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Christopher Eccleston and Rose Tyler are joined by BAFTA winner Doon Mackichan in a classic ghost spaceship mystery

 

The latest in the Big Finish series of Ninth Doctor Adventures is out now! In Doctor Who: Dark Tides, the Doctor (Christopher Eccleston) takes Rose Tyler (Billie Piper) into deep space, where they find the long-lost mapping ship the Vesterbold. Its crew are all gone, except for one…

The time travellers also encounter the Knights of Atlas, a spacefaring gang of warriors who have their own sights set on the Vesterbold. Ben Arogundade plays the knights’ leader Sir Cal, Sam Stafford is his squire Mervyn. Meanwhile, David Shaw-Parker voices the wise man Holbrook.

Meanwhile, BAFTA winning Doon Mackichan voices Dr Vivian Rest, the Vesterbold’s mysterious sold survivor. The star of shows such as Smack the Pony, Good Omens, and Toast of London makes her Big Finish debut in Dark Tides. However, she’s already entered the Whoniverse with roles in The Sarah Jane Adventures: The Nightmare Man and as the older, 21st century, Madame Vastra in the BBC’s Doctor Who: Redacted audio drama.

The story is also a reunion with Christopher Eccleston, whom she starred alongside in the 1999 film With or Without You.

 

“Charismatic, amusing, and completely merciless”

Mackichan said: “It was fantastic working with Chris, and I love working in the audio medium. This story’s definitely got a claustrophobic feel, where everyone’s trapped and can’t get off, and the dark forces are at play.”

Christopher Eccleston said: “I like the idea here, with old-fashioned knights on a Holy Grail-like quest. And then we have Doon Mackichan, who I first worked with in 1998, in a fantastic part – very charismatic, amusing and oddly endearing, even though she’s completely merciless. There’s a bit of flirting too, which my Doctor is always very keen to do!”

Billie Piper added: “This feels like very familiar Doctor Who 2005 territory to me. It reminded me of episodes like The Girl in the Fireplace, with the clockwork men. I absolutely love the character of Vivian – it’s really fun to have a sassy female character, she reminds me of Cassandra from The End of the World.”

 

Doctor Who: Dark Tides. Cover by Soundsmyth Creative (c) Big Finish Doctor Who: Dark Tides

A long-lost ship, the Vesterbold, has returned to normal space. And the Knights of Atlas seek her treasure. But two strangers have joined their expedition – the Doctor and Rose, who warn of danger.

For the Vesterbold has drifted free of the Dark Tides at the edge of the universe. And she may have brought something back with her.

Not even the bravest knights are ready for the evil which lies inside…

Doctor Who – The Ninth Doctor Adventures: Dark Tides is now available to purchase for just £9.99 (download to own) or £11.99 (download to own + collector’s edition CD), exclusively here. Please note: the collector’s edition CD is strictly limited to 1,500 copies and will not be re-pressed. 

 

The post Doctor Who: Dark Tides – Out Now! appeared first on Blogtor Who.

Peter Capaldi joins David Tennant and Jodie Whittaker in the cast of Only Murders in the Building as the popular show heads to the UK

 

Season Six of hit detective comedy Only Murders in the Building is heading to London. And the latest case for crime podcast trio Charles (Steve Martin), Oliver (Martin Short) and Mabel (Selena Gomez) features not one, not two, but three former Doctor Who stars. Blogtor Who reported yesterday that both David Tennant and Jodie Whittaker will feature in the new ten part murder mystery. The murder of a fellow podcaster prompts our heroes’ move to London from the show’s usual New York home. However, with the skewed irony of an Alanis Morissette lyric, just hours later the Only Murders team announced Peter Capaldi was joining them.

Nothing is officially known about the former Doctors’ roles. However, location filming suggests that Whittaker plays a Barrister, and that Tennant appears in flashbacks. Whether the two are suspects, or allies, or both remains to be seen.

Also among the cast of the new season are Derek Jacobi (Utopia), Nicola Coughlan (Joy to the World), Jim Broadbent (The Curse of Fatal Death), and Adrian Lukis (The War Between the Land and the Sea.)

The new season began filming in the UK this summer, and will most likely arrive on Hulu in the US, and on Disney+ in the UK, next year.

 

Both Doctor Who stars have more projects lined up to follow Only Murders

Jodie Whittaker will then be staying in the world of American crime shows with Chicks. Whittaker plays Doreen, one of a pair of con artist sisters trying to build a partnership following their father’s death. She stars alongside Ellen Pompeo (Grey’s Anatomy) as older sister Chickie. Together the set on a series of ever more ambitious cons, while finally bonding as sisters.

Next up for David Tennant meanwhile, is new movie The Joy of Sex, which is currently filming. The film explores the writing of the legendary 1970s book of the same name, and the romantic throuple that inspired it. The film also stars Colin Firth, Julianne Moore and Laura Linney, as well as Jason Watkins.

Finally, Peter Capaldi will be starring in the third and final season of his time travel thriller series The Devil’s Hour, as Capaldi’s Gideon attempts to resolve the destructive time loop once and for all.

