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camillemontespan · 5 years

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can we talk about georgiana, the duchess of devonshire?

So, a few months ago, I asked my followers who would be interested in following a side blog about historical figures. I’m a huge history geek and I thought that if I started a blog about the people who interest me, I could add it to my CV and also just get back into my interests. Quite a few of you were down for it and I was so pleased!

I’m yet to make the side blog but I’m posting this as a test to see if you guys like it. If you do, I will make the side blog.

@jovialyouthmusic @fromthedeskofpaisleybleakmore @moonlightgem7 @walkerswhiskeygirl @rainbowsinthestorm @saivilo @pug-bitch @katedrakeohd @gardeningourmet @mskaneko

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Georgiana, the Duchess of Devonshire (1757-1806)

I love history for its people. I am not interested in battles or treaties; I am drawn to the people behind these events. I like discovering what made them tick, that drove their decisions and what impact their lives have had on future generations. If you ask me to date a certain event, I can’t do it, but I can give you a spoken biography of historical figures that interest me.

When I moved to Devon two years ago, I was nervous but also excited for one reason: I believed I would be able to visit Chatsworth House, the home of the Duchess of Devonshire. Imagine my irritation when I realised that Chatsworth is actually based in Derbyshire, which is hours away from Devon itself. My ideas of weekend jaunts to Chatsworth as I admired the architecure and strolled around the gardens were ruined by this realisation.

You may have heard of Georgiana, the Duchess of Devonshire. A film of her life starring Keira Knightley was released in 2008 which first brought her to my attention. Now, I’m not a Knightley fan - ‘I’m Keira Knightley, look at my jawww,’- because I find her quite wooden, however I was pleasantly surprised when I watched her performance. She brought a human element to this historical figure who was known for her fashion sense, crippling debt and controversial marriage arrangement.

Georgiana is also the ancestor of Princess Diana. Many people compare their tragic stories and can see a mirror image. Married to man they didn’t really love, later forced to watch their husbands fall in love with another woman and say nothing, all the while maintaining dignity and poise on the world stage.

So, without further ado, let me introduce you to Georgiana.

If Georgiana was your friend, she would be the one who would come over with a bottle of wine, over which you would put the world to rights and drunkenly proclaim, ‘I love you sooooo much!’ to each other, before deciding to have a spontaneous night out where you dance on the bar and pound shots. She would visit you the next day – you would be horrifically hungover, she would be fresh as a daisy.

Georgiana, the Duchess of Devonshire, was known for her charismatic and bubbly personality; her ability to make any outfit look beautiful (4 foot long peacock feather in her hair springs to mind) which made women everywhere try to emulate her - she literally set trends. She was also known for her passion for politics and her private life.

On the surface, she had it all. But in reality, she didn’t. Underneath this larger than life facade was a tragic figure.

For one thing, Georgiana was addicted to gambling and racked up an eye watering debt. She borrowed money from her friends but never repaid them. Her mother warned her to be careful but to no avail. Her mother also had a gambling problem and wasted money while playing faro. She didn’t want her daughter to continue her mistakes. Georgiana hid her debts from her husband for as long as she could, but eventually she had to tell the Duke, who paid off her debts and never mentioned it again.

She had been expecting to get a bollocking but he stayed silent. To be honest, this made it worse. It’s like being told by your mum that she’s ‘disappointed’ in you, when you’d prefer her to shout at you for a few minutes and then forgive you. She struggled with gambling for years.

Second, and most importantly, her marriage was an unspoken controversy. This is the thing that makes Georgiana an incredible character to study. I read her story and I just couldn’t work it out in my head - why would you put up with this? But then, you have to remember that divorce wasn’t an option for women in those days. Women were property. They were commodities. Leaving a marriage because your husband preferred another woman was not an option.

It was the worst kept secret in society. Everyone knew that her best friend, Elizabeth ‘Bess’ Foster, lived with them and that Bess was her husband’s mistress. Georgiana had asked for Bess to live with them after she discovered that Bess’ sons had been taken away from her and she was living in awful circumstances. Georgiana was too good, too kind – and Bess took advantage. Trust me, Bess is the villain in this story, no matter how often she tried to set her story straight. Diary accounts from Georgiana’s friends show that nobody trusted her. They could see her for what she was -a schemer, a leech. But Georgiana couldn’t.

Bess stayed at Chatsworth and conducted a secret affair with her husband, which soon became public knowledge. Did Georgiana say anything? No. She let it carry on under her roof, without saying a word. In the film, she stands up for herself which is how it should have played out. But according to Amanda Foreman, the historian and writer of the book, this didn’t happen. Georgiana kept silent.

Although I wish I could shake her and tell her she deserves so much better, in a way I feel she shows a huge strength of character to put up with that. She continued her daily routine with dignity and carried on being a queen.

Now, this is when things get interesting and draws in another historical figure who I feel isn’t really known? At least, I didn’t know him, all I knew was that there are tea bags named after him.

The rumour is that she later fell in love with Charles Grey, a Whig politician (later Prime Minister - I KNOW RIGHT? YOU GO GEORGIANA!) who had dreams of a bright, new world where all men had the vote. They were like minded and they could talk about these dreams together. I adore how political Georgiana was and that she spoke publicly about her political associations in a time when women were expected to stay at home and mind their business. She actually brought about the trend of canvassing, where you go out into the streets and campaign for a party. Having Georgiana on side meant the Whigs became popular quickly - if anything, she became their figurehead. Anyway, I digress, but let me just say that she has so much depth. She is genuinely interesting.

Right, Charles Grey.

They had an affair and she became pregnant with his child. In short, she asked the Duke if she could leave him and be with Grey. After all, he was fucking her best friend and not giving a shit about her feelings. But, of course, the Duke refused. Hypocrite, yes. But the time period was different and he couldn’t risk the humiliation of being deserted by his wife – nor could she. Women who left their families were ravaged by society. She gave birth to Grey’s daughter, Eliza, in secret and the baby was raised by his family as Grey’s niece. Again, that is a testament to her character. I’m sure many women would have felt broken after that. But she wasn’t – she visited Eliza frequently (who, when she grew up, named her daughter Georgiana after her mother. I think she knew by then) and she continued to partake in social engagements.

What I love about her, aside from her strength, is how she challenges the stereotype of women of that time. In fact, she was way beyond her time. She was the one who started the trend for getting outside in the streets and campaigning for the Whigs. She was a WOMAN who was out in the streets campaigning, despite not even having a vote or even thinking her gender would one day have one, and she was so much more than just fashion and money. She was an intelligent badass who cared about how the country was run. She didn’t let gender stereotypes and restrictions hold her back. I love how no matter how shit her home life was, she didn’t let that bring her down. If anything, politics was her escape. It was where she could feel valued. She made friends with the Whigs, such as Charles Fox, and they wanted to hear her opinion. They needed her on their side because her opinion mattered. She mattered.

She was ahead of her time. She had a hard home life but she carried on, trying to make a difference and prove her worth. Georgiana is my home girl and I will stand up for her because no one else did.

I know this wasn’t a coherent piece. It was all over the place, right? But that’s what history does to me. I get excited. If I’m talking to you about Georgina, my hands will be all over the place and my voice will be rising in volume because I get so passionate about the subject. I wrote essays at uni for my history degree and they were so proper, just the way university dictates you write. All I wanted to write was ‘read how amazing this person is! Give me an A for enthusiasm!’ I once got a lower mark for an essay because I made the mistake of being too enthusiastic, writing a really in-depth profile on the historical figure, but forgot to answer the question… My tutor said he could tell I really enjoyed writing it but I didn’t actually fulfill the point of the essay. It wasn’t a harsh criticism - he was happy I enjoyed writing it but obviously, couldn’t grade me a high mark.

But that’s how I approach history. I could sit here and try to write something proper but I think that is one reason why history is often a disliked subject. It CAN be boring if taught badly.

I remember my history teacher in high school, Mr Pia, who was the best teacher I’ve ever had. He scared all the young students because he was so serious and never smiled and I tell you, I was scared when I found out he would be teaching me when I was in my final year. But, when I joined his class, he surprised us in a lesson about Austria. He played Mozart and said, ‘I thought I would try to evoke the right atmosphere!’

I fell in love with his teaching then and there.

THAT is what makes history a good subject. You need someone passionate, who looks at it differently. That’s how I would like to approach it. It may not be for some people but it works for me.

If Georgiana has peaked your interest, you can read the biography by Amanda Foreman which is incredible. I couldn’t put it down. Even give the film a go - Ralph Fiennes plays the Duke and Dominic Cooper (babe) is Charles Grey. It’s on Netflix. Spend your Sunday watching it. It’s a great adaptation.

