Happy 111th Birthday, Robert E. Howard

Today marks the 111th anniversary of the birth of pulp writer Robert E. Howard. It has become a tradition on this date for Howard fans to read a favorite story and raise a toast.

Howard wrote something for every interest: sword and sorcery, hard-boiled detectives, weird horror, historical fiction, boxing, westerns, pirates, and poetry.

It's a great moment for Howard fans who are also tabletop gamers, with the Conan adventure board game out now and the core rulebook for the Conan RPG available sometime later this year.

For his birthday this year I might read one of the stories from Sword Woman and Other Historical Adventures.

For more information on his life and career, start with the following sites:

• Robert E. Howard Days
• The Robert E. Howard Foundation
• Howard Works bibliographic database
• The Cimmerian (archive; no longer updated)

I highly recommend Mark Finn's Howard biography, the Locus and World Fantasy Award-nominated Blood and Thunder: The Life and Art of Robert E. Howard available as an expanded edition from the REH Foundation.

50 years of Star Trek

It's 1991, and I'm sitting in the crowded Shrine Auditorium in LA. My parents scheduled a trip to visit my aunt and uncle so that we'd be there for the 25th Anniversary Creation Star Trek Celebration. The only part of the con I attended was the main event -- a showing of the teaser trailer for ST VI: The Undiscovered Country, followed by the Original Series main cast members and Gene Roddenberry on stage together. It would be the last time they would all appear together in one place.

The Undiscovered Country was billed as the farewell to the original cast, one last send-off before turning the future of the franchise over to The Next Generation. If you haven't seen it or don't remember, the teaser was a series of scenes from the Original Series as if they were projected on the surface of the Enterprise. It was a powerful and special moment seeing those scenes together in the loud appreciative audience of fellow Trekkies.

Star Trek had an enormous impact on me. I literally grew up watching these characters every week, and traveled the galaxy on adventures along with them. I watched the movies, collected starship blueprints, read articles in Starlog, and made up my own fan theories. Seeing that teaser was the highlight of the trip. I thought maybe someday it might be available on VHS to watch again. I couldn't have guessed then that "in the future" it would be available anytime on YouTube on a networked pocket computer more powerful than a Starfleet communicator.

What I find most compelling about the Original Series besides the great storytelling and action, even more so than the later series, is a vision that the future can be better. We can work together to make it so, like the crew of the Enterprise -- not in spite of our differences, but because of them.

Happy 50th to Star Trek, and to all of us who kept it alive. Live Long and Prosper.

A mid-year update

I was reminded over the weekend that I haven't posted since the beginning of the year. What is happening right now:

Getting ready for Gen Con: As always, the time before the con gets shorter and shorter, even if I try to prepare earlier to avoid the crunch time. Although in the past I tried to keep my schedule fairly light, making it easier to wander the halls and play in whatever pops up, in recent years it's become busier. This year my schedule is packed.

I'm running three demo games for Pelgrane Press, two sessions of Night's Black Agents ("Four Days of the Bat" in the morning and "The Van Helsing Letter" in the afternoon) and one session of Trail of Cthulhu on Saturday morning ("The Innsmouth Investigation").

Friday night I'm running Trail of Cthulhu off-the-books for a group of friends, then playing with the same group in our annual Pathfinder game on Saturday night. I hope to pop into various other panels along the way.

Mrs. Kaiju will be hosting a writing workshop on therapeutic expressive freewriting, and co-hosting a presentation on using women's medieval history as flavor for fantasy fiction writing and gaming.

Game writing: I have been watching 80s/90s sci-fi and cyberpunk movies to get inspiration for a cyberpunk RPG project, and then I had the idea flash into my head for yet another hack of a popular rules-light hack game which would be faster to develop and finish first.

Secret Santicore 2015: Compiling and editing entries took much longer than expected, and therefore missed the window of availability for our layout folks. I'm learning Scribus with the goal of completing layout and pushing the project out the door next month before we begin planning for this year's Santicore.

Today is Gary Gygax Day and (coincidentally) Awesome Gamer Day. Celebrate appropriately! Meanwhile I'll try to get back to a normal posting schedule.

Happy Birthday, Robert E. Howard

Today marks the 110th anniversary of the birth of pulp writer Robert E. Howard. It has become a tradition on this date for Howard fans to read a favorite story and raise a toast.

Howard wrote something for every interest: sword and sorcery, hard-boiled detectives, weird horror, historical fiction, boxing, westerns, pirates, and poetry.

This will be a big year for Howard fans who are also tabletop gamers, with the adventure board game being released soon and the Kickstarter for the new RPG from Modiphius scheduled for next month.

