Anne Rice's Immortal Universe RPG

Anne Rice’s Immortal Universe coming to Backerkit this autumn starting with Interview With The Vampire.

From Renegade, so... a move away from them working on World Of Darkness?

Create your own stories of vampires, witches, psychics, and ordinary humans whose lives become forever entwined through love, loyalty, ambition, and loss. Together, you'll build chronicles that span decades, or centuries, exploring the emotional consequences and impossible choices of immortality.

The focus on drama and time sounds interesting.

(Update: I know someone working on it at the say-hello-online level.)

The Prince Of The City

Big fan of the “subvert expectations” Princes. The Gangrel terror who sees the domain as a personal hunting ground and the Kindred as their wayward pride. The Malkavian who hears every whispered secret and is pulled apart by its needs. The Solomonic Brujah classicist willing to sunder the infant. Tremere collecting occult gewgaws to destroy them in a manic scheme to buttress power. Oily Toreador sleaze in the model of Wincott’s Top Dollar. Lasombra who keeps a Domesday Book of every bit of prestation proffered or owed in the domain.

Justin Achilli

BLADE

How hard is it to make Blade? Come on!

Tacit acknowledgment that they just can’t find the current equivalent of that New Order Pump Panel remix.

Justin Achilli

I'd be curious to know what people remember from Blade that isn't Blade in black leather killing vampires

Kyle Marquis

Avengers Doomsday trailer

Behold. Doom is full clunky.

Little bit o' politics

“What’s today, my fine fellow?”

“Today? Why, today is New Prime Minister Who Didn’t Win A General Election Day!”

“... Again?”

Maybe it’s just me but the seventh Prime Minister in ten years announcing a glorious ten year plan seems... optimistic.

(I would probably be less snarky if I wasn’t pissed off by three of the four things he’s already announced.)

Football

Congratulations to the winner of Football, and that means no Football until the Winter Football in two years’ time, right?

Mage: Sunset City update

Stopped an ancient primordial nightmare putting humanity into an eternal troubled sleep.

Saving the world is always a nice feeling.

AP by T, playing Didi the Hollow One

Next, a miniseries of some kind.

Oh, and, I just realised I have an action figure head that would make a pretty good Cara. Hm.

Now looking for a body.

A deluxe Buffy, long OOP. The new Jessica Jones would work if not for the most ripped jeans knees ever. Might be too tall though. A plain clothes Yelena would be a better fit but they’d have to make one. X-23 but bare armed...

This hobby was easier back in the day.

Would need a gladius or similar shortsword too, obviously.

Jennifer Finch

Jennifer Finch, bassist of L7, has died at just 59.

Tone can be very important

The X Files theme in a major key

I am experiencing an indescribable emotion

Death Wishbone

The heartwarming story of a 1950s London family making a new start in Australia, from the perspective of the teenage daughter who falls for a roguish but good-hearted local lad.

Me

(To be fair most aren’t as dramatic. The Raiders March in a minor key just sounds like Indy’s in trouble.)

Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter

Hammer just put Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter on YouTube in 4K free with ads!

And this is why I keep running Buffy

I have a terrible idea for a Sounds Like Hell episode. It must happen. If the player involved approves.

Ladytron, In Blood

Ladytron, In Blood, going for my Vampire playlist again.

The Peasants' Revolt

Wat Tyler and the Peasants’ Revolt getting a film, The Uprising, written and directed by Paul Greengrass. Looks dingy but otherwise interesting.

What I've Done

After this Oppenheimer edit, which Linkin Park song best fits the end of The Odyssey? In The End seems obvious but Leave Out All The Rest maybe?

Seven-Part Pact

Seven-Part Pact is now Kickstarting.

Up to seven play mighty wizards and each is also in charge of part of running the game in what is described as a GM-full game. And each gets a character-specific board game as part of play.

From Jay Dragon (Yazeba’s Bed & Breakfast, Wanderhome).

Kieron Gillen and friends tried it and APed the results.

It’s about power, and hubris, and patriarchy/

As Gillen notes, big commitment RPGs are usually about time, long campaigns and the like, but his is intended for shortish games, with a one-shot design on the way, but about committing in that time, everybody prepping. He notes that his playtest group all GM games regularly.

I’d be curious to see if this encourages more formalised GM duty sharing games.

Mayday trailer

Mayday, a Cold War action comedy from the writers and directors of Game Night and Dungeons & Dragons: Honour Among Thieves, starring Ryan Reynolds and Kenneth Branagh.

Buffy's best Monsters of the Weeks

You can probably guess 1 and 2 of these 15 at Reactor but plenty of interesting notes on why the listed MOTWs work.

Telefantasy Time Jump: A Ghost Story For Christmas

Telefantasy Time Jump gets to 1971, and a few months ahead too, with A Ghost Story For Christmas, noting some of the style that stands out in the series, a thought on breaking perspective and more.

Caledonia By Night: Merchant City's Secret

A Vampire: The Masquerade V5 MET LARP group is starting in Glasgow. Interesting timing considering V5 might not be going much longer. Although the MET book only arrived in 2024, so a new official LARP could be a while coming. We’ll see.

