Author Archives: devilsjunkshop

by | August 31, 2015 · 1:51 pm

#RPGaDAY2015: Part Four, the adventure continues

Day Eleven: Favourite RPG writer?

Greg Stafford. I’m more interested in backgrounds and world building than focusing on clever systems for play, and the GLORANTHA setting for RUNEQUEST is incredible. Stafford’s KING OF SARTAR book of mythology & lore is outstanding.

And having mentioned King of Sartar, I’ve just discovered there’s a new revised and annotated edition that I do not have :-O

Day Twelve: Favourite RPG illustration?

Tough question, this one. I liked a lot of Larry Elmore stuff from back in the day. Not to mention a whole heap of illustrations from various Palladium RPGs.

White Wolf art was always pretty strong, and there was one in some Vampire book or other of a Cop or Private Detective. Woman in a trench coat carrying a pistol. I thought that was an excellent capture of character and purpose. Can’t find it right this moment of course, but I’ll go with that one.

Day Thirteen: Favourite RPG podcast?

I’ve never listened to a podcast. I wouldn’t even know where to start in terms of finding a good one. Maybe I’ll fix that before #RPGaDAY2016.

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by | · 1:23 pm

#RPGaDAY2015: Part Three, more of this

Day Six: Game most recently played?

That would have been Labyrinth Lord which I played a brief session of at Q-con 2015.

It’s another of those retro-style stripped down basic adventure experiences, attempting to capture the glory of the old school days; dungeons, monsters, fights in the dark!

Great fun.

Day Seven: Favourite free RPG?

At the moment, it’s Stars Without Number. Did I mention that was free?

Also, have to mention Puppetland by John Tynes. A fairytale world of puppets struggles against the harsh rule of the twisted dictator Punch.

Day Eight: Favourite Appearance of RPG in media

I could have gone for the D&D playing in ET. Or the AD&D episodes of COMMUNITY.

And then of course there’s MAZES & MONSTERS. So bad it’s funny.

I’ve decided to go with a religious tract though. DARK DUNGEONS by Jack T Chick publications. An exquisitely wrong-headed rant about the dangers of RPGs and how it turns all the players into actual wizards/witches/tools of Satan.

Now a motion picture:Dark Dungeons

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by | · 12:32 pm

#RPGaDAY2015: Part Two, some answers

Day One: Which forthcoming RPG most looking forward to?

I’d have to say Apocalypse World Second Edition.

I loved Apocalypse World by D Vincent Baker; the design work, the bare hints at setting, the general vibe, the way it brought characters together and put them in conflict with a free-form fallen-world of desperate survivors scrabbling through the ruins.

I’m expecting great things from iteration 2.0

Day Two: Kickstarter game most pleased you backed?

I’ve not backed any. Not being totally connected to the whole gaming/blogging ‘community’ I tend to learn about these things three weeks after the kickstarter has closed. I really need to start paying more attention…

Day Three: Favourite new game of last 12 months?

In terms of ‘new to me’ games, I was planning to go with Hero Kids; clean design, clear and simple rules, excellent art and the children (ages 8 to 13) seem to enjoy it when we manage to find time to play amidst the computers and tablets and DVD-watching.

Last week though I finally encountered Stars Without Number, and despite the fact I’m just at the ‘reading the book’ stage, I’m already well on the way to being a big fan. It’s science fiction, in the far future, in a universe that’s slightly worn out and weary, but also built upon the ruins of a better past. Aside from that it’s basically D&D in space, and you can even use old monsters and scenarios with a little tweaking; dungeons become narrow-twisty corridor spacecraft, monsters are alien races, etc.

I have big plans.

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by | · 11:47 am

#RPGaDAY2015: At last I post something…

Okay, so over at the blog called Autocratik there’s this RPGaDAY thing where folks are meant to blog, tweet, facebook, vlog, or whatever, every day for the month of August, on the subject of tabletop roleplaying games and with daily topics taken from the image below.