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problematicwelshman · 5 years

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Michael Sheen on Good Omens, sex scenes, and why Brexit led to his break-up

28 NOVEMBER 2018 • 4:18PM

Michael Sheen may be 49, and sporting a grey beard these days, but mention Martians and the actor reverts to a breathless, giddy teenager.

It all stems back to one evening when Sheen was about 12 years old. “It was a significant moment in my life,” he tells me over coffee in a London hotel. “My cousin Hugh was babysitting, and he put on Jeff Wayne’s War of the Worlds.

“I remember us lying there, listening in bed in the dark. It absolutely terrified me, but I got obsessed with it. I’m worryingly into it. I know every single note, every word.”

Wayne’s 1978 rock opera has had a similar effect on countless fans, even if it prompts a bemused shrug from non-converts. Without ever topping the charts, it has slowly become one of the best-selling British albums of all time, and this Friday begins a stadium tour featuring a 35-foot fire-breathing Martian and a 3D hologram of Liam Neeson. It’s a geeky novelty, but one of epic proportions.

When Wayne asked Sheen if he would star in a new radio drama-style version for the album’s 40th anniversary, alongside Taron Egerton and Ade Edmondson, the Welsh actor “bit his hand off”. It had always been his dream. For decades, whether doing serious political dramas such as Frost/Nixon or the great roles of classical theatre – Hamlet, Henry V – the one part Sheen really wanted involved Martians saying “ulla-ulla”.

“When I was doing Caligula at the Donmar [in 2003], I was filming The Deal during the day – which was the first time I’d played Tony Blair,” he says. “I’d be so tired, to wake myself up [before the play] I would do whole sections of War of the Worlds.” He can even beatbox the sound effects, he adds proudly. “The other guys in the dressing room would all be really pissed off with me - but I was playing Caligula, so they had to put up with it.”

Enthusing about an outtake on a collectors version of the album where you can hear Richard Burton coughing, Sheen briefly slips into an impression of the late actor. It’s eerily spot-on. Burton played the role he takes in the new version, which feels apt; growing up in Port Talbot, Sheen was aware of following in his footsteps.

“Coming from the same town as him really helped,” he says. “It’s place you wouldn’t necessarily think would be very sympathetic to acting – it’s an old steel town, very working class, quite a macho place – but because of Richard Burton, and then Anthony Hopkins, there’s the sense that it’s possible [to be an actor], and people have a respect for it.

“Ultimately, though, we’re very different actors - Burton was very much a charismatic leading man, and I’m probably more of a character actor. He wasn’t known for his versatility.” Sheen, by contrast, is a chameleon, as he proved with a remarkable run of biopics from 2006-9, playing Tony Blair, David Frost, Brian Clough, Kenneth Williams and the Roman emperor Nero on screen in the space of just four years.

He concedes that he may have made a “partly conscious” decision to avoid biopics since then. “I’ve been offered quite a few I didn’t do. I did feel, for a bit, it was probably good for me to move away from it – certainly from playing Blair at least, because that’s the one I became synonymous with. I’d quite happily play real people again, but it’s hard to find good scripts and it takes a lot of homework. With some parts I’ve been offered, you might only have a few weeks to prepare for it - and you can’t do that with Clough or Kenneth Williams.”

Despite his best intentions, Sheen is playing another Blair in his next film – The Voyage of Doctor Doolittle, where he’s the nemesis of Robert Downey Jr’s animal-loving hero. “I don’t know if they did that as a joke or not,” he says. “He’s Blair Müdfly – there’s an umlaut that he is very specific about. He was at college with Doolittle, and hates him, and becomes the antagonist because of his jealousy of Doolittle. Müdfly is employed to try and stop him from finding... what he wants to find.” As the film isn’t out for 13 months, Sheen is tight-lipped about further plot details – but he hints that Müdfly is “a villain in the tradition of Terry-Thomas villains.”

It’s the latest in a series of quirky, eyebrow-raising roles. After playing a vampire in the Twilight films and a werewolf in the Underworld franchise, Sheen says he would often be asked in interviews why a “serious classical actor” was wasting his time on fantasy films.

“There’s a lot of snobbishness about genre,” he says. “I think some of the greatest writing of the 20th and 21st centuries has happened in science fiction and fantasy.” While promoting the films, he would back up that point by citing his favourite authors – Stephen King, Philip K Dick, Neil Gaiman. “Time went on, and then one day my doorbell rang and there was a big box being delivered. I opened the box up and there was a card from Neil saying ‘From one fan to another’, and all these first editions of his books.”

It was the beginning an enduring friendship, which recently became a professional partnership: Sheen stars in Gaiman’s forthcoming TV series Good Omens, based on a 1990 novel he wrote with the late Terry Pratchett. Set in the days before a biblical apocalypse, its sprawling list of characters includes an angel called Aziraphale (Sheen) and a demon called Crowley (David Tennant) who have known each other since the days of Adam and Eve.

“I wanted to play Aziraphel being sort of in love with Crowley,” says Sheen. “They’re both very bonded and connected anyway, because of the two of them having this relationship through history - but also because angels are beings of love, so it’s inevitable that he would love Crowley. It helped that loving David is very easy to do.”

What kind of love - platonic, romantic, erotic? “Oh, those are human, mortal labels!” Sheen laughs. “But that was what I thought would be interesting to play with. There’s a lot of fan fiction where Aziraphale and Crowley get a bit hot and heavy towards each other, so it’ll be interesting to see how an audience reacts to what we’ve done in bringing that to the screen.”

Steamy fan fiction aside, it’s unlikely Good Omens will match the raunch levels of his last major TV series, Masters of Sex (2013-16), a drama about the pioneering sexologists Masters and Johnson. In the wake of the last year’s #MeToo revelations, HBO has introduced “intimacy co-ordinators” for its shows - but, Sheen tells me, Masters of Sex was ahead of the curve in handling sex scenes with caution.

“It was a lot easier for myself and Lizzy [Caplan, his co-star], as we were comfortable in that set-up, because we had status in it. But for people in the background, or doing just one scene, it’s different,” he says. “It became clear very quickly that there needed to be guidelines for people who didn’t have that kind of status, who would probably not speak up. We started talking about that, and decided there need to be clear rules.”

Sex scenes, he continues, “should absolutely be treated the same way as other things where there’s a danger. If you’re doing stage-fighting, or pyrotechnics, there are rules and everyone just sticks to them. Whether it’s physical danger, or emotional, or psychological, it’s just as important.”

Despite having several film and TV parts on the horizon, Sheen says he is still in semi-retirement from acting. In 2016 he hinted that he might be quit for good to campaign against populism. “In the same way as the Nazis had to be stopped in Germany in the Thirties, this thing that is on the rise has to be stopped," he said at the time. But now things are less cut. “I have two jobs now, essentially,” he says. "Acting takes second place."

While many celebrity activists limit their politics to save-the-dolphins posturing, Sheen has been working with a range of unfashionable grassroots groups aiming to combat inequality, support small communities and fight fake news. As well as supporting Welsh credit unions, and sponsoring a women’s football team in the tiny village of Goytre, he tells me that he's been “commissioning research into alternative funding models for local journalism”.

If he returns to the stage any time soon, he says it’s likely to be in a show about “political historical socio-economic stuff, a one-man show with very low production values”. It’s clear he’s not in it for the glamour.

Sheen was inspired to become more politically active by the Brexit referendum – which also indirectly led him to break up with his partner of four years, the comedian Sarah Silverman. At the time, they were living together in the US. “We both had very similar drives, and yet to act on those drives pulled us in different directions – because she is American and I’m Welsh,” he explains.

“After the Brexit vote, and the election where Trump became president, we both felt in different ways we wanted to get more involved. That led to her doing her show I Love You America [in which Silverman interviewed people from across the political spectrum], and it led to me wanting to address the issues that I thought led some people to vote the way they did about Brexit, in the area I come from and others like it.”

They still speak lovingly of each other, which makes their decision to end a happy relationship for the sake of politics look painfully quixotic. Talking about it, Sheen sounds a little wistful, but he’s utterly certain they made the right choice. “I felt a responsibility to do something, but it did mean coming back here – which was difficult for us, because we were very important to each other. But we both acknowledge that each of us had to do what we needed to do.”

#michael sheen #dolittle #the voyage of doctor dolittle #he got so irrationally mad at this article on twitter #but hey bringing it back because people wanted to read it #and it had info about dolittle #but it's locked behind a paywall #so here u go fam

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timeagainreviews · 5 years

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Shock and Awe with Tesla

Within the previous week, I have had three people tell me that they were not aware that Hyp3n from "Orphan 55," was a furry. It wasn’t so much that they disagreed, they simply hadn’t reached the same conclusion as me. They thought she was just another naff Doctor Who alien. Compare her to the Menoptra or the fish people from "The Underwater Menace," and I can see your point. But I’m doubling down on it, I still think she’s a furry. Her tail had an elastic band keeping it on. And also, the Doctor comments on it like it’s something she’s wearing. You know what I am not doubling down on? That baddie from this week’s Doctor Who was not a Racnoss! I was so sure too!