 

The post CAPALDI, Tennant and Whittaker for Only Murders (UPDATED) appeared first on Blogtor Who.

 

Last year, I was working on a blog series doing my own take on the world of Greyhawk. As it goes with these things, my interest petered out after a bit, and I moved on to other things. I'm feeling that Greyhawk jones coming on again, and I think I have at least a few more posts on that topic in me. We'll see, but if so it seemed a good time to revisit where I'd been. 

I summarized collated the posts summarizing what I wanted to do with the project and the first batch of posts here.

I had three posts after that:

The Wild Coast

North Province

South Province

Recently I decided to totally relaunch the Stargazer Games website. For many years I haven’t really had the time to give it a proper overhaul and it using WordPress was a bit of an overkill. The new site is much leaner and makes uses of modern web technologies. It should work well on both desktop and mobile devices.

The main site now features downloads to all the games Stargazer Games has released over the years. There’s also a handy dice roller at the bottom of the site. In addition to the new look I also added a complete web-based and interactive Warrior, Rogue & Mage SRD in English and German language. The SRD page includes all the rules from the SRD including cross references and both a WR&M dice roller as well as a random character generator.

AI disclosure: I used LLMs in the creation of the site and German translation of the SRD. I am aware that many people are opposed to LLMs and might object to the use of LLMs. I share some of the skepticism and I particularly don’t like the fact that powerful individuals and corporations use AI to increase their wealth and power at the detriment of the rest of us – but it’s undeniably a very interesting technology and a very powerful tool. It’s complicated…

Rest assured that the games themselves are 100% human-made.

Welcome to Day 14 of #RPGaDay2026. As I explained in my Day 0 post, I’ll be creating NPCs based on the day’s prompts and the week and day modifiers presented in the infographic below.  Check out that post for further details.

Today’s combination: Regard (Prompt) + Associates (Weekly Modifier) + Loving and Giving (Weekly Modifier) + Science Fiction (Genre)

Here is today’s NPC.

Doryen Craix (Fantasy Name Generator used for the name: Futuristic name generator)

Emissary Craix was born in an isolated pacifist colony whose residents underwent genetic manipulation for generations. While a few developed significant psychic powers, the majority became empaths, able to sense the feelings of others without the ability to alter them or influence their feelings and minds in any way. When the colony rejoined the greater galactic community, these empaths became emissaries of their culture’s message of peace through diversity, collaboration, and respect.

As an empath and emissary, Doryen travels across the known galaxy to share his message. He treats all sentients with the utmost regard, seeking to forge bonds of cooperation with everyone he encounters, regardless of their status or influence.

During his journeys, Doryen freely gives whatever he has to those in need—and what he has in abundance is love. However, his constant exposure to the emotions of others has led to a complication: he has become addicted to the feeling of joy and ecstasy in those around him. He often accompanies people as they explore these positive emotions just so he can vicariously experience the high. This has earned him a reputation as a connoisseur of the joyous and pleasurable, and he is frequently sought out for advice in matters of happiness and romance.

Doryen is aware of his addiction and actively tries to rein in his hedonistic impulses. He works hard to ensure his guidance brings no harm to his “associates”, the term he uses for those he guides along the path of happiness. Even so, his fellow emissaries remain deeply concerned about his well-being, though Doryen has consistently ignored all pleas to return home and take a leave of absence from his responsibilities.

Thanks for reading; I am looking forward to your RPG a Day 2026 post, comments, and conversation. If you want further information about #RPGaDay2026, be sure to check out Autocratik’s blog.

A Spanish version of this post is available at the Desde la Fosa Facebook page.

See you all tomorrow!

 A D100 encounter table tailored for Stars Without Number (SWN). This table incorporates standard SWN concepts such as Virtual Intelligences (VIs), True AIs, bio-engineered Hulls, pretech relics, and chrome-grafted street cybernetics.  D100 Encounter Table: Synthetic & Cybernetic Lifeformsd100Encounter / Needleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11243274667834930867noreply@blogger.com0

The post Video of the Day – Doctor Who: Time Crash, 2007 appeared first on Blogtor Who.

The Little Ghost Key Cover Crochet Tutorial will show you how to crochet this spooky-cute key cover from start to finish! With instructions for two sizes, you can make the perfect fit for your keys or key fob. Just choose the right- or left-handed video tutorial below and crochet along! Disclaimer: This post includes affiliate […]

The post Little Ghost Key Cover Tutorial appeared first on moogly. Please visit www.mooglyblog.com for this post.

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I have a hankerin’ to do some solo gaming, but I’m also gearing up for a few weeks of teaching along with directing the play and then eventually the musical, so odds are good that I won’t be able to work on much gaming stuff. We’ll see.

I have flipped through all three of my current games - Army Ants, Hack’D & Slash’D, and Stalwart ‘85, and couldn’t decide which one to play. I started a pros and cons list to see which system to go with, but ultimately decided that I should let the dice determine everything, starting with which game I’m going to play. This is the most consequential D6 roll of the entire thing: 1-2 = Army Ants, 3-4 = Hack’D, 5-6 = Stalwart ‘85. 4. Hack’D it is. Well, I can put all my dice away except for a D12 or two. Makes things simple.