I'm going with my wife to an open-mike poetry night at a local coffeehouse so I might not have a chance to read a story this evening. Maybe I should bring the first Del Rey Conan volume along and recite "Cimmeria" for the crowd.

For more information on his life and career, start with the following sites:

• Robert E. Howard United Press Association
• The Robert E. Howard Foundation
• Howard Works bibliographic database
• The Cimmerian (archive; no longer updated)

I highly recommend Mark Finn's Howard biography, the Locus and World Fantasy Award-nominated Blood and Thunder: The Life and Art of Robert E. Howard available as an expanded edition from the REH Foundation.

Three film articles

For the last blog post of the year I wanted to highlight three web posts that I have read recently on the history and current state of two distinct branches of home video releases: Hammer Horror films and Shaw Brothers kung-fu films.

DVD Savant’s Guide to the New Wave of Classic Hammer Blu-rays -- Glenn Erickson, DVD Savant, hosted an guest article in October by an anonymous film industry transfer expert and Hammer fan about Region B (UK,  Europe, Australia) Blu-ray releases and how they compare to each other and US discs. Many of these titles are not yet available on Blu-ray in the US.

How The North American Release of the Shaw Brothers Movies Was Botched -- An in-depth article from January 2015 detailing the history of how the Shaw Brothers kung-fu films were released in the US, from the first theatrical release in 1973, the bootleg VHS copies in the 80s, the Celestial Pictures DVDs of recent years, to the current TV broadcasts on the El Rey Network.

I'm not sure of the identity of this anonymous author. While this person does seem to know insider information about the home video industry and appears to match what I have read elsewhere, sources are not cited, and Celestial Pictures has said the article contains "a ton of inaccuracies." I might also quibble with the author's opinion of certain films and their importance to collectors, but that could be a matter of my own incomplete knowledge.

Diggin' Kung Fu with Johnnyray Gasca -- This interview from 2013 details the other side of the previous article and as a counterpoint, being a first-person account of 42nd Street grindhouse movie theaters and the origin of SB Video, which supplied the VHS boots found in stores all over New York City and elsewhere in the 1980s, contributing to the legendary status of Shaw Brothers films in the US. A fascinating look at an otherwise hidden world.

Happy 100th Birthday, Leigh Brackett

Today is the 100th anniversary of the birth of Leigh Brackett, one of the great authors of fantasy and sci-fi's Golden Age. I haven't read as much of Brackett's work as I should, but I'm working to correct that. And maybe later this week I'll watch Rio Bravo as a tribute.

October means Halloween

It's already October. September just disappeared. One day you're coming back from Gen Con, the next day the leaves start turning and Fall's chill is in the air.

My attention has been on research and writing on a gaming project that I'm pretty excited about. More details soon, I just need to get it wrangled and done before the deadline at the end of this month.

Secret Santicore is on track again this year with only a slight delay. The call for volunteers will go out soon, then for requests shortly after.

Today is the US street date for Warner's first set of four Hammer Horror blu-rays, and their 30s/40s/50s monster film collection is available on the 27th. Each title is also sold separately. It's my understanding that each has received restoration and new masters, for an improvement over the DVDs. I plan to get the Hammer singles over time, with Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed on the way as I type this. Not so sure about The Mummy yet -- I might go with the UK edition.

I am utterly stunned by the number of deep catalog and cult film releases on blu-ray this year. Kino, Twilight Time, Warner Archive, Shout Factory, and others have all been busy. I've had trouble keeping track. A roundup highlighting this work would make a great end-of-the-year series of posts.

My Gen Con 2015 haul

I didn't spend as much time browsing through the Exhibit Hall this year as I would have liked, but I did get to my top priorities -- and a few unexpected pieces.

Blowing Up the Movies by Robin Laws was a stretch goal for the Feng Shui 2 Kickstarter, and although I had the ebook version I wanted the print copy on my shelf.

Sigh Co. offers a ton of Lovecraft-related shirts, and their 1930s Prairie-style Miskatonic University T-Shirt stood out.

Green Ronin had several boxes of older material for $2 each, so I grabbed the Revised Edition True20 rulebook along with the Warrior's and Adept's Handbooks. Fantasy AGE and Titansgrave had already sold out -- I flipped through their display copy of Fantasy AGE and it looks good.

Steve Dempsey generously chatted with us for a bit about Night's Black Agents and Trail of Cthulhu at the Pelgrane Press booth. Shortly after that, I picked up the Trail rulebook in anticipation of a future ongoing Gen Con campaign (along with a 13th Age Escalation Die).