Why did I want to see a Racnoss? Because the one we met in "The Runaway Bride," is a scenery-chewing Villain with a capital V. Instead, we get a scorpion alien called Skithra. Thankfully, she’s just as ridiculous. There’s a Palpatine level of fiendishness with both Skithra and the Racnoss. There’s a lot of moustache-twirling and hand wringing for a couple of creatures who possess neither. I kept waiting for the Doctor to say "They’re distant cousins of the Racnoss." There’s a precedent for such things, like the Silurians and the Sea Devils, or the Ood and the Sensorites, or even the Nimon and the Minotaur from "The God Complex." You know what? I’m doubling down. They’re distant cousins!

So enough about the creature, let’s get to the feature. Unlike previous episodes, I was fully aware that Nikola Tesla was going to be in this episode. My wife is a bit of a geek for Nikola Tesla. His portrait hangs in our living room next to My Little Pony and Doctor Who. If you were to ask my wife how she feels about Thomas Edison, you will hear great ire from her. Knowing this, I prefaced the episode by asking her not to "go there," if the episode starts praising Thomas Edison. She’s likely to yell at the screen. She gave no promises. Evidently, my wife has some sort of soul bond with writer Nina Metivier, as much of the narrative of tonight's episode framed Edison as a bit of an antagonist. Which was not far from the truth. Even in his more heroic moments, Edison is a true capitalist.

Much of the opening montage of this episode paints an accurate depiction of Tesla’s career. We open with Niagra Falls dominating the horizon as the inventor describes hydroelectricity to a group of potential investors. Tesla’s brilliant inventions dazzle as sparks of CGI electricity crackle above his head like a mad Walt Disney. His hope is to secure the funds to complete his Wardenclyffe Tower, a device meant to transfer electricity wirelessly. Despite Nikola’s best efforts, no one is interested. They’ve been reading the papers, buying into Edison’s smear campaign. Tesla’s alternating current electricity has been demonised in favour of Edison’s direct current electricity. Things are further soured when Tesla admits to the investors that he believes in men from Mars.

Right away this episode sends strong Hinchcliffe era vibes. Tesla being asked to investigate a dead body only to be chased through his laboratory by a man in period-appropriate clothing and glowing red eyes was pure Jago and Litefoot. I absolutely loved the tone they go for in the episode. It’s dark, it’s strange, and it’s a bit creepy. My only real problem with the scene was the music. Usually, Segun Akinola kills it with the score, but I found it’s minimalism failing to fit the atmosphere. A lot of tonight’s incidental music reminded me of a simplified version of Jeff Beal’s work on HBO’s "Carnivàle." While not bad, it was just a bit lacking.

Oddly enough, a lot of my biggest issues were with the production side of things. Some of the cinematography was odd for no reason. While it wasn’t as bad as the giant closeups of heads that dominated series eleven, there were some framing issues on occasion. One of the more egregious examples was aboard the Skithra’s ship. Unlike her distant cousins, the Racnoss (double down, baby), we never get a very good look at Skithra’s body. The one establishing shot we get of her is almost obscured. She’s either in extreme closeup or obfuscated from view, which is a shame because she looks awesome. Either the CGI or the prosthetic didn’t work, but her body did not look balanced at all.

During his laboratory chase, Tesla finds a floating orb. Small floating shapes are Doctor Who’s jam. The Toclafane, the cubes from "The Power of Three," the Time Lord hypercube, all classic examples. As soon as it appeared, I let out an audible laugh. It wasn’t that it was bad, I was delighted by how silly it looked. It was like something from Power Rangers. I’m not saying the CGI was bad, I’m just saying that if Christopher Eccleston had run by, I wouldn’t have batted an eye. Tesla decides to keep this orb to himself, to learn its secrets. So when the Doctor comes booming in looking for "anything weird," he neglects to mention a floating orb.

The Doctor and her two new friends, Nikola and his assistant Dorothy give chase to a hooded, laser wielding assassin. This leads them to a train where we see Yaz, Graham and Ryan looking their best in their own period-appropriate clothing. I absolutely love how much this series has been playing with the companion’s clothing. It’s more of that Hinchcliffe era peeking in. We’re treated to a train car chase where the Doctor apprehends the assassin’s weapon- a Silurian gun. I really loved this bit as I’m a big fan of action scenes involving trains. Tosin Cole had said in an interview that they were going a lot bigger in series twelve, and I have to admit, yes, yes they have.

However, the train ride is soon spoiled by the Doctor discovering that she’s on a train with Nikola Tesla. I had said how I hoped they continue the trend of the Doctor meeting famous people throughout history. Tesla and Edison mark the fourth and fifth historical figures in series twelve, so far. My problem is the gooey way in which the Doctor talks about the achievements of these people. There’s a drippy sentimentality that feels fake to me. I keep going back and forth between whether it’s Jodie’s delivery or the hollowness of the edutainment style dialogue. I would say it’s Jodie, as she delivers the same speech about each famous person they meet, with the same level of wonderous enthusiasm that it makes me wish she would give it more depth. But then I think about how much more depth she’s given us this year, and I go back to thinking it’s the writing. Like I said last week- nobody talks like this.

I don’t know if it was a memo from the BBC that Doctor Who should also be educational, but I wish they could find a more natural way of disseminating information. "The Unquiet Dead," does a wonderful job of educating us about Charles Dickens without also beating us about the head with the information. It’s one of those quirks that we’ll look back on about Whittaker’s era as the Doctor as one of her eccentricities. Long monologues of idealistic hero worship. Honestly, I’d love to see her meet Aleister Crowley just to see them try and find something nice to say about him. "His words went on to inspire generations of sex magick perverts! People in countless worlds will continue to use his books… to um… roll joints on."

The Doctor and the crew look into the tech. Since it’s Edison’s men coming after them, it’s automatically assumed that he’s behind it. Ryan even gets a cool guy moment when he flashes the Silurian gun tucked in his jacket like a gangster with a Tommy gun. But Edison just wants to see the gun in case it’s something he can patent and sell. He’s not sent out any men after Tesla, in fact, he loses his entire lab team at the hands of these red-eyed assassins. It turns out, they aren’t after the technology, they want Tesla’s mind. I liked this moment as Tesla doesn’t immediately sacrifice himself for the greater good of humanity. He kind of chickens out a bit.

Tesla and Yaz get transported aboard a ship hanging just above New York City, hidden by cloaking devices. The Queen Skithra stands vaguely behind things with a tail too heavy for what looks like her little kid body to balance. What looks like hundreds of scorpion soldiers writhe around on the ceiling as the Queen demands Tesla fix her ship and weapons system. I was a little confused at this point by the scorpion soldiers. I couldn’t tell if they were robots or creatures, or both. Either way, they were able to shapeshift, a fact which has very little bearing on the plot, which is fine. You’d just kind of think that if you’re going to introduce shapeshifters, one of them should pose as a good guy at some point. Oh well, at least we can’t accuse them of using a cliche.

The Doctor makes a little teleportation bracelet like something you would see Harry Sullivan, Sarah Jane, and the Fourth Doctor holding onto as they float through chromakey space. After discovering the green orb is a recording device, she’s able to trace it back to its source- the Queen’s ship. She beams her way up to the ship where she deduces that the Queen is a scavenger. The Silurian gun is just one of many pilfered objects littering the filthy ship. I loved the line “Nice place you’ve got here, probably. If you cleaned up a bit. I mean, I’m messy, but this?” It was some classic Fourth Doctor rudeness (Happy Birthday, Tom), and I’m there for it! The Doctor teleports everyone to safety but the scorpions aren’t far behind. Aboard the TARDIS we’re given a really lovely little scene between Dorothy and Ryan as they both compare what it’s like to live in the shadow of a mad genius. It was a great bit of dialogue that was closer to what I was talking about when I said "a more natural way."

Yaz and Edison are tasked with clearing the street, which is good because the companions haven’t had a whole lot to do this episode. Which is fine, they’re free to take the backseat on occasion. Though I will say I love Graham’s ribbing Thomas Edison about his work practices. Graham got a few zingers throughout the episode. I wondered if Graham saying “This ain’t our first rodeo,” wasn’t a reference to Bradley Walsh’s real-life back injury at a rodeo. Probably not. Most of the focus in this story is on Tesla’s character arc. Edison manages to clear the streets and best his competition by telling everyone Tesla is going to fire up his Wardenclyffe Tower, so they’d better run for their lives! The plan is to use the tower to take out the Skithra ship before it can destroy the world. However, the Skithra have no plans of going down without a fight.

