Shadow of the Wolf

This week we lost Jane Yolen and David Hockney. Jane Yolen was a brilliant fantasist with a delightful sense of humor, who was a powerful influence on my reading decisions in the 90’s and will be gravely missed. David Hockney was a prolific painter who helped me deal with traumas inflicted on me by some of my Art Professors who felt I was not drawing naturalistically enough , like the old…

Kabuki Kaiser ‘s latest procedural solo generator and Plastiboo’s guide to a non-existant video game have similar flavors. The Temple of Jubilex (shown here as my custom Lulu print; it isn’t available in physical form just yet) can be acquired digitally here, and Plastiboo’s artbooks disguised as gamebooks can be acquired here. In 2015 I wrote about my experiences with Kabuki Kaiser’s other…

A longtime friend of mine had a few of us over at his place to play a bespoke boardgame called Terminal Hotel, privately published by Jonathan Kline, and I brought along a vintage copy of Pagan Press’s Creatures and Cultists. Now this was an E bay pickup, and not the packet I bought in a zip lock bag from the Compleat Stategist back in the early nineties, and the art is by the same artist who…

I recently acquired  Beneath the Ruined Wizard’s Tower by Fen Orc (get it here ) This sequel to the Holmes Sample Dungeon, the Tower of Zenopus,  is well written, builds on the source material without overstepping, and happens to include some of my artwork. Aa it happened, it was accidentally attributed to another stock artist used by Fen Orc, and when I discovered it, they responded…

Back in the wilds of the last century, a Neopagan named Isaac Bonewits successfully became the only person to get a BA in Magic from UC Berkley. Among other publications, he wrote Authentic Thaumatology, and outlined in it a system by which magic could be more realistically used in games. Unlike Jack Vance, He did not espouse a “Fire and Forget” style of spellcasting; rather he thought it to be…

Another Quarter day has come, Blessed Samhain to all. I have been dealing with some rough news at the house. I am not going to go into that here, but only into some trivialities in my game. I had one group of characters, some just back from the otherlands, and prior dealing with the purists, who had decided to become bill collectors. Some of the group did not want that kind of work, so I had…

My Group of juniors who are now back from their encounter with Praxillaus and (once his Wyrm was defeated) Persephone, had received some divine gifts. Gordab the half ogre was granted wisdom, Anita strength of will and body (that she had traded her voice at the goblin market for better ammunition leaves her with shyness and disturbing voice (whisper) could not be undone). Rosewood the emo Pixie…

a secret organization of villains… I mean An open grouping of well known oligarchs are taking over… Your mission is to overthrow… I mean survive. The three branches of government agree not so stop hunger, or war, or genocide, or the senseless slaughter of schoolchildren, but to ban a piece of social media, while the remaining outlets suddenly become welcoming to the kind of people who the…

First off is Todd Leback/ Third kingdom games Hex a Day Calender, which would probably net me some commissions- but never mind me, there will be a ton of art from others. back it here: Kickstarter Of course the other one with scant hours to go, and fully funded, is Douglas Cole’s Gaming Ballistic Kickstarter for the GURPS solo adventure Warlock Knight. if you like DFRPG pledge here

now available post kickstarter on Drivethrurpg I have a lot of art in this one, which is full of variations on bog standard monsters much like Skerples’ The Monster Overhaul (here) I work for Todd Leback of Third Kingdom Games, so I am prejudiced in his favor, but I really like this one- here is some of my featured art: note that the smoke elemental escaping the Hookah is not in fact an…

Alan Bahr of Gallant Knight Games has released a rules light wargame inspired rpg called Riches & Ruins that I am the sole illustrator of. you can get them here on drivethrurpg as an aside, for a couple days more all of my other stock art is on sale as well, here

Seven years ago I suffered a minor knee injury that never quite got better despite surgery and a bery of injections. Yesterday I got the mechanical upgrade., which hopefully leads to a better quality of life, but for right now, I am appreciating how uncomplicated my life was before. I was wearing a brace and walking with a cane for the past several months and for the next week or so , I will be…

Last week, after a protracted illness, we lost an icon of the RPG industry, Jennell Jaquays. Up until a few days before she got sick, she was regularly posting pictures of miniatures she had painted. She actually had tackled her pile of unfinished minis in a systematic way that gave me hope for dealing with mine. Hope is something she represented to me on multiple levels. She was an…

I spent the day listening to Ben Laurence’s Into the Megadungeon podcast, and catching up on some of the associated blogs, many of which I had lost contact with since the implosion of G+. I also have been reading Stu Horvath’s illustrated history of gaming, Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground. It isn’t as detailed as Playing at the World, but it sequentially tags out just about every…

it has ben some months and a mild bout of Covid since my last set of updates, but thi gs have slowed down due to the work related loss of the player who ran Ulo the trollmaid, Jednesa the wrestling ogress, Jareth Mooncalled the cultist of the Elder Gods, Dilandua the shadow elf assassin, Stenet Fjall the dwarven Holy Warrior, and Benny Morales the dungeon saint of Hermes. All are currently being…

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