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Centuries ago, a mortal Myrenean queen named Nimuanne used forbidden rites at a sacred menhir field to transcend death, splitting her essence into three fragments upon her final death: Body, Mind, and Spirit. Grave robbers broke open the funerary urn containing these fragments, plunging the region into a desperate crisis.

This 79 page adventure presents four or five dungeons with ten to twenty locations each, plus a few small towns in a small region that is having some troubles. Its abstracted text seems out of place given the page count, with a lack of anything specific going on in the adventure.

Ok, so, I got some things to say. And this adventure probably doesn’t deserve to be the one I go off on. It’s not a disaster.

But, also, this sentence appears in the adventure: “That independence became its undoing: no walls, no militia, no warning before its own monks were the first to fall when the Mind Stone took root beneath them, spreading house to house until the entire town turned in what may have been a single night.”  I have a blind spot when it comes to spotting AI. But, the triple negative is a a hallmark of AI. I’m not even going to mention the end of that sentence, just focusing on the triple negative. It stands out like a sore thumb. And it’s listed as human created with no AI. I’m no “AI is the bogeyman and everywhere!” kind of person, but this sticks out.

I think, though, what stood out the mot for me in this adventure was the page count vs the dungeon content. I’m not sure how to frame this so people will understand. The dungeons here are relatively small, ten to twenty rooms. The room descriptions are rather minimal, a sentence or two. “Cell 3. A single unlabeled potion of climbing, tucked behind a loose stone, easy to miss without a search.” Or, for a longer room “Storeroom. Broken crates, moldering sacks, the smell of old grain gone to rot. 2 Shambling Husks stir. Loot: a locked strongbox (30gp), and a scroll of protection from undead, wax seal still faintly intact.” Even that is pretty light. And there’s nothing wrong with that. But, that also means that the dungeon keys fit on a page or maybe a little more, for a ten room dungeon. And there are only, I don’t know, four or so dungeons in this? That’s only a small number of pages. But this is an eight page adventure. I have no idea, honestly, no idea, what those pages are being used for. Stat blocks at the end, tables at the end, maps, I guess. It’s just so offputting. To see a large page count and then see the size of the dungeons and the minimal room descriptions. 

Because the rest of the content, those in between pages, are not exactly stellar. The local lord is having a dream about three locations. Go check em out and defeat the evil one. I know, I know, i’m hyperbolic, but this is almost the extent of what you get to help launch the adventure. Go ahead and get the party moving based on that. Because that’s about all you’re getting. Oh, there’s a fuck ton of explaining and backstory and so on, but I think thats being confused for gaeable content. The actually hooks in, the specificity, is not there at all. This is supposed to be a sandbox like thing. Do the three in any order and then end up at the final dungeon. But its all so very loose. Maybe, I mean abstracted. “Hey, there’s a ransacked village with some pod people in it. You need the party to en up at the local monastery.” Again, hyperbolic, but not by much. But, then, also, augment that with a whole lot of backstory that isn’t really relevant to the game at the table. 

The emphasis here is on the wrong things. You can, as Stonhell demonstrated, get away with some minimal keying. But you do this by adding context and specificity around the general situation in the area. There are things going on, the place is alive, as noted in the general notes for the level/area. This allows for a rather shorter dungeon key entry. But, importantly, we cannot mistake historical background for “current situation.” Or even, the current situation for “this shit will impact game play.” If it’s not impacting game play then it’s just padding. A line or two od padding, thrown in here or there, might be fine. You can’t lose sight of the goal: supporting the game at the table. In looking at a page long NPC description, does it matter that dude grew up an orphan? Almost certainly not. 

This misses the mark with nearly everything. Yes, it does have some interconnected dungeons that are coherent enough to run. But any specificity, in town, in the hook, in the wilderness, outside the dungeon, inside the dungeon, is essentially absent. Anything that could tie things together well and help the DM create the feelings of immersion that a ten session adventure would rely upon is not present. 

Also, it’s mostly stabbin. 

There is supposed to be a whole pod person thing going on in one area that can bleed over in to others. None of that comes through well. The interconnections and theming between the sites, doesn’t come across. And, finally, the last dungeon has three separate version, only one of which will be used. This would seem to be a waste.