As the scorpion soldiers take to the streets of New York I was oddly reminded of my childhood neighbour Anne’s dog- Bud Light. Bud Light was a miniature pinscher that my sister and I used to chase around the garden. And no matter how hard we chased her, she was always too fast. This little dog was no bigger than a foot and a half long and yet we still couldn’t keep up with those four little legs. Now imagine you’re running from Bud Light, only she has more than four legs, and she’s a giant scorpion. Do you get where I am going with this? It’s movie car logic. In a movie, a character can sometimes outrun a car while being pursued by bad guys. The thrill of the chase outweighs the logic. Their way around how fast these scorpions would actually be was to make them incredibly clumsy. These things do more skidding into turns than the entire cast of "The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift." My theory is that their feet are made of really slick plastic and there was oil on the pavement. They were doing better in human form. Regardless, they look pretty cool. At least we now know where the CGI budget of this episode went.

The Doctor and Tesla work to connect the tower to the TARDIS controls. Meanwhile, everyone else is tasked with fending off the scorps until they can take out the ship. Only when the scorpions come knocking, they seem almost tame. Queen Skithra has left the safety of her ship, much to the Doctor’s surprise. With her not there, they can’t flip the switch. It’s an interesting position as it shows the Doctor fully planning to kill someone, a bit of moral ambiguity we don’t often see with her. I’ve really been enjoying the darker side of Jodie we’ve been seeing lately. For me, it’s really rounding out her Doctor in a way I had hoped to see. Speaking of dark sides, how great was that shot of the Queen standing in front of her army? The drudgy murkiness of the lighting made her look like a demon.

The Doctor tricks the Queen into thinking she has a weapon behind her back, knowing she would confiscate whatever it was. Unfortunately for the queen, this weapon was actually a harmless teleportation bracelet. The Doctor is able to beam her back to her ship and take out the brain of the hive mind, thus taking the scorpion soldiers with her. So I guess they were like drones? I suppose that scans. The Doctor parts ways with Edison and Tesla. Yet unlike in Spyfall Part 2, she doesn’t wipe their minds, because why would she? Since when has the Doctor even taken to wiping the minds of historical figures? Sure, Ten wiped Donna’s mind, but with very good reason. You could make the argument that neither Edison nor Tesla saw their own future. Clearly, travelling in an alien’s spacecraft that’s bigger on the inside is small potatoes compared to knowing the word computer.

Tesla and Edison part ways how they began, as competitors. But now we’re given the idea that perhaps Edison admires him a little. He’s got that "You magnificent son of a bitch," look guys give each other in lieu of emotions. Edison would go on to explore these feelings in his bizarre relationship with Henry Ford. I don’t know much about a real-life Dorothy Skerrit or if she even existed. I feel like the romantic vibes between the two of them were possibly added on to counter Tesla’s even weirder relationship with his pet pigeon. I was really a bit disappointed they never once mentioned his pigeon.

That being said, my disappointments were few and far between. I didn’t know who this Nina Metivier was before tonight’s episode, but she can write some Doctor Who! Evidently, she served as script editor in series eleven, so she’s cut her teeth on it a bit already, but for a debut episode, I had a great time. Nikola Tesla is a figure I feel deserves a well-told episode full of strangeness and a bit of whimsy. They definitely do not waste Tesla on a weak script. Though for a story about electricity, the foley department could have given us some more visceral sounding crackles. The overall tone of the episode was a mixture of Hammer horror meets Power Rangers, which is something I didn’t think could work, but here we are. Regardless of whether you found Queen Skithra scary or campy, you can’t deny her effectiveness. Four episodes in, and we’ve had some solid baddies, which is an obvious improvement on series eleven. Once again, my biggest issue is the wooden edutainment dialogue that seems inserted to meet some sort of quota.

These last two episodes have acted as great follow-ups to Spyfall Parts one and two. We needed a bit of classic feeling Doctor Who to counterbalance the larger ideas like Gallifrey being destroyed, or the Master returning. A good old fashioned base in peril followed by an alien invasion is right where the show needs to be right now. That being said, I’ve yet to watch an episode so far this season that has left me truly ecstatic. You know me though, I like the weird ones. For all of its flashiness and big reveals, I’m still waiting for series twelve to show me something of substance. It will be nice when everything has aired to look at series twelve as a whole. With episodes like "Nikola Tesla's Night of Terror," thrown into the mix, we’re looking at what is shaping up to be a very enjoyable series.

Well friends, thank you for joining me once more. I wanted to take a quick bit to mention some things on the horizon. Those of you who are fans of "The Dark Crystal," will be interested to know that I will be attending the first ever Dark Crystal fan convention in February. It takes place in London at Elstree Studios, where the original movie was filmed. I plan to take lots of pictures and write an article about the convention. I've been so excited for this event, that all I can think of lately is Dark Crystal (sorry Doctor). Along with the convention, I also have a couple of guest writers working on pieces for the blog. I've never had guest writers, but I think you'll like what's coming! See you soon!

#doctor who #nikola tesla's night of terror #Thirteenth Doctor #Jodie Whittaker #yasmine khan #mandip gill #Bradley Walsh #Graham O'Brien #tosin cole #Ryan Sinclair #tardis #bbc #nikola tesla #thomas edison #Nina Metivier #series 12 #Time and Time Again #Goran Višnjić

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scots-dragon · 5 years

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The Big Fucking D&D 4E Rant

Or, ‘That Time Wizards of the Coast Fucked Up D&D’s Lore’

At the risk of raising the spectre of edition war again, I feel like it’s worth going back and exploring that time that Wizards of the Coast fucked over basically all of their lore to chase a trend that wasn’t there. Admittedly this comes with the (begrudged) acknowledgement that quite a bit of of this is likely to be out of date now that fifth edition has been out for a good several years now, but that edition has its own problems and while I’m not really going to touch upon it now, my problems with it are many and numerous.

It should be noted from the outset that this is going to talk about fourth edition in a negative and critical context, but I’m not going to be talking about the rules of the actual game as a game. This is entirely centred on story, worldbuilding and lore, and how those were handled in fourth edition as compared to what came before. That being said, if you like fourth edition, and especially if you like its lore, I would not suggest reading further.

I’m going to go far beyond being critical in this; I’m going to get outright mean.

A shout out must go to Susanna McKenzie (@cydonian-mystery) for input and feedback on this.

I suppose the most important place to start is, in many ways, the beginning, by which I mean my own introduction to Dungeons & Dragons. Mostly because it’s directly linked to the main reasons why I consider the lore to have been ruined, but before I even start off with that, I’m going to have to tell you where the lore was before I can really adequately explain its downfall.

In Realms Forgotten...

Like many people of my generation, I got into Dungeons & Dragons first through the computer based role-playing games. Specifically I started off with various titles by Black Isle and BioWare in the late-90s and early-00s, with stand-outs including Baldur’s Gate, Icewind Dale, Neverwinter Nights, and their sequels. What all of these had in common beyond being Dungeons & Dragons adaptations is the fact that they took place in the Forgotten Realms, one of the more famous settings thereof, and the lore of that world intrigued me far more than the rules alone.

This might not sound like much, of course, to a newer fan for whom the Forgotten Realms, and its central setting of Faerûn, likely feels just like that generic world that D&D just happens to take place in nowadays. But back in the day, it was far more than that.

At the time I was getting into it, local libraries and bookstores carried bestselling novels set in the worlds in question, so I could pick up a novel based around various characters who appeared in the games, like the drow ranger Drizzt Do’Urden or the powerful wizard Elminster. There was also this huge encyclopedic book of geography and deities and the history of the world, with a big fold-out map which is still stuck up on my bedroom wall even after moving house three times. It was perfect fodder for my young nerdy fangirl self to develop full-on special interests in this stuff.

And the level of detail and lore and nuance in the world and its peoples was immense, with even the tiny and obscure bits of the setting earning massive amounts of unique lore. The result was a world that felt like it was alive, vibrant, and lived-in. Like real people could live there, with colourful heroes and villains to encounter.

This, I think, was the unwitting downfall of the Forgotten Realms, but I’m getting ahead of myself because this is really only step one, and Realms are really only one part of it. There are in total three of them, and I’ll be going through the baselines of each of them before we move on.

Out to Planescape

If you’ve read through the core books for fifth edition, there’s a chance you already have some degree of knowledge of Planescape and what it is. Or more precisely you know about the core structure of the Dungeons & Dragons multiverse; the Great Wheel. A series of elemental inner planes and transitive planes, with a ring of sixteen aligned outer planes representing various combinations derived from the axes of law versus chaos, and good versus evil, centred around a neutrally-aligned central plane.

At the centre of this central plane is an infinitely tall spire, atop which lies the famous torus-shaped city of Sigil, the city at the centre of the multiverse. There are a few more bits to it than that, and there are actually differences between how it once was and how it now is. For instance back in the day, there was no such thing as the Feywild or Shadowfell, and neither one was present in the original structure as laid out in 1987’s Manual of the Planes for AD&D.