There are 11 pregens in the core rules. I will use one of those. A 12 will mean that I use likelihood dice rules to determine my character… I roll D12 and get 7. I will be playing a jovial dwarf myrmidon. I decide to keep his stats, but to swap out the axe for a hammer. It’s a cosmetic change, but I already think of him as a little Thor (maybe give him a name like ‘Toren’ or ‘Tohr’ to hit the nail right on the head). He is a ‘jovial’ dwarf, so I cannot give him the classic ‘angry last dwarf of a fallen clan background’, since ‘jovial’ does not imply drunken or traumatized - it implies cheerful, friendly, and of good humor. I will use likelihoods to determine why he is adventuring to begin with… 

Searching for a lost relic? Possible. 8. Nope.

Came upon a map? Possible. 7. Nope. Hmmm. Those were my big two.

Looking for a lost family member? 3. Yep. 

Okay. I roll those same two likelihoods, and get a 2: the map. So, his uncle had a map to a hidden treasure, and went off in search of it, never returning. 

I look up some Norwegian names and like Torvin. That’s not bad. It’s a little close to Thorin from the Hobbit, so maybe I’ll look in another direction. I’ve used the names Hewn and Cairn before for dwarves. I like Cairn the most, so I stick with that. I also change around his gear a little bit, setting him up to be a little more defensive. Between his shield and his higher than normal Hits, he should be pretty durable for solo play...

Cairn Torvinson of Clan Thunderforge, Jovial Dwarf Myrmidon 1

Armor 2; Hits 12; Move 60’; Hammer (3) and Shield (2)

Might 4; Mind 1; Reflex 1

Brawler; Fortitude; Two Weapons; Warrior

Leather Armor 1; Shield; Hammer 2

He attacks at +2 with melee weapons, and deals +1 damage. He attacks with both hammer and shield each round.

I’ve decided to set him in Daggerford (the town I have used as the launching point into the Halls of Moridis), and I’ve finally decided where Daggerford goes on the official map: it’s in hex O6, on the southern bank of the river. That puts it about 10 miles south of the Ruins of Trasik, and puts the Halls of Moridis just into the Blight Mountains to the west. I think that I’ll have Cairn explore the Ruins of Trasik, looking for clues of his uncle’s whereabouts, and seeking treasures he can find. I’ve never even written up a short description of the Ruins of Trasik, so I’ll be interested to see what’s there!

Setup

He last knew that his uncle Toren (younger brother to Torvin) had set off in search of treasures. He had a map to a hidden vault in the Ruins of Trasik, near the village of Daggerford. The adventure opens as he arrives in Daggerford with 3 gp in his pocket, his payment for serving as a guard on the caravan’s journey from Fort Mistledawn. 

 Here is a d100 random contraband table tailored for the gritty, low-magic, and illicit underbelly of a Castles & Crusades campaign. This picks right up on the blog from OSR Sword & Sorcery Adventure Fodder - d100 Random Serpent People & Treasure Table tailored for the Serpent Tower fully compatible with Castles & Crusades (and most classic OSR systems)In classic Sword &Needleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11243274667834930867noreply@blogger.com0

Welcome to Day 13 of #RPGaDay2026. As I explained in my Day 0 post, I’ll be creating NPCs based on the day’s prompts and the week and day modifiers presented in the infographic below.  Check out that post for further details.

Today’s combination: Strain (Prompt) + Associates (Weekly Modifier) + Far to Go (Weekly Modifier) + Pulp (Genre)

Here is today’s NPC.

Jacques “Jackie” Poincaré (Fantasy Name Generator used for the name: French name generator)

Born in Guadeloupe, Jackie moved to New York seeking a better life. However, his mixed heritage, heavy accent, and a run-in with the law left him with few options, eventually pushing him into less-than-reputable work as a bartender at a speakeasy. He soon fell in love with a flapper. When his bosses discovered their secret affair, they quickly used the relationship to blackmail her father.

When the girl’s father attempted to bring the blackmailers to justice, the underworld boss had the man and his entire family killed. The tragedy put a dangerous strain on Jackie’s standing with his employers. To survive, he assured them the woman was merely a fling, that she meant nothing to him, and that his true loyalty remained with the organization.

The grief and guilt nearly broke Jackie, yet he refused to let the mob win. He became more determined than ever to find justice for the woman he loved. Knowing he was just an immigrant with a criminal record and no real power in the big city, he devised a different plan.

He decided to become an informant for the gumshoes and mystery men trying to clean up the city—the very people actively confronting his bosses. Today, Jackie walks a dangerous tightrope. Having regained the syndicate’s confidence, he keeps a close eye on the criminal elements that pass through his bar, secretly feeding their actions and plans to his new associates. He does whatever he can to ensure the men who murdered his love will eventually pay. One day, he hopes to be free of this heavy burden, but he still has far to go.