I had intended to do that very thing, and do it properly, but unfortunately various things conspired against me. So I’m instead going to offer a quick run through of all/most of the #RPGaDAY2015 subjects on this, the final day.

rpgaday2015 topics

What people talk about when they talk about RPGaDAY2015

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by | August 27, 2015 · 12:29 pm

randoms vii: flash character intro thing

Over at Chuck Wendig’s blog this week, there’s a flash fiction challenge to
create a character in 250 words or less, and then let someone else run loose with it the following week.

Here’s mine:

Never try to hang a magician.
That should be a law or something. Save everyone a lot of time and
inconvenience for a start. Remove a share of panic, and struggle, and pain.
These are the thoughts that tumble through Isbel’s broken head as the noose tightens around her throat, as the rough rope bites. Breath slowing to a choking burning halt, heart beating hammers as the world darkens all around the edges of her vision.
Her trembling feet kick and jerk.
The mutts around her smirk and snort. Their mocking laughter spills
across her eyes as stripes of red and blackened light.
Planning on doing something, best make it soon, she says.
Don’t make me tell you twice, she says.
I aint kidding here.
Do it, she says.
Do it now.
A flare of brilliant white. Narrow like a blade and slicing deep
across the rope high up behind her head… and then she falls.
The laughter stops as she drops heavy and hits hard and rolls and
stands in one fluid movement. A broken black winged bird, rising up to fly again, she is, with hands still tied behind her back, noose still strung around her bruised neck, eyes cold blazing blue.
These would be killers stare at her with mouths gone slack and stupid.
She locks eyes with each of them in slow and steady turn and wishes
them all dead. It doesn’t do anything, but it sure makes Isbel Blake
feel better.

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by | July 1, 2015 · 9:45 am

randoms vi : caddy’s call

This one time. No, no, you aint heard this one before. I’m waiting up at Loop, you know where the big eastern rail sweeps round in a circle and there’s a whole town all crammed and jumbled up in the middle?

You aint been there yet? Sight to see, boys, sight to see. They haul all kinds of stuff out of the deadgrounds and malts. Weld it up, nail it together or rope it down to make a house or a hotel or a what-have-you.

Anyways, I got a crew out buying and selling. We’re packing up the long train for the run that afternoon. Had some troubles coming in, I can tell you. Threshers, wrigglers, sulks and that. Aint important what, though, point is I’m sitting out on a sun lounger with a third of a warm beer left, enjoying the high bright heat of the day, half looking to pick up some new blood if I can. Replacements, you know?

Figure slides up out of the salt-flat haze.

“Hear you’re hiring,” says this voice. Light enough but it’s got that deep down burr of the dust. This one aint a stranger to salt and desert, that’s a true bill.

“Mayhap,” I says. “If you got a skill worth paying for that is.”

I stand up then. Move a little so I can get a better look at her, out of the direct blaze of the sun above.

First off, it dint look good. I could lie and spin it so I knew right ways what I had here but, shit, Caddy’s call is a straight shout and if I aint got that then what am I, yeah?

So here’s the truth.

Stood real tall, so there’s that, bit skinny to my mind, delicate, know what I mean?

Dressed up fine. Brightland chic. Heavy boots and grubby jeans, one them high collared jackets with way too many buttons, long duster coat down to the ankles. Unruly black hair trapped and tied back out of the way. Pair of goggles and a wide brimmed hat in one hand, pistol at her belt.

Really, dint look like much. Looked like a costume more than anything, like a kid at play. Young enough to be my own daughter, hells sake.

Still. Brightland grows you fast, don’t it?

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by | June 25, 2015 · 2:19 pm

things of the past iii

Third in an erratic series of references to things I have written in the past:

“Under the Green Witch” from the Fox Spirit Books Girl at the End of the World anthology, volume 2.

girl at the end of the world volume 2

This is the second of two epic volumes containing tales of all manner of apocalypse and the varied stories of the women and girls who have to deal with what’s left.

