Marvel to publish Warhammer comics

Marvel to publish Warhammer comics.

Marvel don’t do a lot of licences apart from Star Wars lately, but it’s not unheard of. Still a big deal for GW, who have previously produced their own and more recently licenced with Titan.

Wynonna Earp season three

I feel like three different mind control episodes in the first nine - and possession in episode ten - is a bit much. (The first being the best - vampires being incredibly casual with emotion control.)

I did appreciate the touch in episode three of changing the credits theme to a different version for its specific mood.

Buffy: Loud As Hell

Always a good sign when a player’s happy to have their character be a member of a sinister local family.

The War Of The Worlds trailer

Coming soon to BBC One.

+1 bonus to warmth

With a wheezing sort of whisper, the central heating has come on.

Behind the scenes

Doors Open Days always make me want to run games in the back rooms of places. Set there or actually located there, or both.

Haunted West

A horror-tinged Western game from Darker Hue Studios, Kickstarting now.

LARPing at Galaxy’s Edge

A couple test the limits of the rules against adults in costume at Disney parks and make some friends in character at Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge.

Triple Force Friday reveals

Yes I’m watching the live preview of toys coming out before Star Wars Episode IX!

Yes there are so many!

Yes Kelly Marie Tran and Naomi Ackie are geeking out over a popup book! (It is a very cool popup book!)

Yes there are mysterious characters!

Yes Joonas Suotamo is lovely!

Yes The Mandalorian has a repainted junker AT-ST!

Ghost Rider

Looks like the Ghost Rider TV series is not happening. A spinoff of the version brought to live-action by Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. was to be part of the Hulu lineup rather than Disney+.

Packing in your plots

New Amsterdam is a hospital TV series (not to be confused with the 2008 series about an immortal detective) and while pilots are often rushed, this pilot is really packed. The only public hospital in New York has its own school, a prison ward for Rikers, and it’s the closest to the United Nations. And the new boss upends the system, is trying to get back with his six-month-pregnant wife and has cancer. And there’s an ebola scare among the cases of the week.

S P A C E D

Tonight is the 20th anniversary of S P A C E D. Jinkies.

Jim Henson, born today in 1936

“Watch out for each other. Love everyone and forgive everyone, including yourself. Forgive your anger. Forgive your guilt. Your shame. Your sadness. Embrace and open up your love, your joy, your truth, and most especially your heart.”
Jim Henson

Hurricane Dorian charity bundle

A charity bundle for hurricane relief at DriveThruRPG. It includes a lot of supers, including the core rules for Icons, Brave New World, and indeed Supers.

Aron Eisenberg

Tributes to Aron Eisenberg, best known as Nog in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, one of the characters most developed through the series.

Halloween 1981...

The first US TV showing of Halloween was quite a time. The extra footage added at the network’s request, which John Carpenter added tying it into Halloween II... and the charmingly inappropriate adverts.

I first saw it on UK TV when I was closer to adulthood, starting well after 9pm. (And on the BBC, so no ads.)

September 23rd

Happy birthday to my brother and happy start of a new season, autumn for me and spring for him!

Running Buffy

Running a Buffy game for people who know Buffy, which is nice. Going to get some use out of the Sounds Like Hell playlist!

Friends at 25

Google celebrates the 25th anniversary of Friends. Okay, remember it ran for ten years before feeling too old.

Erm

Three and a bit hours to go, still have two game ideas. That’s okay, right? I mean it’s down by one on yesterday...

The Great Wall

The Great Wall (2017) is, if nothing else, efficient. It gets Matt Damon and Pedro Pascal to the Wall and witnessing the alien siege in the first fifteen minutes, and piles on the “buh?” throughout.

Happy birthday, Stephen King!

A new film of In The Tall Grass premiering, a new miniseries of The Stand on the way and the 1994 version on Blu-Ray...

Batman Day

Batman Day moves to Saturday, so more can appreciate the holy writ.

You can't take the sky from me

Firefly premiered 17 years ago tonight.