Thanks for reading; I am looking forward to your RPG a Day 2026 post, comments, and conversation. If you want further information about #RPGaDay2026, be sure to check out Autocratik’s blog.

A Spanish version of this post is available at the Desde la Fosa Facebook page.

See you all tomorrow!

The post Video of the Day – ITV: Grace Season 7 Trailer, 2026 appeared first on Blogtor Who.

 First appearing in Atlas Comics' (now Marvel) Journey into Mystery #10 (June/July 1953) in the story "The Assassin of Paris!", the Sensational Mademoiselle is a Belle Époque telepath and mind-reader. Living in Paris around 1900, she worked as a glamorous showgirl, performing stage mind-reading while secretly hiding genuine telepathic abilities. When targeted by the notorious "Assassin of Needleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11243274667834930867noreply@blogger.com0

  Looking for a quick Halloween crochet project that's an adorable little stashbuster? The Little Ghost Key Cover is a fast, fun project designed in two sizes to fit everything from individual keys to larger key fobs and small bunches of keys. With its sweet little ghost face and handy hanging loop, it's quick and […]

The post Little Ghost Key Cover appeared first on moogly. Please visit www.mooglyblog.com for this post.

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We you can plainly see, I failed to provide any updates on my July plan to do an Army Ants file card a day... life just happens that way I guess. It's been a busy few weeks, so I thought I'd give an update and then talk a little gaming stuff...

On the health front, things are doing well. I had a scan done last week, and it showed that tumors are stable and slightly improved from my last scan six months ago. Since I had paused treatment in there for a few months, that's about the best I can expect. I have started the next round of treatments, and we're going to be adding in another treatment, so I've got a full calendar of getting needles in my arms lined up for the next several months. I feel good, I'm exercising a lot, and I've lost a little weight, so very positive on that front.

I actually feel good enough that I've accepted some long-term gigs. I've got a 5-week substitute teaching assignment for September and into October teaching English 9 (which I did for a decade, so it's pretty easy), and I'll be directing the play and musical at the high school this year, which I'm excited about. I'm very blessed to have these opportunities, and they make me feel productive and useful. It reminds me of Marge Piercy's poem, To Be of Use... and, of course, of Tennyson's Ulysses. 

On the gaming front, I have a hankering to do some solo gaming that I can pop in and out of for 30 minutes here and there. I have three games that I really love - Hack'D & Slash'D, Army Ants, and Stalwart 85, and all three have strong reasons that I could pick them to play. I've spent a little time in the last few weeks reading through all three, and each game has some nifty things I could do, and places I'd like to expand and explore facets of the game. I'd love to be able to just focus on one for a bit and generate some significant content (maybe even a sourcebook!) through actual play, but I have no idea which game to pick. 

FWIW, here's a drawing I did of a character I made for Hack'D and Slash'D - I was leaning that way earlier this week, but then I got distracted by flipping through Army Ants and Stalwart '85, so now I'm not sure... I'll let you know when I make up my mind (or I'll blog about my thought process)...

At Gen Con, Dungeons & Dragons franchise head Dan Ayoub joined various D&D team members and stars connected with D&D to reveal future plans for the game and franchise. They announced more D&D for everyone, but not all of it’s for you.

D&D Icons

Even though the D&D Icons program looks 40-some years back rather than ahead, it led the announcements. Surely, the presence of Joe Manganiello at the presentation vaulted his program to the top. Joe rates as one of the biggest stars who flaunt a passion for D&D. He serves as chief creative officer of the Icons initiative. The Icons initiative links upcoming, and mostly unspecified, D&D products to creative titans from D&D’s past.

The D&D Icons program starts with four creators :

• Luke Gygax, son of D&D co-creator Gary Gygax and, of his six children, the biggest contributor to their father’s D&D legacy.
• Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, authors of the Dragonlance Chronicles trilogy of novels, the fiction which introduced D&D’s Dragonlance setting to readers in 1984.
• R.A. Salvatore, creator of Drizzt Do’Urden, the Forgotten Realms setting’s most popular character. He has written more than 40 books set in the Realms.

If you needed to read those descriptions to identify any of the icons, then the program isn’t for you. Icons aims for the demographic of Dan Ayoub and Joe Manganiello, men who grew up reading Drizzt and Dragonlance books between D&D games. Guys in this generation—guys like me—grew up with every bit of popular culture aimed at us, so now, some of our peers feel confused and threatened when other demographics get attention. When Dan says D&D “lost its way,” and later brings these creators to stage, he hopes to excite gamers who feel puzzled because their 80s favorites seem sidelined. When Wizards of the Coast announced the third edition back in 1999, I watched Gary Gygax brought to the stage and I felt thrilled, so I understand the appeal of the icons. Gygax and the icons serve a similar purpose: They soothe long-time fans of D&D by showing them that the game still includes things they loved.

Despite the consulting contract that Gary signed in 1999, he just gave the third-edition team his blessing and wished them success. Perhaps the creators working as icons will have more input on the projects linked to their names, but except for the novels, newer designers will surely do the heavy lifting on the icons projects. That approach may create better releases. While the team that created the third edition stood on Dave and Gary’s shoulders, the new edition brought design innovations that the original creators could not have matched.