It’s just weird, in the way it abstracted the content and yet is STILL quite lengthy. 

This is $10 at DriveThru. The preview is fifteen pages. You’ll get some general overview, and none of the dungeons. That overview is, honesty, the most information you’re going to get about the hook and linking things together.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/580488/the-unleashing-of-st-nimuanne?1892600

The post Video of the Day – Doctor Who: Highlights of Series 6, 2026 appeared first on Blogtor Who.

Paul Vermeren's game of futuristic, super-powered resistance fighters on the run is back in a new edition! The standalone game GRIDSHOCK ZERO, powered appropriately enough by Free League's Year Zero Engine is being crowdfunded now on Gamefound.

I've talked about my appreciation for GRIDSHOCK before. Paul has a familiar-but-fresh vision not really like anything else out there and he's assembled artists for this version (Simon Roy, Giannis Milonogiannis, and the returning Steven de Waele) to really give a great visual style.

I may even get a chance to pitch some adventure scenarios for it, so back it and stay tuned!

The post Video of the Day – BARK and Josh Horowitz, 2026 appeared first on Blogtor Who.

The Kaleidoscope is Jo Martin’s stunning debut novel, with the actor’s deep understanding of the Fugitive Doctor creating a compelling tale of memory and identity

 

Circuit Breaker is Doctor Who’s third epic cross-media event, following 2020’s Time Lord Victorious and 2023’s Doom’s Day. It was already head and shoulders above those efforts, but new full length novel The Kaleidoscope establishes it as one of the most compelling and significant Doctor Who stories of recent years. In many ways it calls to mind the old New Adventures credo. Like them it tells a story too deep and too broad for television. Time Lord Victorious’ concept of the Tenth Doctor going off the rails was enticing on the surface. But it could never really take that idea very far. Meanwhile, Doom’s Day asked for a lot of in investment in a brand new character. Both contained some great stories, but Circuit Breaker really shines in taking advantage of the Fugitive Doctor’s mystery and rougher edges.

 

Circuit Breaker is already the strongest of these events so far, and the new novel gives it true heart

The actual plot throughline of this arc has been looser than ever. All summer the Doctor’s been on a reverse scavenger hunt – returning items to their proper place in space and time. But that’s been the perfect way to give more breathing room to the storyline’s emotional core. The Kaleidoscope brings this to the forefront. Its novel format allows more access than ever to the Fugitive Doctor’s thoughts and feelings. Traditionally, few Doctor Who novels are told in the first person from the Doctor’s perspective, in order to help preserve their sense of unknowable mystery. But this Doctor is a mystery to herself, and more closed off than most to sharing with others. In addition, she’s an incarnation we barely spent any time with on screen, so she benefit from this chance to know her better.

The Kaleidoscope’s greatest asset in this is Jo Martin herself. The actor takes up the challenge of exploring her own character’s interior life with thoughtful precision and deep emotional intelligence. While this is her debut novel, Martin has written for stage and screen before and the result stands apart from other recent celebrity Doctor Who novels. It’s telling perhaps that the acknowledgements don’t suggest an established co-author. Instead, there’s merely thank to MG Harris and Steve Cole for editing and for providing details of Doctor Who lore. Meanwhile, the author’s notes make it clear that Martin has thought deeply about her version of the Time Lord. Far more than just tough and ruthless, this is the Doctor about as vulnerable and uncertain as we’ve ever seen them.

 

The Fugitive Doctor gains more depth and shades, as Jo Martin grants us a view behind the gruff exterior

The Fugitive Doctor series over at Big Finish tries its best to keep to Chris Chibnall’s suggestion of a vague placement for this incarnation. However, Martin herself obviously feels entitled to her own strong ideas about that. The result is the most satisfying and emotionally impactful story for her yet. It reframes the tale told in The Timeless Children, from one of a Division agent mind-wiped at retirement, to something more like Marvel’s Winter Soldier. A weapon to be reset and rebooted whenever, inevitably, she rebels again and again against their cruelty and cowardice.