Full details and links here: Girl at the End of the World

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by | June 8, 2015 · 2:37 pm

things of the past ii

Second in a sporadic series of references to things I have written in the past:

“Phased” from the Fox Spirit Books GUARDIANS anthology.

This little book contains a number of excellent short works in various genres, and is a part of the Fox Pockets line of compact and bijou short fiction collections.

guardianscover

“Phased” is a story about love. Sort of. Ish.

Available for cheap at Amazon: Guardians (Kindle Version)

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by | May 14, 2015 · 12:23 pm

randoms v

First thing Malley thinks when she hears the sound of a child, crying:
Is this a trap?
Has to wonder, given the state-of-the-world and the way-of-things because, no question, there are some out there who’ll trick and trip and snag the unwary anyway they can. That’s just being a sensible rat, isn’t it? That’s just being safe.
Quiet, and slow, Malley shuffles forth on soft paws, shoves her gleaming sword back over her shoulders (where it hangs loose and close to hand on a twist of waxed twine). Narrows her eye and takes a peek.
She’s only got the one eye, these days, on account of not being careful some years before, but that’s a different tale.
Malley looks out from a hiding place under a damp jumble of discarded planks and plastic sheeting.
In the shadow of the grey stone arches of the eastern bridge, a stretch of churned earth riverbank, smeared with muddy snow and frozen solid in the chill of a winter not ready to leave the stage.
The river surface, at the water’s edge, still showing white and solid; the ice so cold and firm you could walk on it, if you fancied, if you didn’t mind the dark depths beneath.
Malley hears that sound, like a baby, mewling in frustration and fear.
A sudden movement-
Just ahead, something grey and murky shifts and squirms, a few steps out upon the ice.
A bag of some kind, Malley reckons, and within the bag a shivering shape is moving, crawling, struggling. Malley hears it crying out again, trying to get free. Not a baby after all then, but something else in need of help.
Something dangerous.
Help the helpless, her old mam used to say, didn’t she?
Even if-
Yes, her mam would be telling Malley now, ‘cos you don’t know if one day you will be the helpless one. Right?
Malley looks at the quivering bag on the icy river.
She looks back towards the tumble of planks and plastic that covers an entrance to her current home; safe, warm and secure.
Malley rubs the patch that covers her lost left eye.
“Right you are, mam,” she says, and she goes to find some string.
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by | April 2, 2015 · 12:53 pm

randoms iv

“How did we build the Crow Boy?” Mourne said.
Elgar considers this for a moment.
“That’s a very good question-”
“Rhetorical,” Mourne told her.
Elgar nodded like she understood. There’d been a lot of that.
“Adding a shade of drama to the affair, see?” Mourne continued. “A touch of the old theatric, you follow?”
Elgar—just an apprentice—not really following at all, but she kept it quiet. Eyes open, beak shut. Just here to learn. That’s the way.
“This is just rehearsal,” Mourne went on. “They like a bit of palaver, up at the Parliament.”
He nodded his dark head and cast a glance around the crowded, cluttered jumble of his—being polite—laboratory. Mourne tutted and sighed to himself for a heartbeat or two.
“How did we build the Crow Boy,” he said.
Tap of his talons on the grey stone floor, Mourne answered his own question: “We crafted with blood.”
Collected from a human child, Elgar knew, gathered up with a square of silk on a summer’s day. Raised voices, running feet, a harsh and desperate wailing; quite did her ears in, that did.
Another tap on hard stone. “We worked with breath,” Mourne said.
Stolen from a different, sleeping child, Elgar remembered, and captured cold in a bright crystal globe.
One last tap. “We built with bone.”
Mourne’s tone serious, solemn, and the words faded slow into dead air.
“Well,” Elgar said. “It weren’t quite so straight as that…”

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