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Rise from Your Grave! Geeknic 29 is Back from the Dead

Klaatu… Barada… GEEKNIC!

It has been too long, but the stars have finally aligned (and we remembered the exact words this time). The Puerto Rico Role Players are officially resurrecting our beloved tradition.

Geeknic 29: Back From The Dead is happening, and it is going to be… groovy.

For those of you who have never attended, a Geeknic is exactly what it sounds like: we take over a gazebo at a park, we bring food to share, and we roll dice under the open sky. It is a chance to step away from the VTTs and the screens and actually look your fellow gamers in the eye (usually before you betray them in-game).

Whether you are an “Old One” of the local scene or a level 1 adventurer looking for a group, this is the perfect place to jump in.

The Details

• Date: Saturday, February 21, 2026
• Time: 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM
• Location: Parque Central de los Niños, Bayamón, Puerto Rico

What to Bring

• Dice & Character Sheets: Obviously.
• Sunscreen & Water: We are gaming in the Caribbean, after all.
• Food to Share: It’s a potluck-style event, so bring your favorite snacks or dishes.
• Games: Board games, card games, and RPG one-shots are all welcome.

I am planning to be there, hopefully running a playtest session of my homebrewed system, MUGeS (no cows included).

So, grab your boomstick (or just your pencil case) and join us. Let’s make sure this tradition stays alive… unlike the Deadites.

See you there!

The post Video of the Day – The Whoniverse Show, 2026 appeared first on Blogtor Who.

Original Video: https://youtu.be/QaU9IJMJ-ig

Transcript is lightly edited. Expect typos and worse ;)