The Goodman Games booth is where I spent most of my dealers' hall time this year, with two separate visits. On the first round I picked up a print copy of Black Sun Deathcrawl, along with  Sailors on the Starless Sea, Crawl #1 and Crawljammer Issue 1. The second time I got a great combo deal on the Wizard Van t-shirt and one of the last skull logo shirts, and the adventures Against the Atomic Overlord and The Rock Awakens. This gave me the chance to roll the giant d20 twice, for which I was rewarded with the 2013 Gen Con Program Book and...

my choice from a stack of foamboard-backed promotional posters, in which I found this poster of the Frozen in Time sketch cover. I had it signed by Joseph Goodman and artist Doug Kovacs, but I missed Michael Curtis (next year!). Also pictured are issues 2 and 5 of The Gongfarmer's Almanac, an in-house zine produced for Gen Con. The picture is missing the swag bag of free Dungeon Crawl Classics goodies, including a pad of blank 0-level character sheets.

Already thinking about next year!

Kaiju Movie Marathon this Saturday

This Saturday, July 18th, Shout Factory TV and Famous Monsters of Filmland are hosting a free 24-hour live stream marathon of Godzilla films, Ultra Seven and Ultra Q episodes, with introductions by kaiju expert August Ragone. See the link for the full schedule (auto-play video on the page, but it was muted when I looked at it). It's also being streamed on the Pluto TV app for mobile and TV devices. (US and Canadian IP addresses only)



Age of Ravens nominated for Best Website ENnie Award

Lowell's site is full of campaign ideas, gaming tips discovered during actual play, and he's been doing a great service by producing a valuable ongoing resource of  histories of RPG genres. Take a look at some of his previous posts.

I will be voting Age of Ravens as my #1 choice for Best Website at the ENnies.

Google Doodle for Eiji Tsuburaya’s 114th Birthday

It's fantastic to see Google honor the special effects director Eiji Tsuburaya on what would have been his 114th birthday today with a very involved Google Doodle game on their home page. Create a movie alongside the master!

Read about the making of the doodle here.

The Return of Reptilicus

Next Tuesday sees a release that I would not have expected -- Reptilicus on Blu-ray. It's a double-feature disc along with American-International Pictures' Tentacles, their star-filled 1977 copy of Jaws.

If you're unfamiliar with Reptilicus, have a look at my film and DVD review, including the condensed 10 minute version.

Letterman's Last Late (Night) Show

"From the home office in Lincoln, Nebraska..."

David Letterman's final episode of The Late Show aired last night. It was a good mix of on-stage bits (the Top Ten list), clips, music and Dave speaking directly to the audience as he usually does. It was also in many ways the end of an era.

It's not an exaggeration to say that I grew up with Dave. From the beginning I was one of those kids that stayed up way too late on school nights to watch his show and talked about it in the halls at school the next day. In that era before on-demand video clips, you couldn't be sure you would ever see those bits again.

I think Dave's shows struck a chord with me because he was one of us. He had the same Midwestern sense of humor that mocked and joked, but was never mean. He found the funny side of every-day occurrences. He had respect for the common person and never forgot where he came from. Who else would have made national celebrities of shopkeepers working in the theater's neighborhood?

Over time the show may have become repetitive, but the early years were great for being creative, chaotic, and willing to try anything. Dave and the show had much of the same vibe as early Saturday Night Live, as if they were left on their own in this late time slot with no one from the network overseeing the program (untrue, of course). What other shows would have characters like Larry "Bud" Melman and The Guy Under the Seats, or guests like Brother Theodore? What studio exec would have thought throwing things off a five-story tower would be funny and popular? He took concepts first started by Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show and refined them under the constraints of the network (and Carson Productions) into a format that all the late night talk shows still use today.

I could say that I miss him already, but really, I've been missing those early shows for a while now.

"She's gone already, Chief."

Quick comments on A Red & Pleasant Land

Short on time recently for a full review, so here are comments I posted last month to RPGGeek:

R&PL raises the bar for all other small-press RPG publishers in terms of content, illustrations, and layout, and as a physical object. Looking at only the PDF version does not do this work justice.

It's designed specifically for ease of play and direct use at the table. The GM is given just enough information to create adventures in the setting through the use of bullet-point lists and tables. No dense text blocks or pages of back story that must be absorbed before playing the game. Sit down, break out this book and your favorite rules system, and start rolling for months/years of play.

Even better, it can be used as a toolkit for your own setting. How to deal with eccentric NPCs, interacting with the mirror world on the other side of the Looking Glass, the 3D spatial relationships of the castle maps, mass combat methods, instant location creation... all can be drifted into any campaign with ease.

R&PL is a new and totally unique take on a classic fantasy story, with plenty of room to make the setting your own.

Adding to the above, I had been following the previews, and considering the limited print run it was a day-one purchase for me. Check it out before they are all gone.

