Bree Sourcebook Review

Cubicle 7 came out with its most recent accessory for The One Ring RPG, a book simply called Bree which is all about the lands and creatures of Mordor and… I’m just kidding. It’s all about the town of Bree and places within a day’s walk from the town. Bree has an important place in the lore of The Lord of the Rings and is the scene of just about two chapters in the Fellowship of the Rings. Those might seem like contradictory assessments but the importance of Bree is not in its size, its influence, or in battles, and the merits of this book are the same.

Dark Horizon: Human Species

We’ve discussed two alien species so far for Dark Horizon: the Jurganna and the dupalans. Both of these are strange and unfamiliar creatures, though their motivations and cultures might have familiar aspects. Now let’s flip things and look at humans, a species we all know pretty well but which sees the galaxy in a very strange way…

Star Trek Adventures: Starships and Enemies

Last time I posted about the player characters of Star Trek Adventures, the main focus of the story, but there’s one character present in every Star Trek series that we haven’t talked about: the ship. Fans of Star Trek know that the bridge crew are people you come to love (or love to hate) but whenever there’s a battle or emergency that threatens to destroy the ship, that is when you’re on the edge of your seat. Star Trek Adventures understands that and makes sure that the ship is a fully-fledged character both narratively and mechanically.

Dark Eras: Part Five

We did it! This is the last one. I’ve covered everything up the year 1000 CE in the last posts (first the 20th century, the the 19th, then the next three hundred years, and then five hundred in one go). We’ve gotten back to the periods called “classical” or “ancient” depending on who you ask and we’re just going to sprint for the finish at this point! Get ready to go through the Roman Empire, the Greeks, the Egyptian kingdoms, and all the way to the Stone Age!

Of course, it’s all spoiled a little by the upcoming Dark Eras 2 (now on Kickstarter!) which will add a whole slew of new settings to the list. Still, more historical settings is inherently a good thing as far as I’m concerned so more power to them!

Star Trek Adventures: Character Creation

In my first post about Star Trek Adventures, I went over just the basics of the game: the orbital view of what you can expect from a campaign with this game line. This already gave some people a good idea of whether they were interested in buying the game (now available on Drive Thru RPG!) but others will be looking for a little more detail. If you want a real blow-by-blow you should check out the Philippine gamer‘s in-depth Let’s Study series but today I’m going to talk generally about one of the most important aspects of this game. The focus of every story, whether on the screen or in the mind’s eye, is always the same: the characters.

Ten Things to Know About Planescape

My brother and I just released a Gith Handbook on the DM’s Guild and I’m pretty proud of how it turned out. We’re both huge fans of the Planescape setting and while that hasn’t been approved for writing on the DM’s Guild there are plenty of topics that have been so we’re exploring the edges of things for use with D&D 5e. To that end, I thought I’d give a new generation of players what they need to start in on this amazing setting.

Star Trek Adventures: Basics

A few weeks back, I posted some thoughts about Star Trek: Adventures by Modiphius and then the other day I got a semi-final copy of the pdf from them. If you’ve read through that post you know I had some concerns about the direction things might be headed and now I get to see if those were justified or not. Let’s lay in a course!

Devil in a Red Hat

My son, Little Mephling, is obsessed with the Cat in the Hat. I’ve read it every night for a month despite several plans and sleights-of-hand so I’ve done a deep dive into the story for sure. Around the tenth repetition I realized there was something weird about the cat. He’s not your typical antagonist and his motives are a bit opaque, but I couldn’t put my finger quite on it.

And then it hit me. The Cat in the Hat is the devil.