This element skillfully unfolds from the Doctor’s initial boasting of her ‘Great Reserve’ – a Sherlockian mind palace of information and experience she doesn’t remember acquiring – to growing concern about why she doesn’t remember it. Why does she keep encountering people she’s never met but who definitely know her face? And why does she have such an instinctive affection for a second rate backwater planet like Earth anyway? These questions bring her from confidence through self-doubt, to ultimately a new determination to reclaim her own life.

In its closing chapters, The Kaleidoscope similarly redefines one of the most important relationships in the whole of Doctor Who. In doing so it also provides a compelling and heartbreaking new understanding of just why, as Amy Pond observed, the one thing the Doctor can’t do is leave a crying child.

 

Their quest takes the Doctor and Martha from London to modern Jamaica to a Jamaican space colony in the distant future, infused with Martin’s clear love for the island

All this character development for the Fugitive fits beautifully with the details of her and Martha’s latest mission. The supposed ‘kaleidoscope’ itself is actually an alien device for grounding memory at both at a cultural and personal level, designed to ensure a society never loses touch with its history. Appropriately, the main villains here to stop our heroes unlocking its secrets are the Silence. After all, another way to stop the Doctor ever speaking their name is to make sure they can’t remember it…

The Doctor’s personal journey and mission intersect in Jamaica. In the future, an isolationist colony world tries to hold a nostalgic notion of Old Earth Jamaica in amber forever. In the present, the Doctor and Martha travel to the real Jamaica and encounter a woman claiming to the Time Lord’s mother. Throughout both, Jo Martin’s love for her own parents’ homeland shines through. The novel is full of fond observations about the island’s people, language, and unique character. It’s this, as much as the author’s closeness to the role she played on television, that gives Kaleidoscope a sense of deep authenticity.

 

All the chapters in Circuit Breaker stand alone as well as being part of the wider arc, but if you only pick up one it should be The Kaleidoscope

The science behind the kaleidoscope may be questionable even by Doctor Who standards. Clues about a particular character, presumably to pay off in Circuit Breaker’s finale, may be laid on so thickly you could hang wallpaper with them. But this is a blisteringly good Doctor Who novel. It’s also an astonishing debut novel in its own right, if one likely to be overlooked by critics due to its TV tie-in nature.

Big Finish provide the climax of Circuit Breaker with next week’s Full Circuit. Yet The Kaleidoscope will likely prove to be its real heart. Even if you only pick up one entry in this year’s event, make it this one.

 

Doctor Who: The Kaleidoscope. Cover by Lee Binding (c) Penguin Books Doctor Who: The Kaleidoscope

When memories lie, the truth can be fatal.

In the aftermath of an improbable mission, the Fugitive Doctor and Martha realise that something is interfering with their minds. Something that doesn’t want to be found.

Their investigation leads to a curious artefact in the British Museum: an apparently medieval toy known as the Kaleidoscope. But the object refuses to stay in one place, one time – or one identity. And when the Doctor is repeatedly mistaken for someone she’s never met, fragments of unfamiliar memories begin to surface.

Across the Earth, a hidden pattern emerges; evidence of a secret that someone has gone to extraordinary lengths to conceal. As ancient enemies close in and innocent lives are put at risk, the Doctor learns the hard way that some truths were buried for a reason…

The Kaleidoscope is out now, and you can buy your copy at all good bookshops or at the links here.

The post REVIEW: Doctor Who: The Kaleidoscope appeared first on Blogtor Who.

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If you're lucky, the temps are finally starting to drop a bit - and the yarn is beckoning! Join me for another Crochet and Catch Up with Moogly as we chat about new patterns, upcoming events, fall projects, and maybe even a few sneak peeks. I'll be answering your questions live, too! You'll find links to […]

The post Crochet and Catch Up with Moogly - September 16, 2026 appeared first on moogly. Please visit www.mooglyblog.com for this post.

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Fifty years after it exploded onto shelves and revolutionised comics forever, the visual story of how 2000 AD has evolved is to be told in a special book. 2000 AD:…

Marvel Comics employees are facing a major career and personal decision as the company prepares to relocate its New York-based comics operation to Burbank, California. Marvel, the iconic publisher that…

By Jeremy Farkas
Troll Lord Games
Castles & Crusades
Level ... 3?