A viewer recently asked if you can steal dungeon procedures and use them for a hex crawl. Simple answer is yes. And once you do, wilderness travel stops being that blurry. We walk for a while montage and starts producing real decisions. 
Again, because dungeon procedure isn't about doors and corridors, it's about pressure, time passing, right? Risks showing up, resources draining, and the world reacting while the party debates what to do next. So here's the translation. In the dungeon, you've got turns. In the wilderness, you've got watches. That's it. That's the move. That's the swap. That's the switch. Pick a watch length that fits your table. If you want a gritty and granular, make it two hours. If you want. The classic pays for travel still matters, but doesn't eat up the whole session. Make it four hours if you want it loose and fast, go I guess a half day. I tend to stick to four hours because it gives you a rhythm without turning travel into homework. But what matters most is having a loop you can run without thinking. 
Same way with dungeon turns, right? They run smooth once everyone knows the routine, so every watch you do the same handful of things first, get the party to commit to a direction and a pace. Where are you heading? Are you moving normal, cautious, or fast? And that second question matters more than than people think, because it's how you turn, turn, travel into choices instead of simple movement. And then keep the roles Simple. One person is navigating. One person is scouting. You don't need a job fair. You don't need to debate it. You don't need to stress the whole crap out. If nobody wants to do it. Fine. Then the wilderness gets its own vote. 
Next, you pay the cost of the watch. See, the wilderness has a torch timer, too. But it doesn't look like torches. Don't look like torches at all. It's food and water. It's light. If you're traveling at night, fatigue if you're pushing it, wet gear, cold heat, whatever you actually care about in your game. And if your table has bookkeeping, don't get fancy. Make it blunt. Make it consistent. Mark it off and move on. The goal isn't realism. The goal is that time has teeth. 
And after that, handle navigation. Do you actually stay on course? See, in a dungeon, the walls do a lot of work for you. Outdoors navigation is well, it's the wall when it matters. Bad weather, no landmarks, unfamiliar terrain, night travel, moving fast in pursuit or being pursued. Make the navigation, checking if they fail. You don't need to play. Gotcha. Just add. Just add friction, right? Maybe. Maybe they drift into the wrong hex. Maybe they burn an extra watch getting their bearings. Maybe they hit a feature that slows them down a bar, a cliff. Deadfall washed out trail. Getting lost should feel like the wilderness pushing back. Not like the referee. Not like the DM trying to get a win. 
And then to your encounter. Check. One check per watch is usually enough. If it's a nasty region, a war zone, the cursed woods. I don't know. The dangerous swamps. Monster country sure bump up the, uh, the amount of checks. 
But here's the big thing. Wilderness encounters don't always have to be surprised. Wolves. No, no, that's not a lot of the time. The parties should get signs first. Smoke on the horizon. Vultures circling. Fresh tracks down the trail. Dense. Disenchanting. I don't know why. I have trouble saying that. A broken arrow in a tree. A corn that wasn't there last time. You see, that's what makes the wilderness feel Alive. It gives the players a choice. We always want the players to have a choice, right? Engage, avoid detours, set an ambush or slow down and scout. See? That's the actual play. 
Now, I suggest you give them one notable feature for the watch. Think of it like a dungeon room. Okay, not every room is a fight, but every room is still something. A hex crawl needs the same idea, just spaced out. So most watches should include at least one distinct thing. A creek crossing a ridge line with a view. An old road half swallowed by weeds. A ruined khan. A fork in the trail. Signs of people who shouldn't be here. Something of that sort. You don't need a paragraph. Okay, don't do that to yourself. You need one clear thing that makes this stretch of travel different from the last one. 
If your hexes are keyed like you're using Rob Conley's excellent works, um, pull it from the key. If they aren't, use a quick table and keep moving and then advance time and do it again. Update time of day updates applies. Update fatigue update what has changed? Once your table gets the rhythm, this runs just like dungeon turns. It stops feeling like I don't know, wilderness rules and starts feeling like the game. The game of D&D.  
Now let's talk about those three travel modes, because this is where the hex crawl stops being, well, that board game, Wilderness Survival. Yeah. No, we don't want to play that. Okay. 
Normal travel is the baseline. You cover standard distance, you make standard noise. Make take standard risk. 
Cautious travel means you're moving slower, but you're harder to surprise. You're less likely to wander off course. This is the choice for. We're in dangerous territory, and we don't want to blunder into something much more dangerous than we can deal with. Fast travel is the opposite. You cover more distance, but you're more likely to get lost, more likely to w
ear yourself down, and more likely to stumble into trouble before you see it coming. Generally speaking, you only use that in very safe areas. 
So now the wilderness is doing what dungeons do, right? It forces a trade off between speed and safety. And here's where many people miss a trick. What can you do in a wash besides just moving? See, in the dungeon you can spend turns listening, right? Searching, mapping, spiking doors, poking the statue, whatever those actions cost time and time invites and counter checks. Same thing outdoors. A watch can be spent foraging or hunting. Scouting ahead. Searching a feature. Mapping carefully. Traveling stealthily. Hiding your trail. Setting an ambush. Building shelter early because the weather is turning. And the important part is this those choices cost time. Time triggers Checks. Checks create pressure. That's why it works. Sounds familiar right? 
Camping works the same way. Don't treat camping as a free reset when nothing can touch them. Treat it like we bar the door in a dungeon, ask, are you camping safe, hidden or exposed? Who's on watch? What's the watchword? Is the fire visible? And then make a night and count the check. And again, you don't need it to be an instant attack. Every time signs are your friend, a guard hears something in a brush, sees torchlight far off, finds fresh tracks around camp in the morning. Now camping feels like a choice. It's not just a hey, he'll reset. 
Now let me give you a quick example so you can hear how this sounds at the table. The party is moving north through dense forest trying to reach a ruin. All right, next watch. What's the direction? North. Your pace. Normal. All right, Mark off food. Make a navigation check its day. They've got landmarks. They stay on course and count the check. Oh, okay. Yes, but it's not an ambush. They find fresh bootprints crossing the trail. Too organized to be hunters. What's the feature? To hit a creek. There's a rope bridge. Old and frayed. And now you've got decisions. Follow the tracks or avoid them. Cross here or look for a Ford. Spend the watch scouting the far bank. Push on and risk whatever comes next. That's dungeon. Making decisions just happening in the outdoors. 
See, most hex crawls fall apart because travel becomes a loading screen. And for those that are my age, you remember how long those loading screens were on your computer? RPGs. You travel, you travel, you travel. Okay. You arrive. Oh my God. I'm thinking of EverQuest and getting on the boat in any case. 
If you want wilderness to matter, you need a time unit, a risk role, navigation, consequences, resource pressure, and one distinct feature per chunk of travel. Same pressure system as the dungeon, just scaled up to hexes. So here's the quick takeaway. Pick a watch length, run the loop and don't handwave the boring parts. As tempting as it may be, because those boring parts are where the meaningful choices lie. Try it for one session and watch how fast your players start moving with purpose. Now, if you want, I can do a follow up. 
And if I do the follow up, I'll try to get a printable watch card and a the wilderness encounter table that's heavy on signs, omens, NPCs, weather the hazards. You know, the normal stuff that isn't just monsters and creatures, but stuff that makes a region feel like it has a pulse. Let me know in the comments. Also, let me know in the comments if you have topics you want me to cover. I'm trying to go through the videos to find out what people want me to cover. And yes, I am working on the one sheets. It's a bit time consuming when you're trying to dig your car out of about, I don't know, three, three and a half feet of, uh, snow plow ice that has packed it in. But for now. For now, uh, watch his navigation encounters features and repeat. That's how you make a hex crawl feel like an Aussie game instead of fast-forwarding to the next dungeon. Thank you for watching. God bless. I'll catch you tomorrow.

