

Damien McFerran at Time Extension talks to Steve Jackon and Sir Ian Livingstone and current line writers Rhianna Pratchett and Charlie Higson about how it started, unsung hero Penguin editor Geraldine Cooke, expanding the line, basically ever reader cheating while reading,

Free RPG Day 2023

Once again, looking forward to Free RPG Day PDFs.

Though the PDF of the V5 promotional adventure is... on sale. Well, huh.

Marches and demonstrations

Back from Pride Edinburgh 2023, with sore feet. Marches are still preferable to demonstrations, preferring the movement (and usually drumming) to listening to speeches.

(Ever done a peaceful protest in a game?)

Star Trek: Prodigy

Star Trek: Prodigy has been cancelled with season two largely done and will be removed from Paramount+ soon because tax breaks and cheapness. Boo.

One year I would like to get to Glastonbury.

Glastinbury 2023 day one, CHVRCHES and a surprise Foo Fighters set.

Day two: Lana Del Rey in the smoking section

Day three: Elton John

The Score

My copy of The Score is on the way. Updates when ready to put the plan in operation.

Secret Invasion 1.01

Marvel’s Secret Invasion

1.01: Resurrection

Having played the Skrulls against type in Captain Marvel, Secret Invasion has to bring in a new (and still sympathetic... in intent) faction to have shapeshifting villains threatening to take over the world.

It pulls two of the most obvious tricks in the setup in episode one, which gets them out of the way nicely.

Russia. Because it has so many derelict nuclear power stations, but still, Russia.

The credits are a nice use of machine learning animation, but still machine learning animation.

Olivia Colman being Olivia Colman-y while still sinister.

Midsummer

Midsummer. Not start. Mid!

My first V5 PC

Having first created her in 2021 and created a coterie around her in 2022, perhaps unsurprisingly my first Vampire: The Masquerade Fifth Edition character is a very slight restatting of Paris, the Toreador club night promoter.

The setting is Anarch-held Los Angeles. I have already looked up real-world Goth club nights. Communion or Purgatory...

A great website for a LARP that never was

Southampton Vampire By Night never happened, and lead developer Mark White has been talking about why not. The main thing I saw in advance was the preview website, which was a great little search adventure introducing deep background, but he now regrets making it a mini-game without an out-of-character front page.

Jason And The Argonauts

Ray Harryhausen’s Jason And The Argonauts premiered sixty years ago today.

I was honoured to shake Mr. Harryhausen’s hand when he visited the Edinburgh International Film Festival, and sorry I only got to the Titan Of Cinema exhibition once due to crowd restrictions.

A better photo than I got.

See also my Harryhausen-specific WFRP 1 Skeleton statblock.

Juneteenth

Mark the day.

V5 Last Dance 2.02

Tonight in Vampire: The Masquerade - Last Dance, Erich said “Sabbat” and there was a rumble of thunder outside.

Storypath Ultra Preview

A free advance look at Storypath Ultra.

And also confirmed, a core manual.

Branch Riders

Branch Riders is the forthcoming RPG from the Bodhana Group and Onyx Path, where the branches are between the Eight Realms of a fantasy setting and only some people can travel between them and perceive a growing Blight that threatens them all. Each of the Realms is a different genre - a Western with Solaris-like outlands, Dark City with anthropomorphic animals...

Scion TV announcement

A first look at what Scion might be like on TV, perhaps in terms of title sequence.

WITCHFORD

Witchford is a village and civil parish about 2.5 miles (4 km) west of Ely, Cambridgeshire.

When the site of RAF Witchford (in World War II) was being cleared a bulldozer driver found an Anglo-Saxon pagan cemetery on the site. The bulldozer unearthed and crushed about 30 skeletons. Little archaeological work could be undertaken but some artefacts were recovered, which T. C. Lethbridge stated to be consistent with the period AD 450–650.

(T. C. Lethbridge was an English archaeologist, parapsychologist, and explorer. A specialist in Anglo-Saxon archaeology... particularly well known for his advocacy of dowsing.)

I presume there hasn’t been a ghost story about this because it would be too on the nose.

(Update: And I didn’t know about They Came From Witchford Academy when I wrote this.)

Onyx Path Con 2023

Onyx Path Virtual Convention 2023 starts tomorrow. Panel lists and all here.

Update, for ease of access.

Update: making a joke about the British weather got me referenced in the opening ceremony. My work here is done!

Will we find out what Curseborne is? Maybe?

Synthetic human embryos

Scientists have created synthetic human embryos using stem cells - it is not yet clear whether these structures have the potential to continue maturing beyond the earliest stages of development.

So a little early to get all Blade Runner about this.

John Romita Sr.

John Romita Sr. helped Marvel visualise its silver age and beyond.

Stan Lee

The Stan Lee documentary comes out on Disney+ on Friday. (They still add stuff! Who knew?)

