Compromise and Conceit
Infernal adventuring…
Category: Fantasy
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One of the English loan-words that Japanese people misuse slightly in a really cute way is gorgeous (ゴージャス). In Japanese gorgeous refers not to something really nice, but to something that is overdone or just a bit too much – not necessarily unappealing or unattractive, but just a bit too much. I’ve heard the word…
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Today’s media are breathlessly reporting that the WHO is predicting 5,000 – 10,000 new cases of Ebola virus disease per week by the beginning of December. There is no written documentation on this, but I did find this study in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) from the WHO’s rapid response unit which suggested…
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On Sunday I ran a Make You Kingdom (迷宮キングダム）one-shot for my regular group. Make You Kingdom is a cute little Japanese kingdom-building role-playing game set in a world (?) that has fallen into a vast and infinite labyrinth, after a cataclysm. The players play the court of a small kingdom, attempting to expand their kingdom…
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This is a kingdom I created entirely randomly for a one-off of Make You Kingdom, to be played in English this weekend. Kingdom name: The socialist republic of disasters [yes I really rolled this randomly] Map Position: E3 Kingdom level: 2 Lifestyle level: 1 Culture level: 1 Order level: 2 Military level: 1 Total population:…
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Popular perception of Tolkien’s world-building efforts seems to be that they were the product of a determined and methodical visionary. I think this perception arises because his worlds are so detailed and carefully constructed, so complete and internally consistent, that it’s impossible not to imagine that they were constructed systematically out of a guiding vision.…
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I have been reading Tolkien, Race and Cultural History: From Fairies to Hobbits, by Dimitra Fimi, in an attempt to get a broader insight into some of the background of Tolkien’s world-building and the ideas underlying it, and it has been presenting some interesting and I think new ideas about how Tolkien’s world developed, some…
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On Sunday I played a quick(ish) game of Malifaux with two of my regular role-playing crew. This was my first ever game of Malifaux, and I was quite impressed – it’s a smooth and enjoyable small squad battle game, with a cute mechanic and powers that are easy to learn, as well as very pretty…
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Fantasy Flight Games have announced the completion of the Warhamer Fantasy Role-playing Game 3rd Edition (WFRP 3) “line,” i.e. they’ve decided to stop producing any material for it and move on. I suspect this is at least partly because it was not very popular or successful – it’s a somewhat unusual form for a role-playing…
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When we left our heroes they were leaving the dubious safety of the village’s largest house, on a reckless mission to close the hell hole. The villagers watched them fade into the darkness beyond the dim glow from the shuttered windows, and the demons circled cautiously in the darkness, grunting and hissing but temporarily cowed…
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[I’m splitting the session report for Eroding Empire session 2 into two parts, because one was a large battle deserving of its own post] At the end of the first session of the Eroding Empire, our heroes had just killed a brace of demons, but had suddenly realized that in the heat of battle they…
Compromise and Conceit 