Lovarzi’s new Fourth Doctor cardigan brings one of Tom Baker’s key wardrobe pieces to fans at an affordable price

 

Doctor Who cosplay is a world as diverse, as strange, and as wonderful as Doctor Who itself. It contains full size Daleks and Cybermen, made with the blood, sweat, and splinters of skilled craftsmen. Some track down meticulously researched vintage clothes, others are just as meticulous in stitching their own. Of course, there are expert tailors who will do the sewing for you, for a reassuringly expensive fee. And there are any number of cheap and cheerful online outlets, where the thinness of the material is made up for by the amount of fun to be had bouncing around your nearest con. Then there’s Lovarzi, and their officially licenced items mixing quality with affordability.

 

Tom Baker and Elisabeth Sladen as the Doctor and Sarah in The Ark in Space (c) BBC The replica makes some compromises for everyday wear but is still an essential addition to any Fourth Doctor cosplayer’s collection

The latest addition to Lovarzi’s range of Doctor Who clothing is their recreation of Tom Baker’s cardigan from Season 12. It appeared in all five of Baker’s original run of stories, seeing action everywhere from the battlefields of Skaro to the caverns of Voga, planet of gold. It’s a deceptively simple design. After all, argyle cardigans are hardly difficult to find, even if they’re not as fashionable as they used to be. And yet… Baker’s was a very specific pattern with as many of its own eccentricities as the Time Lord itself. Extra pockets, a pattern of three different colours of brown and cream rather than the more usual two, extra-long sleeves mysteriously a different shade of brown than the body, and the unusually high waist, designed to sit above the hips.

Up until now, getting an accurate version has been restricted to small fan-sponsored group runs, and some of the more expensive unofficial retailers. That’s still true, to an extent. Lovarzi’s unique mandate involves balancing the needs of cosplayers with regular, everyday wear by those who just want a hint of Doctor Who in their wardrobe. As a result, their cardigan makes a few compromises to complete accuracy. It has the pockets, those odd mismatched sleeves, and the correct pattern of colours (though one of the browns is arguably a shade light.) It’s a rather more normal shape than the original, however, with a lower waist and less steep neckline. It also runs rather large, size wise, so you may want to go a size down from your normal knitwear.

It’s a halfway house which will mean some black marks on purists’ scorecards, but considerably fewer funny looks in real life.

 

The Fourth Doctor cardigan (c) Lovarzi Embrace your inner bohemian Time Lord with the Lovarzi cardigan

At only a quarter of the price of a high end, unofficial, replica, and far, far closer to the real thing than anything you could find on the high street, the Lovarzi cardigan is pretty much a must for any Fourth Doctor fan. Even if you already have another version, it’s a fantastic alternate. If you don’t, it’s a superb complement to any cosplay, as well as any fan’s wardrobe.

You can order yours from the Lovarzi website now.

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TSR Module A2: Secret of the Slavers' Stockade

Harold Johnson with Tom Moldvay

At a couple of climactic points in module A1, Slave Pits, the adventurers can find documents that will lead them to the next adventure in the series. Moving away from the chaotic half-ruined town, you find a self-contained fortress in the wilderness, a staging point for the slavers' operations. This stockade is bounded by four intact walls, less of a ruin than the Highport temple. But inside, it's a fixer-upper, with ungoverned areas that continue the theme of the unruly stronghold. The troops are mainly goblins and hobgoblins, not orcs and half-orcs. Two independent bosses with powerful assistants run the place, one in the fort above ground, and two in the dungeons. 

Like A1, A2 was originally run as two parallel tournament adventures, with the above- and below-ground levels as the respective settings. The module's maps shade in the paths of each tournament version. It''s not hard to see how the requirements of each one-track, twisty gauntlet got in the way of realistic defensive architecture. However, even in the limited tournament mode, the fort level threatens the kind of barracks-clearing pitched battle I mentioned in the opening essay as a catastrophic failure for a fort infiltration. As always, full spoilers ensue.

Sure, go ahead, spoil one new monster on the front cover ...

FORT LEVEL: MOATHOUSE

The tournament starts with an easy if improbable way in. Just like in A1, an escaped slave, "Lady Morwin Elissar," shows you the route of her escape - an open window in the outer wall of the moathouse, with a convenient rope left dangling. This device is more interesting because the slave is an NPC who might go with you but is kind of unreliable. Still, it is only the first instance of a repetitive tendency that crops up throughout the module.

This moathouse is one of three buildings on the flat hill where the stockade sits, all held together with outside walls. It's also, you guessed it, an unruly stronghold. Garrisoned by a couple of hobgoblin squads, half of one floor is home to a haunt - more of a Victorian-story ghost than an undead monster. It's the haunting that keeps the troops scared of this area, justifying the lack of attention paid by the garrison. The challenge with this entity must have felt fresh at the time. But by now, dealing with a ghost's past-life obsession and present-day possession is part of 5th edition, and quite a few supplements have extended the Gothic notion into an adventure genre (link, link, link).