Dare you cross the vast desert and seek out the great red mesa where the near-mythical mine is rumored to lie? Dare you plunge the darksome depths of the labyrinth and wrest fortune and glory from its yawning chasm? Dare you seek out the legendary hammer Earthrender, which bestows lordship upon any dwarf who holds it aloft? Dare you discover the fate of the great wyrm Morglax the Bold, who brought her great host of bandits and monsters up from the south to snuff out Lord Ahidl-Mor and his kin?

This eighteen page adventure uses about fourteen pages to describe a thee levels dwarf “orcs in a hole” with about 35 rooms. Stuffed with humanoids, it uses a conversational style to present a lot of things to stab. 

I’m not sure what to say here. You know all of those adventures that have a bunch of humanoids in a dungeon with some kind of backstory? This is one of those. In this case the humanoids are kobolds, goblins, orcs and bugmeans. Along with the required vermin, an abomination or two, and a young dragon at the end. And in this case the dungeon is a three level Lonely Mountain, with thew dwarves pushed out by orcs and a dragon and the old dwarf king leaving a clue where the entrance was, up to and including a secret entrance on a ledge. The required “broken dwarf elevator” is present. 

Look, I don’t have anything positive to say. I guess I’ve got some negative things to point out. But, overall, there’s just not a lot here. This was a tourney module and then they added some content to try and expand it. I’m going to ignore the expanded content, a village and preamble adventure. I don’t think they really add anything interesting and are just padded out. If you just want to, I don’t know, enter a few rooms and kill a few things then I’ve got some great news for you about this adventure. It even has a few environmental things and light puzzels to solve! You gotta find the yellow control crystal to make the elevator work again! Uh. That didn’t come across well. If you want to stab things then you can, and there a few things to break up the stabbin.

Look, I know people like to stab. It is not lost on me that Chainmail exists. Chainmail, 3e, 3.5, 4e, the whole range, devoted to stabbin.I like to stab also. I like to stab as a means to an end. B/X is my favorite edition because of the balance there between stabbin as a means to an end rather than a tactical minis simulation. Ultimately I’m looking for something with a decent exploratory vibe, some roleplaying, and other interactivity in addition to the stabbin. And it has to be something  a little more interesting than “find the gold key to open the gold lock.”  And the adventure here is not altogether great in areas other than things to stab.

I’m also more than a little irked by many aspects of the C&C house style. Is any one thing terrible? No. Does it all annoy me? Yes. Like, no level range anywhere. I guess you just rush out and dump money at the new C&C adventure rather than looking for a specific adventure for a specific level range? Man, stick a fucking level range on it somewhere.

And the read-aloud here. You know the drill, fancy fonts with long italics make things hard t read. But, further, the read-aloud is all mixed up. We’ve got the famous second person stuff, with lots of “As you draw nearer, you clearly see …” writing, which should never be used. But, then, the bold/italics shifts. While read-aloud is in bolded italics so it DM text! Or, maybe its also read-aloud? It will just suddenly have what is obviously DM only information in the same bolded/italics. Huh? What’s the point then?

And then it’s padded ALL the fuck out. The house style loves to pad, but then the adventure does also. Creature stat blocks are long with phrasing like “Their primary attributes are physical. Their special abilities are dark vision and light sensitivity. In battle they use military forks that deal 1d8 damage, or short swords that deal 1d6 damage” As I get older the sublime majesty of the ready ref sheets becomes more and more apparent. No? You don’t agree? How about a very conversational tone in the writing, which forces you to wade through mountains of padding when locating information? “If for some reason the PCs feel compelled to loot Ahidl’s grave, “ Oh come on. What’s the point there?

And then in other places the information is absurdly out of order. AFTER a room description we get this little note “When the PCs get within 10 feet of the chamber prior, they must cross a steel tripwire just 6 inches off the ground.” That should, I think we can all agree, come BEFORE the room so the DM notices it before the party gets to the room. “Knock has no effect” ah, jesus man. It’s a low level adventure. Let the wizard use his fucking knock spell. It’s one less sleep he’ll have memorized, which is the entire point of utility spells. I can bypass this ther kind of challenge if I give up nuking a room of monsters. What’s wrong with that? Sounds like the D&D circle of life to me. 