Oddly, the Icons project promises a return to settings that have all appeared recently in major D&D releases. Drizzt’s territory of the Icewind Dale rates as one of the most visited locations in fifth-edition products. Melf’s Guide to Greyhawk from Luke Gygax will appear in the wake of the Greyhawk coverage in the 2024 Dungeon Master’s Guide. The Dragonlance setting gained a hardcover release in 2022.

Universes Beyond

The D&D team announced Universes Beyond, a series of crossovers starting with one between World of Warcraft and D&D, and one between Star Wars and D&D.

Universes Beyond comes from the Magic the Gathering game. In 2025, the Final Fantasy set of Magic cards became the game’s highest-selling release, pushing the game’s Lord of the Rings and Avatar: The Last Airbender sets to second and third place. Such crossovers earn record sales by appealing to fans who don’t play Magic. The pairing works because so many collectors find trading cards irresistible even if they opt not to play the game.

Still, when fans of something like Final Fantasy collect the cards, many feel inspired to try playing Magic, and some become hooked. Hasbro CEO Chris Cocks called the crossover sets “probably the most successful new player adoption program that we’ve ever done.” Fat D&D game books lack the same collectable appeal as cards, so Dungeons & Dragons/Star Wars will never bring more than a fraction of the collectors attracted to a fan-favorite property crossed with Magic the Gathering. Still, D&D’s Universes Beyond crossovers aim to bring new players to D&D rather than to simply coax existing players to spend more.

Partnerships with outside studios

For existing fans of D&D, Wizards announced partnerships that will publish official content for Ravenloft, Eberron, and the Forgotten Realms, all written by outside studios.

The partners all boast experience making quality D&D content, and each brings an affinity for their chosen setting. The Ghostfire Gaming setting of Grim Hollow matches the dark horror tone of Ravenloft. Visionary Production & Design already produces Eberron books stewarded by the setting’s creator, Keith Baker. Starting with Hoard of the Dragon Queen in 2014, Kobold Press wrote the first two hardcover adventures released for fifth edition. Both featured the Forgotten Realms.

Adding so many setting-specific releases to D&D’s publishing schedule shows a daring change to the D&D’s team’s market strategy—a break from a lesson learned when D&D’s original publisher went to the brink of bankruptcy. In the 90s, TSR released a flood of settings and setting-specific products that split fans’ attention and spending. Fans of a setting tended to skip releases for as many as eight other settings, and so many products failed to recoup costs. Former D&D brand manager Jim Butler said, “TSR had too many product lines chasing too few customers.”

In the decades since, Wizards has avoided dividing customers with a flood of products that compete with each other. When they revisited a campaign setting, they published just a book or two for the setting, and they also avoided scheduling other releases that might battle for attention.

Now, the D&D team sees a customer base large enough for four or more settings to fight for fans’ budgets and time. “Players shouldn’t have to wait decades for D&D to return to a setting. We should be making it easier to adventure in those worlds,” D&D Executive Producer Greg Bilsland said. “The problem is, of course, we only have so many people on the D&D team and supporting all of our settings wasn’t feasible.”

Dark Sun

When I started playing D&D, the demons and occasional nudity in the advanced game flattered me by making me feel mature and by making playing seem like a delicious little rebellion. Now, with a new Dark Sun release scheduled for release as two books with a mature rating, I wonder how the rating will enhance the setting. The animated trailer revels in blood splatters and costumes that could fit in a catalog for fetish wear.

I suspect the D&D team opted for the mature rating for two reasons:

• The Heavy Metal style adds spice and contrasts with the other fifth-edition settings.
• The setting includes elements that now fit uncomfortably in a typical D&D game.

In early D&D, scenes where characters tortured their foes for information and slaughtered their foes’ babies seemed common. Now virtually all D&D games steer clear of such horrors and I welcome the change. The Dark Sun setting includes some of its own horrors that many gamers choose to avoid in a fun pastime. One example stands out. Dark Sun included slavery in the foundation of its world building. Chris S. Sims, one of the designers who worked on the setting for fourth edition, writes, “Slavery in Dark Sun isn’t like it is in the A series [of adventures], where it’s clearly villainy. In Dark Sun, it’s a cultural norm with a (spoiler) horrid, secret reason for keeping it. It can be an evil you fight, but presenting it as a cultural norm, baking it into some mechanics, implies it’s acceptable.”

D&D players enjoy battling evil, and many players see slavers as a good target for heroes. Other players find the subject of slavery too troubling for game sessions that should provide a fun escape. Either outlook is fine. The Dark Sun designers face the challenge of deciding how to accommodate the different perspectives. Perhaps, the mature rating helps.

Greyhawk: Crown of the Witch Queen

Of all the products announced for the coming year, Greyhawk: Crown of the Witch Queen seems like the one for me. Wizards touts the book as a full-length adventure, which suggests that the campaign starts at first level. The last campaign hardcover to start at level 1, Phandelver and Below: The Shattered Obelisk, released three years ago and revisited content from 2014. The upcoming adventure comes from the design team of Will Doyle, Stacey Allan, and Justice Arman. All three have worked on favorite adventures. The prospect of a new full-length campaign to play or run excites me.