Once again, to say that this is barely scratching the surface of the planar cosmology and its general meaning to Dungeons & Dragons lore would be a gross understatement. It wasn’t long after the publication of the above book that there was a new campaign setting created called Planescape, which would centre entirely upon this cosmology and build it into the lore. This is where the city of Sigil was introduced, a place of weird concordance where demons, angels, and creatures far, far stranger than either rubbed shoulders in the street, and only the watchful eye of the mysterious and powerful Lady of Pain kept things from erupting into all-out war.

It was a world of disputes, where a myriad of factions representing various philosophical concepts went toe-to-toe with one another. All wrapped up in a tone not unlike a strange mix of China Miéville and Charles Dickens, with the local dialect and thieves cant giving a unique flavour that no major campaign world outside of Planescape can really manage.

Perhaps the most famous and lasting contribution that this setting has was the tieflings, aasimar, and genasi, referred to collectively as the planetouched. These were born from a mix of planar interaction with human bloodlines, in particular through the very old fashioned way that any hybrid is created, which is perhaps why tieflings were the more common. They carried the blood of fiends, and most commonly demons by way of ancestors who reproduced with succubi and incubi, though no two tieflings looked especially alike, with variable and strange features.

I’ll be getting back to these later, but suffice it to say that Planescape was an interesting outlier setting, far stranger and more creative than almost anything else in anyone’s catalogue. And it forms the second part of our list of ruined lore.

And back down to Greyhawk

There’s a very good chance that your knowledge of Greyhawk is pretty limited, because while one could make good arguments for the above only just being ruined when fourth edition came around, there’s a lot to be said about how Greyhawk’s been the forgotten cousin for a while now, though to the credit of the current staff at Wizards of the Coast, they did just release a full-on Greyhawk adventure with Ghosts of Saltmarsh.

Introduced in the late seventies and early eighties, the World of Greyhawk, taking place on the fictional planet of Oerth and in particular on the subcontinent of the Flanaess, was the personally created campaign setting of Gary Gygax himself. While not as detailed as the Forgotten Realms, nor as interestingly out-there as Planescape, it is nonetheless a pretty cool world overall with a fun pulpy atmosphere that gives it its own sense of weight and nuance.

However, after Gary Gygax left TSR back in the 1980s, some later creators took it upon themselves to more or less mock his legacy overall. Nonetheless it remains a popular location for fans and creators, and towards the late third edition there was a lot of good work done in reviving it, such as with a series of adventure paths published in Dungeon Magazine in the form of Shackled City, Age of Worms, and Savage Tide, and following that a big adventure module in the form of Expedition to the Ruins of Greyhawk.

Since it’s the most basic element, let’s start with how they treated Greyhawk...

Strip-Mining the Free City

To say that Wizards of the Coast ruined Greyhawk would actually be inaccurate because, to a degree, they didn’t actually use Greyhawk. At least, not fully.

What they did instead was create a ‘new’ campaign setting, sometimes called the Nentir Vale, that used a few scavenged and cherry-picked Greyhawk deities and also a whole selection of adventures and locations previously specific to Greyhawk. Notable examples of such on the larger worldmap seen in the boardgame Conquest of Nerath included the Tomb of Horrors, the Vault of the Drow, and the Temple of Elemental Evil.

The resulting setting wasn’t Greyhawk, but had enough pieces that it felt like an insult to it. Often having those elements be modified in such a way that they felt like mockeries rather than the original concepts. A big part of why that felt like mockery is of course that Nentir Vale, or the Points of Light setting as it was sometimes referred to as, didn’t really exist as its own fully-fledged world. There wasn’t really a campaign setting book, or much detail on anything outside of a few small locations.

This is a relatively small part of what Dungeons & Dragons 4th edition did wrong, but it’s a small taste of what’s to come. However as seen with the Greyhawk conversion guidelines for many adventures, and even the release of the recent Ghosts of Saltmarsh, Greyhawk itself seems to have survived while the Nentir Vale remains almost entirely forgotten except for mentions of the Dawn War pantheon on one page of the Dungeon Master’s Guide.

It seems like Wizards of the Coast realised it was a bad idea.

‘The Great Wheel is Dead!’

As we go back out to Planescape, we notice that — much like Greyhawk — it also isn’t there, as the entire cosmology and its thematic importance has been replaced with something so radically different that it’s practically a complete replacement. Just about the only part of Planescape that was kept was Sigil itself, but as shown repeatedly in the fourth edition version of Manual of the Planes, they obviously didn’t understand either Sigil or the Great Wheel in any real way.

I’m not going to talk about the World Axis much in direct terms, but instead more the mindset that was taken with regards to Planescape’s Great Wheel. Now this requires something of a diversion into an old pre-fourth edition preview document, and how it handled the Great Wheel and old materials.

The Great Wheel is dead.

One of my mantras throughout the design of 4th Edition has been, “Down with needless symmetry!” The cosmology that has defined the planes of the D&D multiverse for thirty years is a good example of symmetry that ultimately creates more problems than it solves. Not only is there a plane for every alignment, there’s a plane between each alignment — seventeen Outer Planes that are supposed to reflect the characteristics of fine shades of alignment. There’s not only a plane for each of the four classic elements, there’s a Positive Energy Plane, a Negative Energy Plane, and a plane where each other plane meets — an unfortunate circumstance that has resulted in creatures such as ooze mephits.

The planes were there, so we had to invent creatures to fill them. Worse than the needless symmetry of it all, though, is the fact that many of those planes are virtually impossible to adventure in. Traversing a plane that’s supposed to be an infinite three-dimensional space completely filled with elemental fire takes a lot of magical protection and fundamentally just doesn’t sound fun. How do you reconcile that with the idea of the City of Brass, legendary home of the efreet? Why is there air in that city?

So our goals in defining a new cosmology were pretty straightforward.

• Don’t bow to needless symmetry!

• Make the planes fun for adventure!

The ‘impossible to adventure in’ mindset towards the Great Wheel is entirely bullshit, which I think is best highlighted in the passage on the City of Brass. How can a plane of pure unchanging fire without variation also have a city-state? Maybe, just maybe, it wasn’t without variation and they’re making shit up to justify their own nonsense.

The arrogance here is nothing short of infuriating. It typifies everything about the approach that Wizards of the Coast was taking towards Dungeons & Dragons at the time, and can only really be described as destructive.

There was nothing but an arrogance and often gleeful disdain for previous editions. Along with declarations of how it was so much better now, with the old version being bad for some reason despite that version having generated a huge fanbase, and a critically beloved computer role-playing game in the form of Planescape: Torment. And as with Greyhawk, they’ve done what they can to reverse that. The only elements of the new cosmology that remain are the Elemental Chaos as an in-between for the Elemental Planes, the Feywild, and the Shadowfell.

Wizards of the Coast once again seemed to realise where they were going wrong, and this is basically a recurring element of fifth edition.

Unfortunately, the World Axis and Nentir Vale aren’t really where the majority of my frustrations lie.

The Shattered Realms

To summarise the degree to which they basically destroyed the Forgotten Realms is going to take a while, simply because they were thorough. And it’s this that ultimately puts me into a position where I’m always going to be negatively predisposed towards Wizards of the Coast and their handling of Dungeons & Dragons.

As a bitof a preamble, fourth edition brought with it several substantial changes to the way a lot of the ruleset worked. And not just on a mechanical level, but on a lore level as it related to certain in-universe elements.. Basic concepts about magic and how it worked were altered at the baseline level, and in order to explain these differences it was decided by the higher-ups at Wizards of the Coast to implement a big huge event to explain the edition differences. This was something they called the Spellplague.

This is not the first time they’ve done that; they previously had the Time of Troubles, which worked to explain the relatively minor differences in magic between the first and second edition versions of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, killed off or replaced a few gods, and ultimately shook things up a little bit. This was not really met with widespread acclaim at the time, and many complained about it but ultimately it’s a series of events which were later picked up by BioWare for Baldur’s Gate so it’s hard to really complain too harshly.

And indeed, they did it again with the change-over from fourth edition to fifth edition, with the Second Sundering bringing radical changes that all coincidentally left things looking like the pre-fourth edition version of the Forgotten Realms. Like with Planescape and Greyhawk, Wizards of the Coast knew they’d fucked up. But unlike with those, there were more than a few scars that haven’t really been all that fixable.

And to show you what I mean, I suppose we can start with the map, as that’s one of the clearest indications, when put in comparison, as to just how much was changed.

If you scroll back up and compare with the original map, you can kind of see just how much they absolutely fucked the Forgotten Realms.