In this unruly zone, we are introduced to an unfortunate theme: the defender love silly traps. Here, they have acquired some fancy glassware and alchemy to blind intruders and trip them up with hundreds of glass marbles underfoot. Arguably, these traps sit at the outer limit of plausibility, but worse is to come.

One good point of the writing throughout this module shows up here. As in Albie Fiore's early White Dwarf adventure "The Lichway," each bivouac of troops throughout the fort has some kind of action ongoing, be it eating, gambling, or less wholesome sport. I've described this approach before as the "diorama encounter," but it seems to be a priority of the Johnson/Moldvay authorial team that gives welcome flavor. 

FORT LEVEL: GATEHOUSE

The next building along the railroad is a gatehouse on the far side of a courtyard where a wild anhkheg will pop out pf a patch of mud and attack. Why do the defenders allow a powerful monster to sit athwart the only line of communication from moathouse to gatehouse (the walls connecting them have no walkway)? Here's the greed for variety, any fight that's not with hobgoblins, at the expense of naturalism. Other hard-to-believe premises: the fight can go on without the guards on the walls noticing, until the monster lets out a dying screech; and in fighting, the party will become so caked with mud that they suffer a -2 to hit until they can wash it off in a fountain some way down the railroad.

The gatehouse itself was only developed for campaign play. Its inner buildings are more hobgoblin guardposts and barracks, again with diorama activities going on. Beyond the gate that the anhkheg guards, there is another courtyard, which the players can gauntlet-run or sneak across, while guards patrol the walls above. A couple of patrols come with another new monster, an oil-sweating Gollum-like wretch known as a boggle, whom we see on the front cover, Here there's little opportunity to use the boggles' weird abilities. They are just being led around as sniffer dogs, bringing to mind another Tolkien character, the orc tracker Snaga of Isengard. Then on to the keep's courtyard garden where carnivorous apes and hobgoblin archers jump the party. A dead end -- unless they can open the locked door that leads into the keep proper.

FORT LEVEL: MAIN KEEP

The position of this building in the hill fort is beyond absurd. The ramparts have no connection to its interior, even though that's where many of the troops and leaders make their home. What's more, the ramparts loom over the keep - the better to shoot at the roof, allegedly -- but vision to the outside world is blocked by tall palisades cut through with infrequent arrow slits. It's as if the fort is prepared for an infiltration, more so than an attack; but even that goal is bungled in the execution, so that a dungeon-crawling party can take on one group of enemies at a time. For example, if the players make it to the courtyard, there's no line of sight to the fight there from archers on the walls, only to the roof.

The interior layout is also absurd and not remedied in the campaign version. A single path spirals around, kinking up a few times, before ending up in the central room where the main leaders and troops are found. Cut a single door to break the spiral, and the leaders would have easy access to the entrance and be able to reinforce the defense. But where's the fun in that, compared to dungeon crawling?

Worse yet, the dungeon crawl is fixed up with tricks and traps worthy of a Scooby Doo haunted house. You have the stuffed bear rolling down a ramp to frighten you backwards into a pit. Then the hobgoblin ambush where some of the troops dress as mummies and run at an angled mirror so you'll waste spells and missiles on their reflections. Not just silly, these traps make no sense placed across the only route of reinforcement in an active stronghold.

Off the tournament track, there is another haunted area shunned by the soldiers. But this ghost is just a set of gimmicky manifestations engineered by the escaped slave who lives in the rafters. All these hijinks aside, the final encounter area has a memorable leader in Icar. He's a fire-loving blind warrior who fights with super-senses, taking after Daredevil or Zatoichi. Some of the diorama encounters in the central area are likewise good, and there's a new monster, the cloaker, whose hypnotic droning works as an opiate of the masses for the enslaved. In the boss area, whose defense the module illustrates with an innovative (at the time) tactical map, are a couple of ways down to the dungeons.

.. and on the back cover, let's have a spoiler for this guy

Can we fix the fort? Maybe, but extensive changes to the map would have to be made. And then the module becomes something different. Raising the alarm no longer causes a temporary pressure situation before the party can scoot on to the next isolated area. It activates the whole beehive of the garrison, acting all together in a mass of close to 100 hobgoblins and powerful leaders, and certain to overpower the mid-level party it is rated for.