By Inkblot Gibberling
Self Published
OSE/5E
"Low Levels"

The Bragazzi crime family runs the Backstage, an illegal casino and mushroom-juicing drug laboratory hidden behind an opera-costume shop. Steal their stuff.

This fourteen page adventure presents about twenty locations in an illicit gambling establishment. It wants to be a heist movie. It doesn’t provide you the tools needed to be a heist movie. It’s also clearly 5e.

I’ve got a lot of issues. And ten also this adventure is a mess. It’s going for some Oshean 11 vibes. It doesn’t know how to pull that off. It’s got a couple of tone issues. It’s trying to get fancy with the formatting and not pulling it off. And it is not OSE.

Let us start with this statement from the adventure “This module attempts to be system-agnostic. Where relevant, combat statistics are offered for” Someone clearly has written a blog post recently about how 5e and OSE are the same power level because I’ve seen a recent trend of adventures being listed as 5e and OSE and generic/universal all in the same breathe. I guess, yes, it’s generic/universal in the same way that every adventure is generic/universal if you just ignore the stats and skill checks. There’s a reference to both a 5e monster and an OSR monster (fighter 4 or Tough Boss MM25.) In other places we get things like “Safe: Locked with an arcane lock to increase lockpicking difficulty [+10].” I guess that 5e? I’m not morally opposed to a fantasy gambling location that is roughly universal and stats thrown in as examples, but the skill check thing throws it off every time. Also, one of the guards is invisible, and drinks a potion every hour to stay invisible. This says something about the game world and is perhaps the most jarring. You can reskin cat-people to be humans but something like the prevalence of magic, and relying on it for a core part of the adventure, just throws things off. (To be clear, there are no cat people in this adventure, or any other ren-faire tropes.) 

The core conceit here is a heist. It’s in the title. One of the hooks involves getting a bank teller out who is currently being coerced by the mob, by punching him in the face, to give the gang the security features of the bank. You’re told, by your patron “The rescue can’t involve any bodies and can’t involve any Bragazzi seeing anything suspicious. His escape must appear to be a series of plausible coincidences.” This is one of the hooks. Another hook is just a straight up robbery. The heist, the plausible deniability, these imply some things that the adventure should have that it just lacks. You want to case the place, right? The classic heist involves a casing. Scoping it out and then coming up with a wacky plan to execute that will inevitably go wrong, as these things do in D&D. The guards are noted on the map, which is good. A few have a routine (with two dudes taking leaks with a frequency that makes my BPH look like a dream.) This is about the extent of the support you get here. Working against this is the current goings-on in the gambling den. The teller is actively getting the shit beaten out of him. The NPC’s, the notable other gamblers, are, I guess, just always there, in your case and during your heist. There is a degree of randomness as well, for people present in hallways, that works against a heist. Sure, things can go wrong. “Oh no, I wasn’t expecting the wine delivery!” but there needs to be some degree of consistency that the degree of randomness in the people present in locations, randomly, works against. This makes the adventure much less of a heist and much more of the usual “lets just try something and start hacking when things go wrong” sort of loosy goosy approach that most adventure raids have. There too much in the writing that frames it as HAPPENING RIGHT NOW instead of COULD HAPPEN DURING THE HEIST. And the entire premise of the “coincidences”, I think, works against the level range here. It would require a lot of skills and magic items and spells that just are not going to be present at low levels. 

Tonally this is off also, in places. I’m not thrilled that the old ‘italians are mobsters” thing is relied upon. There’s no reason for that in a generically fantasy rpg. Pulp Fiction was fine without relying on these tropes. Further, there is, I think, generally a more light-hearted tone to a heist. And that is pretty consistent throughout this. After all, these are gamblers, right? As far as things go, screwing the tax man is a time honored tradition. But then, in the drug den upstairs, we get the gang doing some weird vivisection/bleeding of people to drain juice from them as a drug. This is probably a bridge too far. We have crossed the boundary from simple gambling and drug dealing to torture. We’re not even soylent greening here, more to the point of Thorns prediction about being raised as cattle.  We are now in the “muder every last one of them” category, even in my skewed murder hobo vision of D&D. It’s not that either tone is wrong, but it’s the mixing of them. You CAN discover something more evil afoot in an adventure, but then you have to be prepared for the consequences. And they here for a zany madcap ending in which you free them and they run around every which direction in some kind of 1930’s madcap comedy manner. You can manage finding the EVIL HORRIBLE THING in the pickpockets house, but then the adventure needs to support that. And this doesn’t. 

There’s a page or so up front that tells you how to read the formatting being used. Nothing too special here or weird; bolding, room names, etc. I would note though that if you need a page to describe your formatting them its probably not intuitive formatting. In practice, though, I think the formatting has issues. It’s hard to see room breaks, or sub-area breaks, and things tend to seem to run together. I think some line breaks are really what’s needed here in order to provide some additional separation between different sub-areas of room and concepts. The bolding tends to run together otherwise and the sub-areas get lost. 