I’m looking at room 33 right now, titled Dragon Bones. There’s a paragraph of bolded italics read-aloud. Then there are five paragraphs of DM text that follow. There is nothing in those those five paragraphs related to the room, in play. The past sentence is “Searching the room will yield no secrets or great treasures.” It’s all backstory. A quarter page, or more? For one room? 

I can excuse a lot of things as I’m Not In To That Style Of Play. But I can recognize how someone else might be. But, all of that text, for nothing? Wasted effort? Aimed at readers? Distracting from the purpose of the designer AND the purpose of a DM? Nope.

This is $7 at DriveThru. The preview is about a dozen pages, which includes a sizable number of rooms as well as some preamble text. More than enough to see what you’re getting yourself in to.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/579756/castles-crusades-ahidl-s-keep?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 September 19, 1985.

Warlord #100: Warlord hits 100 issues and Grell provides the cover. I reviewed it here.

Batman and the Outsiders #27: Barr and Davis have Halo getting a new, short, and very 80s haircut. Meanwhile, Sapphire and Rex are on their honeymoon, and Rex is kidnapped by men who appear to pull his soul or consciousness into a palm-sized sphere. Katana's co-worker Emily Briggs pays her a visit at the Wayne Foundation, but as she's leaving, she's kidnapped by thugs. Batman and the Outsiders think the gangster, Morgan Jones, is responsible, but it turns out not to be the case. The thugs that kidnapped Emily were mind-controlled. Elsewhere, Emily's strange captor with glowing eyes tells her she will be queen of the world.

Blue Devil #19: Mishkin/Cohn and Kupperberg/Maygar give this issue prominently featuring Kid Devil a retro feel with several short stories alternating protagonists between Kid Devil and Blue Devil. The Blue Devil ones call him "Kid Devil's Pal." The joke wears thin pretty quickly, unfortunately. There's a segment with the Trickster manipulating both Captain Cold and Kid Devil in an attempt to one-up his Roguish rival. My favorite is probably the one where Kid Devil and his pen pal Robin realize they both fought the same bicoastal villain who relies on public air travel to get back and forth. The Blue Devil sequences deal with him bouncing around some alternate realities before getting home.

Green Lantern #194: This is another Crisis crossover by Englehart and Staton. Guy is transported to Oa and as he meets with the Guardians, we get his backstory as well as Krona's history. Hal had followed part way, but then he was deposited on Oa, not in the Guardians' sanctum. He heads off to the Guardians' citadel, finding that since Oa itself has absorbed energy he is able to fly, but there are also monsters released by loss of the Power Battery's energy.
Meanwhile, Katma Tui is fighting natural disasters on Earth, but her ring suddenly shuts off. John Stewart is in the 19th Century fighting Shadow Demons with Cyborg, Jonah Hex, Bat Lash and Scalphunter, and his ring shuts off, as well.

Infinity, Inc. #20: The Thomases and McFarlane/Montano/DeZuniga formally introduce the two new heroes they've been telegraphing were on the way for the past few issues, and they both have pretty bad costumes. After the wedding of Green Lantern and the Harlequin, Harbinger appears to take the JSA and Infinity, Inc. to the Monitor's satellite. Rick Tyler, left behind, has already decided to become the new Hourman. He heads to South Carolina (hitchhiking) to check on Beth Chapel, who lost her sight in the daytime but now, like Dr. Mid-Nite, can see in the dark. After she and the new Hourman are attacked by the Anti-Monitor's shadow-demons, she decides to her adopt her own superhero identity, designs a costume and becomes "Dr. Midnight." The Chapel family home is hit by a cannonball, so Dr. Midnight and Hourman are immediately thrown into action.

New Teen Titans #15: Arella tracks Raven to a Louisiana leper colony that has been holding her captive, but both are abducted and the lepers killed by Mother Mayhem and the Church of Blood. 
Meanwhile, the Titans in space arrive at Tamarran, and discover what Captain Karras hasn't been telling them: the royal family expects Kory to wed to end the civil war, and the person she must wed is the heir of Kalapatt, Karras. Apparently, none of them know that Blackfire is on Tamarran fomenting unrest.