The basic idea behind the Spellplague was that the goddess Mystra was murdered, and in her death throes the entirety of magic went haywire. Blue fire erupted across the world, and left entire nations and segments of the landscape scarred and destroyed. Often, conveniently, hitting worst those places that would traditionally, in-setting, be inhabited for the most part by various peoples of colour. Going into exhaustive detail would be extremely difficult, but keep in mind that the most heavily-devastated looking locations tend to be those that are inhabited by non-white people.

At least one of the nations destroyed, Halruaa, was actually the homeland of a long-running half-elf wizard character of mine at the time.

Most major magic-user characters suffered extreme maladies to their spellcasting, either killing them off or rendering them powerless.

In a series of unrelated but contemporary events, the entire elven and dwarven pantheons were radically altered. Most elven deities who weren’t Corellon Larethian were revealed to be aspects of non-elven deities, and around half of the elves themselves wound up being renamed to ‘eladrin’ to match the bullshit new elf subrace from the fourth edition books.

The drow pantheon was similarly culled until only Lolth remained, and as part of that they slew the goddess of good drow, Eilistraee. What happened to her followers is probably a good example of how there was a good deal of racism involved. Basically, the drow who followed her were ‘cleansed of the taint’ that had turned them into drow to begin with.

Including lightening their skin.

This is an event that Wizards of the Coast hasn’t really broadcast much after their reintroduction of Eilistraee, and it’s really not hard to see why they’ve minimised it.

The human gods didn’t fare much better. The entire Mulhorandi Pantheon was removed, because apparently having real-world Egyptian mythological gods around was a little too much for them. They also did the same with Tyr, who was originally from Norse mythology, though left Silvanus, Oghma, and Mielikki. Possibly because barely anyone pays attention to Celtic pantheon deities, and the latter Finnish deity was the patron goddess of a specifically popular character from the novels.

And between destroying half of the map, eliminating half of the pantheon full of various fan favourite gods, and killing off a lot of major magic-user characters, you’d think that would be considered a bad enough result.

But then there’s the timeskip.

Wizards of the Coast advanced the timeline by approximately one hundred and five years, therefore killing off literally every major human character who didn’t have some kind of magical way of extending their lifespan. And in addition to the effects of the Spellplague, brought in a variety of huge geopolitical changes that replaced major governments and kingdoms with new and nearly-unrecognisable versions that might have shared a name.

I’m not going to go into much more detail on various other changes, but keep in mind that this is only barely scratching the surface. There wasn’t a single region of the Forgotten Realms left unaltered or unmarred by this event, and it ultimately can’t be seen as anything other than an act of vandalism. It’s not even getting into the fact that, for instance, entire sections of the landscape of Toril were replaced by segments of another world entirely so they could justify the introduction of dragonborn as a core race.

Which is incidentally why I dislike the dragonborn.

The events of the fifth edition changeover worked to mitigate a lot of this, but the sheer extent of damage done is so much that the modern Forgotten Realms is still only a pale echo of its former self. All because they wanted to chase the audience of fucking World of Warcraft of all things.

Seriously, fuck Wizards of the Coast.

#4e negative #D&D 4e #the spellplague #we all get drafted into the edition war #wizards of the coast critical #wotc critical #forgotten realms #an old rant that's been a long time in the making

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comicsinkcorporated-blog · 6 years

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Interview with Screaming Villains, developer of Night Trap 25th anniversary.

CI: So how did development for Night Trap 25th anniversary first come about?

SV: It honestly started out as sort of a joke. Sometime after the failed Kickstarter, hardcore fans started attempting to recreate their own remake of Night Trap and some gaming sites were writing articles about it which I found kind of odd especially since they either didn't work or barely worked. I was already messing around with FMV stuff as a hobby and a friend of mine came up with the idea of myself making a working version running on a phone.

I threw it together in about 3-4 days, posted a video of myself playing it on Youtube and sort of remained anonymous about it. I got a local arcade owner that I know to post the video on his Facebook account since he was friends with an absurd amount of retro gamers and it started to spread and got about 5000 views within the first 24 hours.

The website fmvworld.com found it too and decided to contact Rob Fulop (one of the creators of Night Trap) to get his opinion on it. Another website called segabits.com also contacted Tom Zito (producer of Night Trap) to find out if he had any involvement so that sort of put me on their radar. After that I figured "what the hell?" and sent an email to Tom at about 3am and got a response in about 15 minutes. He just asked a couple of questions about it and asked for my phone number. The next day, he called me and 20 minutes into the conversation he asked if I would like to do an official version and I said yes.

CI: Limited Run Games PS4 version of Night Trap remains their fastest selling game, while the Nintendo Switch version may end up being their best selling game. Were you surprised by the popularity of this remaster?

SV: I don't think anyone was expecting that. It just came out of nowhere which I think helped a lot so thank god my friends were able to keep their mouth shut while I was working on it. Originally, there was only going to be 5000 copies of the game available. Once the announcement was made Josh Fairhurst from Limited Run Games and myself were pretty much stuck on Twitter the entire day so we definitely wasn't expecting the reaction it got.

After that, Josh said something like "We might need to increase the quantity" which at the time I don't think they ever exceeded 5000 on a game so it got bumped up to 6000. After that, he came back again and said "Maybe we should add a collectors edition" so now we're at 8000 for PS4. Then it was "Let's release a big box version for PC" so now there's another 2000. It just kept growing and growing and still didn't meet demand. What's funny is the guy that made the announcement trailer and myself was constantly googling Night Trap that day just to see what was being said but then we went to the trending section on Youtube and we're like "Oh my god! The trailer is trending higher than Gucci Mane!" For a brief moment a game that a lot of people considered terrible was all of a sudden popular and I think that's rad.

CI: What do you think it is about Night Trap that has made it so beloved amongst fans?

SV: It has a b-movie feel to it and doesn't take itself seriously. A lot of hate that it gets is sort of undeserving. The popular ones are usually "this is barely a game" or "this has bad acting". NT was made 5 years before it was finally released and intended for a console that used VHS tapes and the acting is very similar to 80's horror/thriller films. Unfortunately, it was the wrong time period when it was finally released in 1992 and at that point nobody was really reminiscing about the 80's like they do today. The fans that are super hardcore about Night Trap are usually gamers that have a great interest in movies in general. What surprised me was the number of people that I've talked to that said Digital Pictures influenced them to pursue a career in the film or tv industry.

CI: Were there any notable, unforeseen difficulties during development?

SV: Engine restrictions was the biggest issue. I figured out pretty quickly that a lot of the gaming engines available weren't really designed with FMV in mind so because of this I think the video quality suffered more than I would've liked. Luckily, this is no longer an issue with future releases.

CI: How did the Limited Run Games physical release come about?

SV: The dudes from My Life In Gaming actually brought it up. One of those guys lives down the street from me and very early in the development process I told him I was working on Night Trap and wanted a documentary to go along with it since it has a crazy history and I thought it'd be a cool promotional tool. He immediately suggested that I work with Limited Run Games. Over the next several months I kept telling him that I'd think about it whenever he brought it up.

About a month before the game was announced, Coury came to my house to film my interview for the documentary. After we were finished he brought up Limited Run again so I told him to go ahead and tell them what I was working on. Ten minutes later, I got an email from Josh Fairhurst. Limited Run is super rad and I honestly can't imagine doing any game without their involvement so I'll most likely harrass them with each release that I do. They actually ported Night Trap to Nintendo Switch. I can't say anything bad about those dudes. They've helped me tremendously.

CI: So the Nintendo Switch version of the game comes with Japanese & French audio, was this something Screaming Villains commissioned themselves? Did Night Trap have an original Japanese and French release? And what was the reasoning behind including the new audio?

SV: The Japanese and French audio actually came from previous releases. I got ahold of copies of the game that were originally released in Europe and Japan and just ripped the audio from the disks. Before it was released I started getting messages and emails asking for additional language options so that's where that idea came from.

CI: So Night Trap as a copious history with Nintendo, when the company called out the game out in court, vowing it would never appear on a Nintendo system, which lead to some bad blood between the original Devs and Nintendo. How did it feel to finally put Night Trap on a Nintendo System?

SV: I think it's cool. Digital Pictures always released their games on Sega consoles and 3DO so it's super rad that one of them finally ended up on a Nintendo console. Definitely long overdue. With Night Trap getting released on there with a Teen rating without cutting any content might hopefully stop people from claiming that the game uses violence against women to move the story further which is absolultely ridiculous along with everything else that people claim is in there that doesn't even exist.

CI: What was the decision to go with Double Switch as the next FMV game to remaster?