I don’t think it’s a heist, as least not with the content provided. The tone stuff, with the mushroom, seems off to me and not supported either. 

 This is free at DriveThru. The preview is the entire thing. I would maybe look at page seven of the preview for an idea of the jumble. 

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/571925/the-backstage-heist?1892600

I'm reading DC Comics' output from January 1980 (cover date) to the end of Crisis! This week, I read the comics on sale on August 15, 1985.

Batman and the Outsiders #27: I remember seeing this Barr/Davis issue on the spinner rack at the Pac-N-Sac gas station a few blocks from my house. Twelve year-old me found the "We call it WAR STARS! (or we'd get sued!)" cover blurb very clever. Anyway...Continuing from last issue, the U.S. fires missiles at the Star Wars station in defiance of Kobra's extortion, but the missile defense works on the station too, and they are disabled. In a show of glastnost, Gorbachev only pretends to make a deal with Kobra (reasoning rightly that the cult leader will turn on the USSR, too) and instructs his people to contact the U.S. and offer an alliance against the villain.
Meanwhile, our heroes are trying to get to the station to stop Kobra and rescue Halo, but the U.S. government refuses to loan Batman a shuttle. We see a computer screen labelling him "politically incorrect" due to his leaving the JLA and fighting with the Force of July. Harsh! So, the team just has to steal Kobra's own spacecraft and fly it up there. There's a fight in the station and the bad guys are defeated, but Kobra bests Batman in a one-on-one fight and escapes. Batman seems to relish the tough opponent though and looks forward to his next confrontation with the villain.
Halo's beau David decides to take some time to patch things up with his father, so she's free to return to the Outsiders.

Fury of Firestorm Annual #3: Conway and Kayanan/Akin/Garvey rewind to just power Ronnie and Stein left New York. Firestorm notices some fluctuations in his powers. Stein has a theory its due to sunspot activity and the two test it, leading Stein to figure the parameters of their powers. Largely, this seems like a way for Conway to rein in and clarify the limits of what Firestorm can do as we are given Official Handbook level quantifications.
While all this is going on, Frido, a guy in Miami with a drug problem, is having particularly bad time trying to get his fix to deal with his withdrawal. As the sunspot activity increases, Frido is somehow transformed into a being of (I guess) electricity. Still in pain, Frido takes out his frustrations on those who refuse to help him until Firestorm who has heard about this intervenes. He wins the day by short circuiting Frido (or Sparx as Firestorm names him) in the ocean.

Blue Devil #18: Mishkin/Cohn and Kupperberg/Maygar cheekily present "The Last Parallel World Story!" in this Crisis crossover issue. After the events of COIE #8, Blue Devil finds himself in space with some of the Omega Men. Luckily, they are picked up by a spaceship in the hands of a film crew composed of alternate universe versions of Cassidy and Blue Devil's supporting cast who had been sucked through a black hole into this universe just before theirs was destroyed by anti-matter. This being a somewhat humorous book, the characters take the potential trauma of being the last survivors of their universe and having lost everyone they know completely in stride. However, they soon find they are fading away, going to a Limbo since their universe no longer exists. Both Cassidys have to work to find a way to vibrationally stabilize both the crew and their ship.
The crew decides to go with the Omega Men to Vega via a teleporter as they know their universe's version of Harry Hokum has one. They try to send Blue Devil back to Earth, but he disappears before they can.

Green Lantern #194: Crisis crossovers often reveal that Harbinger had a tougher time than initially depicted assembling the heroes in COIE #1. Engelhart and Staton/Patterson again give us a bit of s scuffle, before Stewart agrees to go with her. This crossover is unusual as it depicts events on the Monitor's station from Stewart's perspective. We also see how the Anti-Monitor strikes a blow at the Guardians so that they can't interfere. A blast through the central Power battery kills many of them.
With everything going on Katma Tui turns to Hal, and the two of them reconcile. Hal seems ready to stop feeling sorry for himself, but feeling in a nostalgic mood, I guess, visits Abin Sur's grave. He finds Guy Gardner out of the nursing room, and misguidedly attempting to dig up a ring and power battery. The two fight, but then a Guardian shows up and gives Gardner exactly what he's looking for, inducting him into the Corps and snubbing Hal.

Infinity, Inc. #20: Another Crisis crossover by the Thomases and McFarlane/Bair, as the Infinitors deal with the weather disruption and natural disaster part of the Crisis. A hospital is threatened by extreme weather and an earthquake, and members of the JSA and the Infinitors must work together to try to save people. In the...well, crisis, a new hero emerges: Previous NEET Rick Tyler decides to follow in his father's footsteps and become a new Hourman, a move that worries both his father and Dr. Mid-Nite. There's another new hero in the making, too. McNider's medical protege, Beth Chapel, is blinded in the disaster and jokes bitterly the only sort of doctor she is fit to be is the next Dr. Midnight. 
Interestingly, a caption in this issue tells us it is "July 1985," which is (as George Olshevsky would have it) a "topical reference" to be ignored, but since this universe is going away anyway, I think it's usual in placing when the "modern day" events of the Crisis are occurring. This timeline goes with that idea. 