Next: The dungeon level

 It’s a fascinating combination! The short answer is yes, they can certainly be played together, but they require a bit of "mechanical bridge-building" because they approach the Victorian era from very different angles.Here is how you can blend Troll Lord Games’ Victorious (a superhero/steampunk RPG based on the Castles & Crusades system) with The Red Room’s Bella Époque (a darker, more Needleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11243274667834930867noreply@blogger.com0

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Join the Fifth and Eighth Doctors and other Doctor Who stars at the Festival of the Time Lords this May

 

There will be a true Festival of the Time Lords in Newark this summer, as Doctor Who guests materialize at Newark Showground on the 30th of May. The one day Doctor Who convention has just added Paul McGann, star of the 1996 TV Movie and countless Big Finish audios. McGann was most recently seen on television as the Doctor in 2022’s The Power of the Doctor. Also announced alongside McGann is Sarah Sutton. Sutton played Nyssa, from the alien planet Traken, and who travelled with the Fourth and Fifth Doctors from Season 18 to Season 20.

They join a guest list that already includes Sutton’s 1980s co-stars Peter Davison (The Fifth Doctor) and Janet Fielding (Tegan Jovanka). Having appeared for three seasons together during the 1980s, the pair recently reunited for minisode Destination: Daleks. Also appearing at Festival of the Time Lords is their old enemy Terry Molloy. Molloy played evil genius Davros in Resurrection of the Daleks, Revelation of the Daleks, and Remembrance of the Daleks. He was also undercover police detective Russell in 1985’s Attack of the Cybermen.

It appears that there is a sixth guest for the event, still to be announced.

There will also be a trade hall for merchandise and art, with stall spaces currently available to order.

The festival team promise “an unforgettable, immersive experience for Doctor Who fans.” The team plans to celebrate “the vast and iconic Who universe while building a strong sense of community among collectors, fans, and cosplayers of all ages.”

The event takes place from 10am to 5pm, with tickets costing £25 and available here.

Check the official Festival of the Time Lords website for more details and updates between now and May.

The post Festival of the Time Lords Brings Doctor Who Stars to Newark This May appeared first on Blogtor Who.

By Christopher Letzelter
Anachronistes Press
1e
Levels 3-7

Player characters are called upon to remove invaders taking up residence in the land recently granted to a local nobleman. After his surveyors and retainers were killed or driven out, it’s obvious that this problem is bigger than just a band of upstart humanoids – does your adventuring party have the brains, brawn and grit to secure the place?

This 48 page adventure presents a ruined abbey and grounds with around ninety rooms on several levels. It’s gt a great realism vibe and the 1e crowd will be thrilled. It’s also more than a little wordy with the DM text, with all that entails for usability.

Sir Useless has a new land grant and sends in his surveyors. They make it to the site of an old abandoned abbey that everyone knows about. One dude returns, everyone else slaughtered. Sire Useless sends in his men to clean up the humanoid problem. Only two return, everyone else slaughtered, so he gets some specialists. The abbey has some grounds, also detailed, and is mostly ruined, so you get a couple of old parts of the abbey, ruins, an upper floor and a couple of dungeon levels which represents their basement area and some catacombs. This is supported by some nicely clean and gone maps. It gives the impressions of realism while the ruined walls, collapsed areas and the like provide ample opportunity to adventure. Nice CC maps, I think, without going overboard, exactly the right mix of legibility and art. Or, would be if it had reacting monsters on it. Cause I’m gonna print out the map and mark reacting monsters on it so I can run the adventure. WHich means that the designer should do something like that for me.

I want to call out this encounter description on the abbey grounds, which I think exemplifies the spirit of the adventure. The read-aloud is “Copses of hardwoods grow at the long ends of a stagnant rainwater pond. Algae and pond scum float on its surface among reeds and cattails.” and then the first line of the DM notes: “The water surface is about five feet below level land, exposing roughly twenty feet of muck and mud all around its perimeter.” It goes on a bit more for the DM notes but that’s a decent little description both for the players and then a little more to help the DM bring the encounter location to life with the ring of muck. Pretty nice. Oh, hey, yeah, the reason I’m calling this out is because the GREEN SLIME in the water!! Dude told you it was there! Stagnant. Algae and pond scum floating. And you stuck your fucking hand in it?! After wading through the fucking mud?! This is a perfect example of verisimilitude working in an adventure. The creature chosen fits in to the environment perfectly. Abandoned abbey grounds, so we get the stagnant pool, and then the perfect monster choice for the stagnant pool, placed in a way that is obvious in retrospect. That’s good. And while not every encounter reached these heights there are enough of them trying to do this that this kind of “fantasy realism” comes through. Enough to have fun but not enough to be boring.

The village description, where Sir useless has his manor, gets the following description: “traveler-friendly amenities include the tavern, an inn/ procurement house/brewery, a temple (aligned with NG or LN deities), and Sir Feris’ estate (there is a modest guest cottage on the grounds of his walled estate);” That’s fine. This isn’t a village adventure. It hits pretty much what the DM needs. I could quibble about inserting a fun name or fact, but it’s good enough. What the adventure does do, though, is go through a little description of the seven or eight strangers that have passed through this off-the-beaten-track village in the last couple of months. Perfect! If you ask around about strangers, as one might, then this is what you’re going to learn. That IS where most of the effort in the village should lie. Or, at least IN THIS CASE. We provide what the DM needs in the situation they need it in, not as a rote exercise in all cases. 