Sam Neill

Sam Neill on dealing with rejection, depression and imposter syndrome.

Small celebrity encounter

I saw Alex Ward on the way to the gig. He was crossing the road going the other way so I did not intrude.

Garbage at Edinburgh Castle

Garbage were amazing. I feel ten years younger. Except in my feet.

Kids today.

Netflix admit that TV channels are a good idea.

Making a literal cat in the Buffy RPG

Making a literal cat in Buffy The Vampire Slayer

Starting after four minutes of preamble.

"Yeah ours won't talk" as they noted when I mentioned having tried with Mittens.

They are new to the system, and one new to the show.

Bonnie Tyler

Total Eclipse Of The Heart, her most famous song, started as a test for a musical of Nosferatu.

The sacred texts

Just used the Wayback Machine to share some LARP advice from 25 years ago. Normal behaviour.

Which reminded me of this page, from a mere fourteen years back. Do’s and dont’s, convention one-shots and series, and the like.

Today's argument for physical media

ITV has put the Jeremy Brett Sherlock Holmes series on YouTube free with ads. They’re a delight, as I’m sure most of you know.

But the ads do not sync up with the ad breaks.

It’s enough to make me go and get my DVD box set even though that would involve going all the way to the hall and using a second remote control. Can you imagine?

The Furious

The Furious delivers on its promises.

Very much a Furie, which is a localised Taken with a down-on-their-luck single parent.

Issue with the opening which sets up a badass who then disappears, but outweighed by outbursts of badassery from various characters, as well as lots of moments like (low end spoiler here) the bit where one of the mooks goes to kick Wang Wei and he tangles him mid-kick with his foot and makes him hop backwards forcing other mooks out of his way through bad guy keepy-uppy.

Player character exchange programme

Currently playing two Vampire: The Masquerade games and each of my PCs would probably be happier in the other one.

Paris the Toreador events promoter and true believer Anarch with one point of Occult skill would much rather be fighting a Camarilla cult with a decent chance of winning, and Sorensen the Tremere occult investigator would be quite well suited to hunting memories implanted by blood magic as an Anarch domain collapses in the background.

Okay, this week Sorensen had to crawl through a tunnel under a cemetery and defend the coterie against flying bone shards, but Paris has had worse there too.

GEAS 2026-7

Ten weeks to GEAS being back, depending what we do for Welcome Week. No need to make plans yet. So of course I am.

Vampire? Gotta show up. Though by then we’ll know more about the next... iteration, if not edition? And might even have someone else running it, so could even do something less 101.

Buffy? Somebody has to. (glares at that Hulu guy)

Doctor Who? Somebody has to. (stares at BBC)

Star Wars? Supers? Etc.?

The Pod Universe: War Of The Worlds

The Pod Universe reaches its phase one finale (part one, part two) with a big summer blockbuster cast reading audio drama.

Had Tex-Mex to mark the occasion. Got my hair cut, not to mark the occasion.

The United States Of America

July 4th 2026, 250th anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence, laying out promises and hopes for what a new nation could be.

The US has been so culturally dominant in my lifetime, and so welcoming when I’ve visited and lived there, that it feels normal to think of it as a place to go, and as a setting for modern games. And I’m sure it will be again.

The nation of Apollo 11, Hollywood and New York, superheroes and Westerns, the Blues and rock and roll and rap, Emily Dickinson and Edgar Allan Poe and Stephen King, and RPGs.

I hope to return there one day.

Titivillus Ex Machina

If Autocorrect was a man I would be in maximum security for what I’d done to him and all the other murderers would look at me with wary respect.

Greg Stolze

All the best

Haven’t done a wedding or other huge fancy party episode in a while. Hope it goes well!

SCHISM!

SCHISM!

Was not expecting one of those today.

Let alone one where the people being booted out are the bad guys.

Edinburgh International Film Festival 2026

The Film Festival brochure is up, Ewan McGregor and a Trainspotting reunion, some possibly interesting midnight movies, but most tempted by the Connery-induced juxtaposition of a retrospective screening of The Rock at Filmhouse.

No Chillo

Hey dol! merry dol! ring a dong dillo!

Ring a dong! hop along! fal lal the willow!

Tom Bom, jolly Tom, Tom Bombadillo!

Bombadilly dooly dillow

Bom de dillow hillow willow

Willow be dong dillow fillow

Tom be jugglin' an armadillo

Goldberry prefers a firm pillow

It's just her little pecadillo

Dong ding dong dillo dillo

Off we dance to Amarillo

Pillow dillo dee dong dillo

La dee dee dee willow pillow

Bong biddly bong bee hillo villo

Dongy ding dong dillo

By Bully The Little Stuffed Bull, after J.R.R. Tolkien

#RPGaDAY2026

#RPGaDAY2026 prompts are out, as as shared at Autocratik and FAQed at Runeslinger

Single words on the infographic but also an option for questions - I will likely do both.

And while some of the words suggest the glorious workers’ struggle, as the first word is Discipline and there are a few more like that I might well give the single word prompts to Vampire.

July

Happy Canada Day for one thing!