New Teen Titans #14: Yet another Crisis crossover from Wolfman and Barreto/Tanghal. Under red skies, Arella searches for her daughter and finds out she was for a time a faith healer in Alabama but has moved on by the time Arella gets there. Meanwhile, Captain Karras convinces Starfire to return to Tamaran, and Nightwing and Jericho choose to accompany her, leaving the others to deal with this whole Crisis thing. At the end of the issue, we find out Blackfire is waiting to greet her sister.
 The Titans that stay on Earth have to deal with Steve Dayton who is dying of cancer. Or at least he was. He may have used his Mento helmet to cure himself, but that seems to have driven him insane. He attacks his butler, then a club of wealthy men that denies him membership, then the Titans when they show up. 

Sgt. Rock #406: We finish Kanigher's and Gonzales's tribute to the 332nd Expeditionary Operations Group. In the end, this story seems to have been largely for didactic purposes, which is a reasonable goal I suppose when we think about the assumed kid audience of comics. We get a lot more on the groups exploits and highlights of important members. Then, sometime later, Rock and Easy meet Captain Dennis again briefly. After that, we return to the frame of the civil rights era where the racist lieutenant turned police officer seems to recognize Dennis among the marchers and silent moves aside. Dennis feels Rock is with them in spirit, with the implication being that (as Kanigher as stated, I believe) Rock did not survive the War. 

Saga of Swamp Thing #42: Continuing the story from last issue, as Swamp Thing and Abby are piecing together what is going on, the past takes a greater hold over the present. The extras performing the ritual have caused the dead to rise from the graveyard and walk the Earth. The dead advance on the plantation house to confront the spirit of the former master of that house, now taken over an actor. Swamp Thing does have a whole lot to do as his plant powers can do little to stop a haunting. He's set on fire and accidentally catches the house ablaze too. That seems to break the spell and bring an end to what was going on, though one actor dies in the fire, and another seems unable to break from the traumatic memory of a man skinned alive. One of the zombies gets away and gets a job at a theater, so again the mystical strangeness of the world is rising.

Warlord #99: I reviewed this issue here.

Who's Who #9: Like last issue, the alphabetical span of this issue seems providential, as we get the Jordan and Stewart Green Lanterns (though no Guy Gardner), the Green Lantern Corps, and the Guardians of the Universe. The current artists, Staton, gets to draw Stewart, but Kane is fittingly given the honor of depicting Hal Jordan, and Bolland gets the two-page Corps spread. Gemworld is also in this issue as are both the Earth-Two and Earth-One Green Arrows, the latter depicted by Mike Grell. The Captain Atom foe, the Ghost, gets an entry and he hasn't even appeared in the DCU yet! We also get war comics characters Gravedigger, who we haven't seen since 1979, and G.I. Robot who we haven't seen since the demise of Weird War Tales in 1983.

Welcome to Day 12 of #RPGaDay2026. As I explained in my Day 0 post, I’ll be creating NPCs based on the day’s prompts and the week and day modifiers presented in the infographic below.  Check out that post for further details.

Today’s combination: Loss (Prompt) + Associates (Weekly Modifier) + Full of Woe (Weekly Modifier) + Horror (Genre)

Here is today’s NPC.

Wiktoria Nejman (Fantasy Name Generator used for the name: Polish name generator)

When people call Wiktoria “Madame Nejman,” she quickly corrects them, reminding them that the title belonged to her mother. After her mother’s death, she never turns on the neon Psychic sign in the front window. Still, every morning, she unlocks the parlor door, opens the little box on the entrance table, and receives her mother’s associates.

Her friends call often, asking when she’s going back to school. Even those who grew up in the neighborhood ask why she still wears black. They don’t understand that her mother’s death was a profound loss—one that left her full of woe and burdened with a gift she never asked for.

Her mother’s “associates” are all around her. That’s what her mother used to call them. They are the spirits of the departed, wandering into the parlor seeking to reach their loved ones, eager to share a secret they never meant to take to the grave, or simply wanting to gossip about the goings-on in the realms of the living and the dead. Wiktoria tries to fulfill their requests and deliver their messages to grieving families. Occasionally, the living come knocking, asking to contact someone specific. She explains that it doesn’t work that way, but when these associates do appear, she does her best to help both the living and the dead.

At the end of the day, she locks the parlor door and often pauses to stare at the contents of the little box. Her mother’s glass eye stares back at her. With her dying breath, her mother asked Wiktoria to pluck out her own eye and replace it with the glass one. Wiktoria is not yet ready to take that step.

Maybe tomorrow, she thinks. With that thought, she closes the lid of the little box.

Thanks for reading; I am looking forward to your RPG a Day 2026 post, comments, and conversation. If you want further information about #RPGaDay2026, be sure to check out Autocratik’s blog.

A Spanish version of this post is available at the Desde la Fosa Facebook page.

See you all tomorrow!

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