Also, the RPG licence is about to end, along with other Cortex games such as Leverage, get the PDFs while you can!

Deviant: The Renegades

Deviant: The Renegades, the new Chronicles Of Darkness game is live on Kickstarter!

You woke up… different. Someone changed you: on a slab, an operating table, an altar. By luck or by fate, you escaped. Hunted by your creators, they hold all the cards, and it seems they might recapture you. Except, what they don’t understand is they’ve stoked the fires of vengeance; what they did wasn’t right. What they don’t know is that now — you’re hunting them.

International Talk Like A Pirate Day

It be September 19th!

You might think a pirate’s favourite letter is R, but their first love is the C!

The Cameo Quiz goes west

Scanned to let my absent teammates see. I should really scan the Fairytales quiz from last month as it’s more relevant...

Middle-Earth to look like Middle-Earth

The Lord Of The Rings series is to film in New Zealand. There and back again.

Battlestar Galacticagain?

All of this has happened before, all of this will happen again. Announced on the 41st anniversary of the original series, a new version of Battlestar Galactica could be on the way to the NBC streaming service, from Sam Esmail, the creator of Mr. Robot.

It seems soon, as the previous reboot started in 2004 but ended in 2009 and had spinoffs running as recently as 2012.

And it followed various attempts to restart the setting in the interim.

So what to do with it? A continuation, or...?

Going dark and gritty has kind of been done.

Would a return to big family-friendly space opera work? Unlikely as the modern fandom is likely bigger, Sam Esmail is mostly known for an SF-adjacent character study, and it’s specifically for streaming, which suggests “we can’t show this on the network” might be part of the remit.

Update: Mr. Esmail has stated on Twitter that it’s a new story within the mythology. Presumably the (old) new mythology, based on the rest of the tweet.

You meet in a tavern...

Having now had a GEAS social in a tavern... no way would you be able to hear the old man offering you a quest if it were half that busy.

“You want us to bite a flagon?”

Worldcon Glasgow 2024

A bid to bring Worldcon back to Glasgow in five years has launched.

All Hallows Read

Share a scare in books for Halloween. Neil Gaiman explains on the site.

Jurassic World: Battle At Big Rock

A new short film from the makers of Jurassic World. It feels very much like a pre-credits for a JW film, hits some familiar suspense beats... and shows that the world is getting to be kind of a mess. I’m not a fan of the World films, but I do like this particular bit of escalation.

The Great Work, T minus 7

Sunday games start next week. Still narrowing down.

Need names for Watchers?

Look at the credits for antique hunting TV series.

V20 plus 8

It’s the eighth anniversary of the V20 launch at the Grand Masquerade in New Orleans.

This was in the lobby at my hotel. Kind of set the tone.

And having known them for years, I met Ian Watson. Rose Bailey, Conrad Hubbard, and more, and due to a delayed flight got to hang out with Tim Bradstreet...

The BBC Proms 2019

Tonight is the Last Night Of The Proms, a series of classical concerts at the Royal Albert Hall, this year celebrating the centenary of founder Sir Henry Wood.

I always hope the end of Pomp And Circumstance will segue into the Star Wars theme....

I naturally tuned in for The Sound Of Space: Sci-Fi Film Music concert (with composer Jed Kurzel joining in on his theme for Alien Covenant) among others.

I immediately want to use new composition Horror Vacui by Jonny Greenwood, premiered at the last Late Prom on Friday the 13th, to soundtrack something creepy.

And base an NPC on mezzo-soprano Jamie Barton...

My Vampire NPC requirements

A Prince or equivalent.

And someone for them to not get along with.

And also a Nosferatu.

Nosferatu representatives set a lot of the tone with the specifics of how they look and how they’re creepy. And also how they provide information because I tend to run investigative Vampire and the information source NPC will be a major figure. They aren’t all the standout NPCs but they sure are some. Jonas in Unwanted and the Mara in From The Dust were both great fun to play. As I consider another Vampire game, my first thought after the basics of a setting is what my next Nosferatu would be like...

Not my most ad hoc game ever...