SV: Double Switch just seemed like the obvious choice since it's the same type of game as Night Trap but everything is improved on. You could I guess call it the spiritual successor to Night Trap. It's also my favorite game from Digital Pictures. I think it was expected too. Back in February, I met a lot of the people that worked on Friday The 13th The Game. When I was introduced to the Executive Director Randy Greenback the first thing he said to me was "Are you doing Double Switch next?!" Josh from Limited Run was campaigning for it pretty hard too since his aunt is a childhood friend of Debbie Harry who appears in the game. A very short teaser for it was showng during the Limited Run E3 conference. While watching the conference there were people leaving comments like "Just announce Double Switch already!"

CI: Night Trap special editions in the past have come with cassette tapes, patches, and even a VHS tape. Can you tell us if Double Switch special edition will come with anything like that?

SV: It most likely will but I have no idea what since I haven't really talked to Limited Run about those options yet. Usually what happens is they throw an idea at me and I pretty much agree to all of them. They're huge Sega nerds like I am so I trust them with their ideas. The idea of pogs came up for Night Trap but we ran out of time so it wouldn't surprise me if that happened with Double Switch.

I'm sure it'll come in a Sega CD jewel case too since Limited Run ordered about 15,000 of those. I will say that it's getting a completely new cover since the original ones are kind of lame and don't really fit with the type of game that it is.

It looks super rad! DS also has a super rad soundtrack that was done by Thomas Dolby, who wrote and performed the hit song "She Blinded Me With Science" so I was hoping that a stereo version of the soundtrack existed so we could release that but sadly it's all mono.

CI: There was some rumors that Screaming Villains have been working on bringing, Marky Mark: Make My Video to the PS4. Can you confirm this?

SV: Oh dear....that was a joke that went too far. What happened was Josh Fairhurst and I kept getting our tweets captured and used as news articles for very minor stuff. I hated it because I wasn't used to this sort of thing since Night Trap was my first console release and Josh was beyond frustrated with it because of a random person making a negative comment about Nintendo, which led to a gaming site writing an article claiming that Josh spoke negatively about Nintendo when it wasn't even him or even anyone affiliated with LR.

They were forced to update the article and admit that they were wrong. After that, we started tweeting each other about a re-release of Marky Mark but making it sound official like it was an actual thing that was happening just to see if anyone would start turning that into articles.

One night, I took it a step further and made a working version of the game running on a PS4 in about an hour and then the next day we both posted a link to a video showing it. That got yanked from Youtube within the first 20 minutes. We used to talk about it all the time trying to figure out how to make it happen since the idea is too ridiculous to ignore but no. No remake of Marky Mark Make My Video.CI: What other FMV games do you want to bring to modern consoles?

CI: What other FMV games do you want to bring to modern consoles?

SV: My original goal was to get as many games from Digital Pictures as I can which is pretty much happening now. Night Trap and Double Switch aren't the only ones coming. Outside of DP releases the goal is D which was originally released back in 1995. I feel like there's a ton of different things you can do with that one.

CI: Lastly is there anything you would like to say to the readers?

The obvious thing would be thank you to everyone that played NT25. It was a stressful process so it made me happy to see that people that were fans of the original enjoyed it. Also, if you're a fan of Digital Pictures releases then stick around because some super rad stuff is coming!

#Night Trap #nintendo #Sega #horror #playstation #interview

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writingguide003-blog · 5 years

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'A total blast': our writers pick their favorite summer blockbusters ever

New Post has been published on https://writingguideto.com/must-see/a-total-blast-our-writers-pick-their-favorite-summer-blockbusters-ever/

'A total blast': our writers pick their favorite summer blockbusters ever

As the season heats up on the big screen, Guardian writers look back on their picks from the past with killer sharks, mournful crime-fighters and time-traveling teens

Face/Off (1997)

Photograph: Allstar/Cinetext/PARAMOUNT

Madman bomber Nicolas Cage stole John Travoltas dead sons life. So gloomy FBI agent Travolta steals Cages face. When Cage steals his face and his wife and freedom John Woos Face/Off becomes the biggest, wackiest and most operatic summer blockbuster in history, a gonzo combustion that flings everything from pigeons to peaches at the screen.

Hong Kong cineastes might applaud a script with roots in the ancient Sichuan opera genre Bian Lian, where performers swap masks like magic. Popcorn-munchers, of which I am front row center, are here to watch whack job Cage and soulful Travolta, two actors who love to go full-ham, play each other and go deep inside their iconographies. Call it hamception. Or just call it a crazy swing that hits a home run as Cavolta and Trage battling it out in a warehouse, a speedboat and, of course, a church. As Cage-as-Travolta gloats to Travolta-as-Cage, Isnt this religious? The eternal battle between good and evil, saint and sinners but youre still not having any fun! Maybe hes not, but we sure are. Bravo, bravo. AN

Edge of Tomorrow (2014)

Photograph: David James/Publicity image from film company

Theres been an increasing sense of desperation clinging to the majority of roles picked by Tom Cruise in recent years. Outside of the still shockingly entertaining Mission: Impossible series, he was miscast in the barely serviceable Jack Reacher and its maddeningly unnecessary sequel, his awards-aiming American Made was throwaway and his franchise-starting The Mummy was a franchise-killer. But four summers ago, he picked the right horse just maybe at the wrong time.

Because despite how deliriously fun Edge of Tomorrow was in the summer of 2014, audiences didnt show the requisite enthusiasm. It was a moderate success (enough to warrant a long-gestating sequel) but it should have packed them in, its combination of charm, invention and sheer thrills making it one of the most objectively successful blockbuster experiences in memory. The nifty plot device (Cruise must relive a day of dying while battling aliens over and over again) allowed for some dark gallows humor and a frenetic pace that kept us all giddily on edge while it also contained a dazzling action star turn from Emily Blunt whose fearless Full Metal Bitch wrestled the film away from Cruise. Blame its relative failure on the bland title? Cruise fatigue? Blockbuster over-saturation? Then find a digital copy to watch and rewatch and repeat. BL

Back to the Future (1985)

Photograph: Allstar/UNIVERSAL/Sportsphoto Ltd./Allstar

Back to the Future very nearly wasnt a summer blockbuster. The reshoots required after Eric Stoltz was booted off, then the fact Michael J Foxs Family Ties commitments meant he could only shoot at night all meant filming didnt wrap until late April. Robert Zemeckis and Steven Spielberg duly pencilled in an August / September release.

But then people started seeing it. Test scores were off the scale. Said producer Frank Marshall: Id never seen a preview like that. The audience went up to the ceiling. So they bagsied the best spot the year had to offer 3 July hired a squad of sound editors to work round the clock and two print editors with instructions to get properly choppy. They did, and those big trims tightened yet further one of the tautest screenplays (by Bob Gale) cinema has ever seen. The only bit of fat they left was the Johnny B Goode scene: sure, it didnt advance the story, but the kids at those test screenings knew we were gonna love it. Back to the Future is a pure shot of summer cinema: grand, ambitious, insanely entertaining. Deadpool, Avengers, take note: a blockbuster can be smart as hell so long as it wears it lightly. In the end, by the way, the film spent 11 weeks at number 1 at the US box office. Thats essentially the whole summer. CS

Teminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)

Photograph: Allstar/TRISTAR/Sportsphoto Ltd./Allstar

The first film I ever saw at the cinema was The Rocketeer. We drove into Bradford city centre, bought our tickets at the Odeon and sat through the 1991 tale which followed the fortunes of a stunt pilot, a rocket pack and a Nazi agent played by Timothy Dalton who sounded like he was from Bury rather than Berlin. The way into the multiplex there was a huge poster for Terminator 2: Judgment Day. Arnie sat on a Harley with a shotgun cocked and ready. My dad was a huge fan of the original but he still couldnt swing taking a seven-year-old to see it. It wasnt until I borrowed a VHS copy that I finally got to see what was behind that image. Skynet, dipshits, T-1000s, a nuclear holocaust and a motorbike chases on the LA river.

Blockbusters dont usually have that edge: theres a more brazen mainstream appeal. But Judgment Day was and still is an exception. It did huge numbers at the box office (more than $500m), was a rare sequel that was arguably better than the original and introduced really odd bits of Spanish idiom into the Bradford schoolyard lexicon. I probably would have been scarred for life watching it as a seven-year-old, but as a teenager it gave me a story I doubt Ill ever get tired of revisiting. LB

The Dark Knight (2008)

Photograph: Allstar/WARNER BROS.

The summer of 2008 was a busy one: Barack Obama emerged from a contentious democratic primary to become the first ever black presidential nominee of a major party. The dam fortifying the entire global financial system was about to burst. China hosted its first ever Summer Olympics. But somehow, and not exactly to my credit, what I remember most from that summer is the uncanny, ridiculously over-the-top publicity blitzkrieg that preceded the release of The Dark Knight, which has since emerged as not just an all-time great summer blockbuster, but an all-time great American film, period.