Sgt. Rock #407: Two stories this issue with three shorter, humor pieces. In the main story, Kanigher and Catan have Easy get a new kid (a shiny "new penny"), but after the first engagement the kid is shellshocked into near catatonia. The lieutenant (who never sees the kid's face. This is important!) demands Rock take the kid to the MPs and wants him court martialed for cowardice. On the way to find MPs in a warzone, the new penny finds his courage and saves Rock by firing an artillery piece at the cost of his own life. When the lieutenant arrives, he finds not only that he was wrong about the kid, but the kid is his own son, just 16, who lied about his age to enlist.
The second story involves pie laced with rat poison being fed to German soldiers, saving two captured G.I.s. The interesting thing here is that it was written, drawn, and colored by Scott Madsen, and so far as I can tell, it's his only comics credit anywhere.

Saga of Swamp Thing #43: Hippie naturalist and sometime drug dealer Chester, happens to pick up one of the tubers that dropped from the Swamp Thing. Examining it, he cuts it into 3 parts. One eventually goes to a woman dying of cancer, who experiences psychedelic visions of her oneness with the Earth and cycles of life, and dies free of pain and at peace. Another is stolen by a bully and dealer who has a bad trip wherein he relives the horrific events of the Swamp Thing's life before he's hit by a car. Chester, hearing these stories, decides the plant must reveal a person's true morality. He considers taking the last bit himself, but them decides against it.

Who's Who #9: We are in "G-H" now. Newer characters Gypsy and Halo show up, courtesy of Patton and Aparo. Harbinger is here by Perez, but her first appearance is wrong. She doesn't even appear in in New Teen Titans (1980) #21. We get the Hawks of two Earths with Hawkgirl (Earth-Two) being drawn by Steve Rude. McFarlane provides the art for Infinity, Inc. antagonists, Helix. With the debut of Hourman II this month, both Rex and Rick Tyler appear here, with art by Murphy Anderson and Denys Cowan, respectively. The newly married Harlequin is here by Nodell/Giordano. There's also the Haunted Tank by regular penciler Sam Glanzman.

The post Video of the Day – Saturday Night Takeaway, 2026 appeared first on Blogtor Who.

You Better Watch Out! For the Third Year Running, EC and Oni Press Present 56 Pages of Head-Lopping Holiday Horror Courtesy of John Arcudi, Sarah Gailey, Ryan Kelly, David Lapham…

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: ​ SEP. 15, 2026 (MIAMI, FL) —​ Mad Cave Studios’ young adult graphic novel imprint, Maverick, presents the highly anticipated sequel to Navigating With You, with Volume 2…

 Here is a d100 random encounter table designed for a high-octane 1930s pulp adventure, optimized for Amazing Adventures (using SIEGE Engine / d20 OSR math) while drawing on the tropes, villains, and modules of the Pulps. This post picks up from OSR Campaign Slab - Amazing Adventures Rpg - Weird War II CampaignPulp Adventure Wilderness & Remote Front-Line Encounters (d100)SIEGE Needleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11243274667834930867noreply@blogger.com0

Elita Prime Story Starts New Arc in the Eisner Award-Winning Series This October! LOS ANGELES 09/15/2026 — Today Skybound and Image Comics, in collaboration with Hasbro, a leading games, IP and toy company, shared a…

The best of Spider-Man in a one-of-a-kind full-color collection of hardcover graphic novels New York, NY – Fanhome, the leading producer of subscription-based collections announces the launch of the Spider-Man…

The donation includes more than 50 pages spanning Kirby’s 1950s western comic Boys’ Ranch through his animation concept art of the 1980s, including some pages from Kirby’s 1960s Marvel Age…

Featuring the Complete Year Zero Series, an All-New 30-Page Story from Benjamin Percy, and Premium Art from Frank Cho, Tim Bradstreet, and More, the Exclusive Zomnibus Edition is Available for…

In a new non-exclusive deal covering North America and Canada, Rebellion Publishing, the home of both 2000 AD and The Treasury of British Comics, are partnering with Universal Distribution to…