The abbey grounds are fine, as I mentioned before. A little fighting, a few things to puzzle out. Undead in the catacombs, unaligned necromancer in the upper floors with with retinue of hired NPC’s and gnolls, with a few natural creatures/monsters tossed in. Decent little en vironmental things. Treasure feels a little light on coins in a gold=xp game, but a decent number of magic items also. It all kind of channels that spirit of the sample dungeon in the 1 DMG, from the secret door to the scroll in the stream. 

But, it’s not for me. Maybe for you. But not for me. And you know why. Mucho Texto, along with some very basic formatting that does little to alleviate the text overflow. There’s bold for the read-aloud, and super-duper bold for more emphasis, with italics. It’s all pretty basic and a little overwhelming to the eye, making it seem like EVERYTHING is important. But, meh, not my fav but I could I guess get over that.

The degree of text present here is quite large. And I don’t mean “relevant text.” There is a substantial amount of backstory present just about everywhere in this adventure. Most of the abbey is a ruin because local villagers took the stones, but left most of the main abbey intact because of superstitious fear. Ok. Does this matter expect to explain WHY the abbey is partially ruined? I don’t think so. And there is almost never a reason in a D&D adventure to explain and/or justify something. Yet we see that over and over again in this. In addition there this is kind of appeal to the historical abbey and its usage. “These fields were used for combat practice – the north for equestrian use, the south for melee training. The path was built of tightly-fitted slate flagstones; most of them have been removed, the rest carpeted by a century of dirt and grass overgrowth.” None of that text matters. The flagstone doesn’t exist or can’t be seen. This is straight out of the Dungeon Magazine trophy room nonsense description, the worst room description of all time, or at least in this aspect. 

I can appreciate that this is a pretty damn good historical abbey ground. (And, again, nice map!) And I DO find the stone removal for houses appealing at some level. Yeah, this is the way things work. But it, and so much more here, has no impact on the adventure beyond really leaning in to that historically accurate thing. But you have to balance that with usability. And making the DM dig through a lot of not-pertinent information that is interesting trivia in order to get to and/or not emphasize the important parts of the rooms shows a lack of understanding of how a room entry is used and, in fact, what its purpose is. Some of the rooms approach wall of text territory, and no matter how much the “well _I_ like that stuff” crowd want to crow, wall of text territory is not good. 

This is an ok adventure and it has that kind of lower-fantasy vibe that I find appealing. Maybe a little too staid, with the appeals to THE FANTASTIC coming mostly through churchy shit. But, I can see people wanting that. What I’m having a hard time with is that there are NUMEROUS other adventure that one could select that DONT have the wordiness/usability issues this has. I would almost always pick up one of those and select it rather than this one. I could quibble about monster reactions, coinage, level fives, and so on, but, in a world in which every adventure ever written is available, why torment yourself?

This is $8.50 at DriveThru. There’s no previews. You gotta put in a preview man! At least showing a few encounters so a prospective buyer can get a sense of your writing and formatting style so they can make an informed decision.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/551514/tagma-angelikon-ap009?1892600

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 In the world of Castles & Crusades, the Calygreyhound is a creature drawn directly from medieval heraldry. While many fantasy monsters strive for a shred of biological realism, the Calygreyhound is proudly "impossible"—a chimeric beast that symbolizes absolute speed and supernatural swiftness.Physical DescriptionThe Calygreyhound is a bizarre amalgamation of several creatures. In the Needleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11243274667834930867noreply@blogger.com0

I am in limbo – I just finished my SISC socks, they’re off the needles and gone for a bath, and I don’t pull the next bag until the 1st of the month so I’ve got the littlest of sock breaks. I’m working on that Craghill Shawl but it doesn’t have a deadline and I’m under-motivated. The rows are getting long and I think I’m into a cheaper thrill right now.

I am really, really motivated to make a baby set but the yarn hasn’t arrived (I think it might today) and once that happens I am all in on that, since the baby might have gotten slightly ahead of me there. I need to start a sweater for Elliot (he has a special request) but the yarn for that is en route as well. I was about to wander aimlessly upstairs and turn my attention to one of the multitude of projects I’ve put down over the last months, when I thought to have a look at “The Big Plan.”