So, there were more than 70 players at the GEAS taster. So pulling out emergency Buffy. Not even using canon characters as the players were not familiar. So... they seemed to have fun.

Jinkies

Apparently today is Friday the 13th and a full moon (first time since October 2000) and the fiftieth anniversary of Scooby-Doo.

Consent In Gaming

A free guide from Monte Cook Games.

The worksheet and advice such as movie rating suggestions could be very helpful.

Scarred Lands Creature Collection

Now on Kickstarter, monsters for D&D Fifth Edition for the Scarred Lands setting.

His Dark Materials

His Dark Materials starts on BBC One on November 3rd, and HBO on the 4th.

The Watch cast

Sir Terry Pratchett’s The Watch cast announced. Richard Dormer is a reasonably grizzled Vimes.

Thinking of my American friends today.

Carnival Row

An official Carnival Row RPG, using the Cypher System, released free. It apparently needs a Cypher rulebook, but could work as a sourcebook.

Hawkeye

Hailee Steinfeld as Kate Bishop? Yes.

Best TV shows of all time

Another year, another Empire TV poll.

Leverage: The Korean TV spinoff job

A new Korean version of Leverage. As linked by original series EP Chris Downey.

Having seen the opening two-parter (which covers the same basic ground as the original pilot in twice the time) the riffs are pretty varied. It looks to be setting up a super-conspiracy Big Bad. The Thief being a slinky cat burglar and the Hacker being geeky are archetypes and their angry ex partner dynamic is different (although the Thief goes for the taser as well) and the Hitter is more different still, but the Mastermind being an art insurance investigator drawn in to do one job because of an experimental treatment for his son’s terminal disease and the Grifter being a terrible actress he chased before are rather more specific to the source...

Star Trek at 53

Happy Star Trek Day!

Today is the anniversary of the U.S. premiere in 1966. It’s been quite a year. Boldly go.

With Discovery continuing, and Picard and Lower Decks on their way and a Georgiou spinoff and a second animated series planned, the setting has an ever more diverse array of series coming, so this would be a great time to look at non-standard Trek setups as well as the classic ship and crew series.

What would my new Star Trek be?

Maybe... a small science ship, mostly civilian, looking at a specific phenomenon? Change the character types in the format, have someone from Starfleet but not many, and include room for some one-offs in with the arc.

Mad Charitea Party

Josephine McAdam (Eva in L.A. By Night) is hosting a Twitch event today/tonight (noon to midnight Pacific time) for a Multiple Myeloma charity, including... Fresno By Night. Jason Carl promises “Vampire: The Masquerade may never be the same.”

Storytellers Vault: Year Of The Road

The first World Of Darkness group prompt at the Vault is Year Of The Road. I have no strong ideas off hand, but if a fiction anthology happens...

V5 Sabbat suggestions

Ideas for Sabbat games in Vampire: The Masquerade fifth edition from, among others, Jason Carl.

Ad Astra

Ad Astra looks stranger (and more Aeon-ish in the early moon base setting) than I had thought based on the first trailer. It mentioned a mission a generation ago and established a space elevator. Now I see... pirates on the Moon.

Tomb Raider 2 again

Ben Wheatley is signed up to direct a second Tomb Raider film with Alicia Vikander. Which is a pleasant surprise, as the first was pretty fun.

Trinity covers

A look at the Trinity Continuum cover design scheme at Onyx Path.

Raiders Of The Lost Past

Tomorrow, Dr. Janina Ramirez with a series about the shaky history of archaeology.

Avengers: Endgame

Yes I went and bought discs. (HMV had balloons!)

Buffy rewatch partners

Back to my annual Buffy rewatch, this time accompanying Alyx Dellamonica at Tor, the biggest fan of Ted I’ve ever seen.

From The Dust finale

Thanks to all of the players for tonight’s final episode of Vampire: The Masquerade - From The Dust.

I should get these summaries posted...

In the meantime, playing over the final montage: Zola Jesus, Remains.

Or rhe acoustic version of Get Out by CHVRCHES.