Starfield

Starfield, with gameplay footage a year on from the earlier reveal, joins the likes of Destiny as big computer games I want to do as a tabletop game. Possibly with Trinity Continuum: Aeon. Definitely stealing the vintage explorers’ clubhouse in a shiny space city.

Star Wars Outlaws

Star Wars Outlaws looks great (trailer, alpha gameplay trailer) - only the CGness of the human characters confirmed to me that it was actually a video game.

The big world and shifty heroes (including the design of the patron) make me think of the unmade Ragtag.

The fuzzy axolotl you can direct as reliably as R2-D2 is a thing. (Did they get so used to Force TK that they had to have a way to do it with a non Force player character?)

And if it was live action some of it was made in Antelope Canyon.

Two trailers so far and nobody with a lightsaber!

Jurassic Park at 30

Jurassic Park was released in US cinemas thirty years ago today. Michael Crichton basically took his sci-fi theme park disaster idea Westworld and replaced cowboys with dinosaurs, and Steven Spielberg made it more-or-less family friendly, playing up the appeal of the idea - yes, I want to go see live dinosaurs! - as well as the danger when it all goes wrong.

Empire visited the set back when

CG effects were just there, with each shot taking a long time to process so a lot of work done to make them all work, while puppets and costumes were used extensively as well.

And one of the best known effects shots is the water on the car dashboard, made by plucking an attached guitar strong.

I remember the trailer with the big reveal of the Brachiosaurus stopping halfway up their necks - teasing that the effect would probably work but not confirming it. (But I can’t actually find that clip now.)

GEAS summer game pitches

GEAS summer game pitches are tonight. I’m not planning on playing or offering to GM this time as I’m running Last Dance. We’ll see in the new academic year - when we might not have a venue, and if we do it might only be bookable for ninety minute slots.

V5: Blood Stained Love and H5: Alma Maters

Blood Stained Love, a newly announced book on romance for Vampire: The Masquerade Fifth Edition. (Following Requiem with Strange, Dead Love, as it followed Wraith: The Oblivion with Love Beyond Death.) With a big section on Storytelling and considerate play and comfort. Fiddling with genre dials is a nice way of expanding what this version of Vampire can do.

Bonus: Bleed And How To Deal With It.

Also first word for me at least on Hunter: The Reckoning - Alma Maters, about education and research for the hunt, including college and university settings. Which, hey, could work.

The Boogeyman

The Boogeyman, loosely based on the Stephen King short story, is the first conventionally constructed film from Host director Rob Savage, from a script by writers of A Quiet Place and Black Swan. It still plays with negative space in the frame and use of sound, though. Sophie Thatcher gets the Final Girl role she was very obviously going to be offered after Yellowjackets started. And Vivien Lyra Blair as her endangered little sister is great though I had to set aside that she was previously great as Princess Leia in Obi-Wan Kenobi so I can’t quite buy the jeopardy.

KiwiRPG Week 2023

KiwiRPG Week 2023 is go!

Ghostbusters

Also, happy Ghostbusters Day! Expect more for the 40th anniversary next year.

Warhammer stamps

Warrhammer 40th anniversary stamp sets. We live in strange times.

(Also, the stamp packs called Miniature Sets are always called that.)

Edinburgh Fringe 2023 programme

The Edinburgh Festival Fringe programme for 2023 is out, and the database-y online version is up too.

Macbeth 5, Hamlet 2.

(With the straight-up Hamlet group also doing Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead.)

The Fantasy tag has two different D&D-ish improv shows in eight results. And three more in Game Shows.

Oh, and Buffy Revamped is doing an encore run.

World Ocean Day 2023

Happy World Ocean Day to all!

Click to help take out some plastic.

Bloodlines 2 announcement... announcement

New screenshots from Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 to accompany advance word of an announcement of some kind in September. They also confirmed physical preorder refunds, suggesting it will now be download only.

I want to believe...

Darkness Emergent

Darkness Emergent, the first V5 LARP weekend event, in Texas in November, with a decent-sized convention’s worth of non-LARPy stuff attached.

Jousting

Hey, who wants to go and see jousting at the start of July? it’s been a while.

Cymera 2023

I got to say hi to Gar and the Rookery. Did not try the quiz by myself.

Go big AND go Barbie Dream Home

The Barbie movie caused a global pink paint shortage.

RPGaDAY 2023 is coming

The RPGaDAY social media has a new banner for the tenth anniversary.

Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse

I’m glad I knew going in the Across The Spider-Verse was part two of three, with Beyond The Spider-Verse in nine months. And that I was otherwise largely unspoiled, having avoided trailers and clips as I knew I’d go see it ASAP anyway.

Fun, gorgeous, heartfelt, loaded with blink-and-miss-it referenes like a Muppet movie. Roll on March.

Warhammer 40,000 new core rules

Ahead of the new edition big intro box, and the anniversary stamp set(!), the new core rules for Warhammer 40,000. Keywords!

June

Enjoy PRIDEMONTH.