Conan RPG announcement from Modiphius

Early yesterday morning the news broke out across gaming social media that Modiphius had officially announced a new licensed Conan RPG. I knew that someone had the license from Paradox and Conan Properties but not who, nor when it would be released.

Modiphius is also working with Monolith Board Games, who are currently Kickstarting a Conan board game, to cross-promote (using the board game miniatures with the RPG; playing out RPG scenarios in the board game).

The RPG will use the 2d20 system, which I am not familiar with but is used in the Mutant Chronicles RPG that was successfully crowdfunded last year and is now beginning to show up in PDF.

I'm keeping an optimistic eye on how the game develops. With Howard scholars Jeffrey Shanks and Mark Finn on board, it should be in good hands.

Happy Birthday, Robert E. Howard

Today marks the 109th anniversary of the birth of pulp writer Robert E. Howard. It has become a tradition on this date for Howard fans to read a favorite story and raise a toast.

Howard wrote something for every taste: sword and sorcery, hard-boiled detectives, weird horror, historical fiction, boxing, westerns, pirates, and poetry.

I have a copy of Conan Meets the Academy checked out from the library, so I might read a few of the essays rather than one of his stories this year. Brian Murphy wrote an outstanding review and critique of the book at The Silver Key (the comments are good, also).

For more information on his life and career, start with the following sites:

• Robert E. Howard United Press Association
• The Robert E. Howard Foundation
• Howard Works bibliographic database
• The Cimmerian (archive; no longer updated)

I would also recommend Mark Finn's Howard biography, the Locus and World Fantasy Award-nominated Blood and Thunder: The Life and Art of Robert E. Howard. An new expanded edition was released by the REH Foundation.

What to expect here in 2015

I have become wary of promising myself too much in these New Year "looking ahead" posts. Inevitably some crisis will knock me off track from what I've proposed, and I'll feel like I haven't been able to keep up. Even so, putting these ideas out here still seems like the best way to focus on projects.

I'm eager to run an RPG campaign again. We had a short test run of D&D 5e for three sessions, using the Starter Set adventure The Lost Mine of Phandelver. The players and I had fun, although I'm not sure it was enough time to really test the system. My takeaway -- based as much on other reviews I have read as on our playtest -- is that it delivers just what I want "D&D" to be. There will always be tweaks and house-ruling, but it works as written, and at the right balance for me between simplicity and complexity.

The campaign ideas foremost on my mind at the moment:

• D&D 5e, possibly starting with Phandelver and leading into Horde of the Dragon Queen (a heavily hacked and curtailed version) and The Rise of Tiamat (dragon cultists!). Or something completely different.
• A Red and Pleasant Land, using 5e for the rules system
• Shadowrun, perhaps using Savage Worlds.
• Night's Black Agents: Dracula Dossier (not out until August/September)
• Call of Cthulhu (a perennial favorite)
• Conan, using Barbarians of Lemuria (The Mythic Edition of the game is due any moment now)

I'm in the very preliminary research stages for my Golden Age of Ballooning RPG, and one of my main gaming goals for the year is continuous movement towards a fully-polished game for public release.

On the blog, I'd like to write more reviews -- both of games and gaming products, and of films, reviving the Cult Classic of the Week series.

Goodbye to 2014

2014 was full of personal loss and challenges. I know it was the same for many other people, and the news stories were usually grim.

There were some great things that happened and fun times were had, but even so, I'm glad to have it in the rear-view mirror.

Next post: What to expect in 2015.

D&D 5e Test Drive, Session 1

I was the DM for the first of three test sessions last Friday night using Lost Mine of Phandelver from the Starter Set box and it went pretty well.

6 1st-level PCs in the party:

Elf Fighter Gladiator
Half-Elf Rogue Spy
Human Warlock Criminal
(Starter Set pregens:)
Hill Dwarf Cleric Soldier
Human Fighter Folk Hero
Elf Wizard Acolyte

(Spoilers)









The party was ambushed by the goblins, found the goblin trail but set off again for Phandelver (the Warlock and Human Fighter went below 0 HP and had to make death saves). Went to the Shrine of Luck, learned of the banshee Agatha and Cragmaw Castle from Sister Garaele, and spent the night at the inn. The next morning visited Daran Edermath, the retired elf adventurer, and found out about Cragmaw Caves, and then killed the four Redbrands at the Sleeping Giant. Leveling up next session, and they have clues for several different avenues to pursue.

I need to study up on the pre-gen background connections to events in the adventure, and another look at the Basic Rules so I'm not following any preconceived ideas from past systems.



Happy 60th Birthday, Godzilla

60 years of the King of Monsters!