The Big Plan is far less fancy (or big, or trademarked) than it sounds, but like the Self-Imposed Sock Club (SISC) and The Long Range Planning Box for completed items, it’s one of my better ideas. You know how you’ll be minding your own business and you’ll see a project or have an idea or remember there’s an occasion coming up and you think “oh, I’ve got to get on that this year”. When that happens to me, I open my phone or computer and go to a note called “The Big Plan” and jot down whatever it happens to be. On there right now is a sewing project I don’t want to forget to get ahead on for next Christmas, and a note that a friend who makes soap could use some hand knit facecloths for her birthday, some ornaments I want to give as a Hallowe’en gift that it would be smart to make in the summer, that I need to gather pinecones for something else -whenever I see them through the year, and that (and this is that part that is relevant to this post) this is a year I have to knit and make another Advent Calendar, and that it would be super smart to knit a few of the ornaments each month so that it can’t get on top of me. (There’s also a note to buy the felt to make it when I see it on sale but that’s not as important to you.)

So- in this perfect moment of in-betwixt idleness, I’m going to fill my needles with a few of those little things and tuck them away (in The Long Range Planning Box, obviously) so that November Stephanie has only nice things to say about me.

If you’d like to play along, today I’m making a teeny hat and a maybe a tiny sock. I bet the baby sweater yarn is here when I’m done.

 In the 1943 issue of Feature Comics #66, The Corpse (secretly Slick Murdock) is a classic Golden Age "undead" villain who serves as a perfect foil for a Victorious RPG campaign—especially for street-level heroes or those dealing with supernatural threats. This entry picks right up from MJL's The Shield aka The Iron Clad Shield NPC For For The Victorious Rpg & The Belle Ãpoque Role Needleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11243274667834930867noreply@blogger.com0

Tegan Jovanka is the latest classic Doctor Who companion to become an action figure in the new Vortex Edition set

Character Options have revealed the first Doctor Who exclusive figure set of 2026: Tegan Jovanka and Destroyed Dalek. This limited-edition Vortex set comes with two figures, as well as two accessories. The Tegan figure is intricate in its styling and stands 13.7cm tall, with multiple articulation points consisting of ankles, knees, hips, waist, shoulders, elbows and neck.

The figure features Tegan’s outfit from Resurrection Of The Daleks. In the 1984 story a mysterious time corridor diverts Tegan, the Fifth Doctor, and Turlough, to present day London. There they uncover an evil new plot across two time zones by old enemies the Daleks. In the distant future they attack the prison ship holding their creator Davros, and in the present day they also move to replace Earth’s leaders with duplicates. But within these plans is an even greater target: Gallifrey itself.

Resurrection of the Daleks was also Janet Fielding’s final regular appearance as Tegan in Doctor Who, with one of series’ most touching companion departure scenes. She would return 38 years later for The Power of the Doctor, starring Jodie Whittaker.

Accessories in the new action figure set include a Dalek Trooper gun, as used by Commander Lytton’s mercenaries, as well as a Movellan virus canister. There’s also a destroyed ‘Resurrection’ style Dalek, with a blasted and scorched casing, and internal life support tank. The design is splattered with bright green Dalek gore and shows the mortally wounded Dalek mutant within.

The set comes beautifully presented in open presentation box packaging with insert and is the perfect piece of memorabilia to add to any Doctor Who collection.

 

The Tegan and Destroyed Dalek Set (c) Character Options

You can order the Tegan Jovanka and Destroyed Dalek set now, exclusive to the Character Options site.

 

The post Doctor Who Action Figures: Resurrection Tegan and Dalek appeared first on Blogtor Who.

Don Maitz
In the Latter Ages of Earth, people do not die completely, at least not quickly. As these things are understood by the Instrumentality an imprint, an after-image, of a person remains in the Ancients' datasphere. When a Mind is informed by that record, a simulacrum, at least in part, of the deceased is made. This is a shade, though not in the way the superstitious common folk imagine. 

At its base, necromancy is the magical art of summoning and controlling shades. It's practice is watched closely by local authorities and the Instrumentality (in those areas where it holds sway). Being able to interact with the shades of the recently deceased is undeniably useful, not the least in forensic necromancy. Where necromancers primarily run afoul of the Instrumentality and temporal authorities is when they use their arts to create undead.

The criminal necromancer creates undead for two primary reasons. The first is for manual labor. These workers don't require a shade in the semblance of any particular person, so necromancers can pluck from the either degraded or partial shades; rudimentary data on physical movements is their primary concern. With a corpse as a substrate and sufficient art applied to their animation, a necromancer can turn out laborers for difficult conditions or troops whose shock value may compensate for their lack of intelligence and skill at arms.

The second application is more lucrative but requires more skill and time. That is the provision of immortality, or as close as their arts may come to it. This requires the creation of a specially made shade, imaged with precision from the current mental vector of the aspiring immortal. In the fallen Latter Age, this generally means destructive mapping of the individual's brain and its functioning. The intellect is then housed in a suitable, durable platform and placed within their old body. The body will inevitably decay, but the necromancer's arts can delay that decay, preserving function perhaps for millennia.  The culmination of these techniques is the lich, though botched jobs, and cost- or material-saving techniques have created many other variations, which are more common.

Someone recently asked me when I started playing D&D. When I told them it was the mid-80s, their eyes lit up. “Wow! The 80s. You had the Stranger Things experience.”

I stopped reflecting on it, and I realized: Yes. Yes, I did.

We didn’t have the Demogorgon (well, not in real life), and we didn’t have the basements. But we had the dinner table, the dice, and the absolute mystery of this game that seemed to exist in the shadows.

The Artifacts of Legend

I was aware of Dungeons & Dragons long before I rolled a d20. As I mentioned in my “Proto-Years” post, the game was already seeping into my life through the LJN action figures and those iconic ads in the back of comic books. I would see the books and boxed sets sitting on the shelves at The Book Store in Old San Juan or at B. Dalton in the mall—forbidden tomes promising adventure.

My curiosity finally won out in 1985. I bought the Frank Mentzer Dungeons & Dragons Basic Set—the legendary Red Box.

I opened it up and devoured the solo adventure immediately. That part made perfect sense to me; it was just like the Choose Your Own Adventure or the Be an Interplanetary Spy books I loved, but with dice!

But then I turned the page to the rest of the book. The rules. The text. The procedures.

It made no sense.

You have to remember, this was a time before the internet. There were no “actual play” video series, no YouTube tutorials, no Reddit threads to ask for clarification. I didn’t know anyone who played D&D properly.

I did have a classmate who I used to see walking around the schoolyard with a group of friends. He would carry a notebook, reading from it while the others jumped over imaginary obstacles or walked along a line on the pavement. When I asked him what they were doing, he said, “Playing Dungeons & Dragons.”

I didn’t quite know how you played D&D, but looking at them, I thought: That doesn’t seem right.

I learned later that his older siblings played the game but wouldn’t let him join. So, he had done some espionage, taking notes from their books when they weren’t looking, interpreting what he could from overhearing their sessions, and making up his own rules based on the fragments he understood.

I had to find out the truth. I had to know how you really played. But after that initial attempt with the Red Box, I hit a wall. I didn’t understand the rules, and I didn’t have a party. So, the red box languished on my bookshelf, unused.

The Challenge Accepted

Fast forward to the summer of 1986.

A neighbor, one or two years my senior, came back from a friend’s house buzzing with energy. He had played D&D. He was fascinated by it. He wouldn’t stop talking about the adventure.

I blurted out, “I have that game! We should play it.”

“We definitely should,” he said.

I looked at him, relieved. “Since you’ve played it, you should run it for us.”

He hesitated. He admitted he wasn’t sure how to do that part. He looked at me and suggested that since I was the one who owned the box, I should be the Dungeon Master.

Never one to shy away from a challenge, I grinned. “Sure, let’s play tomorrow!”

The Long Night

I went back home, pulled the Red Box off the shelf, and started reading.

Panic set in immediately.

It made even less sense than before. I realized, with dawning horror, that I had to read the whole thing, learn to play the game, and run the game… by tomorrow morning.

I should have canceled. I should have asked for a few more days. But I didn’t.

I stayed up late, poring over the text, trying to decipher to-hit rolls and saving throws. Late into the night, I developed a splitting headache. I took some painkillers, rubbed my temples, and went to bed with my brain buzzing. I had learned as much as I could. I just hoped it was enough.

As an aside, looking back now, the Mentzer Red Box was a masterpiece of instructional design. It was steeped in the style of the day—callers, mappers, strict procedures—but it did a wonderful job of teaching that specific style of play. I ran my first session without ever seeing the game played, taught only by the words on the page.

The First Roll

The next day, we met at my house.

There were seven of us—neighbors and childhood friends—sitting around a table. We used my collection of LJN toys to keep track of the marching order. I opened the book, and we wandered into our first dungeon.

That was my first time Dungeon Mastering. It was chaos, it was messy, and it was magic.

The rest, as they say, is history.

The post Video of the Day – Doctor Who: Quotes to Live By, 2026 appeared first on Blogtor Who.

 In the tradition of Howard, Leiber, and Smith, undead in a Sword & Sorcery setting shouldn't just be "stat blocks"—they should be atmospheric, grotesque, and often tied to ancient, forgotten sins.Here is a D100 Random Encounter Table designed for grim, low-fantasy grit.D100 Sword & Sorcery Undead EncountersRollEncounter Description01-05The Salt-Caked Rowers: 2d6 skeletons of galley Needleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11243274667834930867noreply@blogger.com0

Have you heard about GoSadi? It's an amazing new hub for makers and designers, crocheters and knitters, and I've been alpha testing it for the past two years. And now I'm so excited to announce that it is officially open - and now you can all join me and explore all this amazingness! Learn more, […]

The post Introducing GoSadi - for Makers and Designers appeared first on moogly. Please visit www.mooglyblog.com for this post.

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