There were faux-political billboards that read I believe in Harvey Dent; a weirdly nondescript website of the same name; Joker playing cards dispersed throughout comic book stores, which led fans to another website where the DA was defaced with clown makeup. Dentmobiles, Gotham City voter registration cards, a pop-up local news channel: the marketing campaign might have seemed excessive had the movie not so convincingly topped it. Ten years later, as films like Deadpool and Avengers: Infinity War try to reach those same heights of virality, The Dark Knight remains the measuring stick by which every superhero movie, and superhero villain, is measured. JN

Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)

Photograph: Jasin Boland/AP

In many ways, Fury Road is summer: arid, scorching, bright enough to be squinted at. The driving force behind all the high-impact driving is scarcity of water, the essence of life in a desert where death practically rises up from the burning sand. Even in the air-conditioned comfort of a multiplex auditorium in Washington DCs Chinatown, watching George Millers psychotic motor opera left this critic sweaty and parched. My world is fire and blood, warns the weary Max Rockatansky (Tom Hardy) in the scripts opening lines. Staggering out of a theater into the oppressive rays of the sun, it sure can feel that way.

Millers masterpiece fits into the summer blockbuster canon in a less literal capacity as well, striking its ideal balance of dazzling technical spectacle and massively-scaled emotional catharsis. There was plenty of breathless praise to go around upon this films 2015 release, much of it for the feats of practical-effects daring, but the hysterical extremes of feeling cemented its status as a modern classic. I cant deny that Ive watched the polecat sequence upwards of a dozen times, but Millers film truly comes alive in Furiosas howl of desperation, and in Maxs noble disappearance into the throng. CB

Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)

Photograph: Alamy Stock Photo

Its the music, its the giant boulder, its the Old Testament mysticism, its the whip, its the Cairo Swordsman, its Harrison Fords crooked smile, its the bad dates, its Karen Allen drinking a sherpa under the table, its the melted faces and exploding heads. Its all these things plus having the good fortune of seeing this at the cinema at a very young age, therefore watching most of it through my terrified fingers. (Indy tells Marion to keep her eyes shut during the cosmic spooky ending; way ahead of you there!)

The modern blockbuster as we know it was created by Steven Spielberg with Jaws and George Lucas with Star Wars, so the hype was unmatched when the two collaborated in 1981 with Raiders of the Lost Ark. As a kid I had no idea this was a loving homage to cliffhanger serials from the 30s and 40s, I took it as pure adventure. The seven-and-a-half minute desert truck chase (I dont know, Im making thus up as I go) is probably the best action sequence in all of cinema (John Woos Hard Boiled does not have a horse, sorry), but watching as an adult one notices a lot of sophisticated humor, too. (Indy being too exhausted to make love to Marion, for example, is something that didnt connect when I was six.)

Its strange to think I watched these cartoon Nazis on VHS with my grandparents who had escaped the Holocaust, and no one benefits when you do the math to figure out how young Marion was when, as Indy puts it, you knew what you were doing. But for thrills, laughs and propulsive camerawork (though a little mild Orientalism), nothing tops this one. JH

Independence Day (1996)

Photograph: Everett/REX/Shutterstock

Short of actually calling their film Summer Blockbuster, rarely can a films height-of-summer release date been so central to a films raison detre. This being the mid-90s, when po-mo and self-referentiality was all the rage, brazenly hooking your tentpole film to 4 July was seen as a pretty smart idea.

Fortunately, all the ducks did line up in a row for ID4: a game-changing performance from Will Smith, Jeff Goldblum at (arguably) his funniest, a rousingly Clintoneque president in Bill Pullman and most importantly in that run-up to the millennium physical destruction on a gigantic scale. Much comment at the time was expended on the laser obliteration of the White House (an early shot from the Tea Party/Maga crowd?), but I personally cherish director Roland Emmerichs signature move of detonating cars in somersault formation. Like many other huge-budget films then and since, Independence Day was basically a tooled-up retread of cheap-as-chips format of earlier decades though who these days would roll such expensive dice on what is essentially an original script, with no comic book or toy branding as a forerunner? We shall never see its like again. AP

Aliens (1986)

Photograph: Allstar/20 CENTURY FOX/Sportsphoto Ltd./Allstar

An Aliens summer is one for moviegoers who prefer to sit in in darkened rooms when the sun is shining; the brutal confines of the fiery power plant make an excellent subliminal ad for air conditioning. In 1986, James Cameron took Ridley Scotts elegant, iconic horror template and turned it into an all-out action blockbuster, forcing Ripley once again to face down her nemeses in a breathless fug of claustrophobia, sweat and fear. Its relentlessly stressful and unbelievably thrilling.

I first saw Aliens many years after its initial release. Owing to its sizeable and long-lasting legacy, it was at once immediately familiar, yet also brisk and brutally fresh. I understood that it was a classic, but I wasnt prepared for just how good it is, for the pitch-perfect management of tension, the pace that never really lets up, the emotional pull. The maternal undertow of Ripleys protection of Newt, and the alien mirror of that, adds a level of heart unusual in most blockbusters, and her frustration at being a woman whose authority must be earned again and again, and then proven again and again, remains grimly relevant, 30 years on. Its also a total blast. Now get away from her, you bitch. RN

Jaws (1975)

Photograph: Fotos International/Getty Images

It is the great summer blockbuster ancestor the film that in 1975 more or less invented the concept of the event movie. And unlike all those other summer blockbusters, Steven Spielbergs Jaws is actually about the summer; it is explicitly about the institution of the summer vacation, into which the movie was being sold as part of the seasonal entertainment. It is about the sun, the sand, the beach, the ocean and the entirely justified fear of being eaten alive by an enormous shark with the appetite of a serial killer and the cunning of a U-boat commander. And more than that: it is about that most contemporary of political phenomena: the coverup, the town authorities at a seaside resort putting vacationers at risk by not warning them about the shark. The Jaws mayor has become comic shorthand for the craven and pusillanimous politician.

A blockbuster nowadays means spectacular digital effects, but this film is from an analogue world. It bust the block through brilliant film-making and an inspired score from John Williams, summoning up the shark with a simple two-note theme which became the most famous musical expression of evil since Bernard Herrmanns shrieking violin stabs in Psycho took the place of actual knife-slashing. I still remember the excitement of the summer of 1975, and the queues around the block at the Empire, in Watford, round the corner from the football ground. The inspired brevity of the title meant the word was repeated over and over again to fill the marquee display: JAWS JAWS JAWS as if they were screaming it! PB

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kayawagner · 6 years

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CASTLE OLDSKULL Mega-Bundle III [BUNDLE]

Publisher: Kent David Kelly Ask and you shall receive! This immense mega-bundle includes every Wonderland Imprints publication from 2016 through to December 2018 ... every Platinum gaming supplement, every Gold Gygaxian history book, every novel, every design guide. Over 10,000 pages of old school gaming and pulp fantasy goodness. Enjoy!

This special bundle product contains the following titles.

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Why, the dark harlequin of the underworld neath Castle Oldskull, Groohlz-Drakha, has brought you his cruelest and most luscious map of the nether: Herein you will find 1,000 Rooms of Chaos, direct from the most secret lore of Darkseraphim’s own Castle Oldskull. But here in this codex, which I now grant you, lieth only the names of the rooms, mind. What lurks in each chamber within? You as Game Master will imagine up the descriptions, the tricks, the treasures, the traps, and the monsters lairing within each Room of Chaos on your own." So. The adventurers open the door at last, into the dread reach of the dungeon which you have not had time to design yet. And there, to their ultimate bafflemen... CASTLE OLDSKULL - 333 Realms of Entropy Regular price: $0.99 Bundle price: $0.99 Format: Watermarked PDF Herein you will find 333 fleeting glimpses of the World of Oldskull … the Realms of Entropy. What wonders will you create from these enigmatic inspirations? 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It is a fully expanded, reformatted, re-illustrated, and re-edited version of the original Game World Generator, along with a new 70,000-word book -- my requested City State Design Guide -- which is featured as a part herein, where the previous edition ended with very little city state information. The two books are united as a continuous narrative due to the number of requests made by GMs for these associated topics over the years. This Deluxe Edition supersedes the existing Game World Generator (GWG1 V1), which remains available separately at an introductory price. The original edition's 71,000 words have expanded with new material to encom... CASTLE OLDSKULL - Monsters & Treasures Level 1 Regular price: $0.99 Bundle price: $0.99 Format: Watermarked PDF AND SO YOU DARE to open the dungeon door, delving deeper into the upper ruins of nefarious Castle Oldskull. The door opens with a groan, puffing moldy spores into the air. Some evil creature cackles in the dark. 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This massive tome is an ideal work for Game Masters conducting pen-and-paper Fantasy Role-Playing Games. Now, with one huge resource, you can populate your entire mega-dungeon in record time with 79 different random encounter tables, 5,000 different classic encounters! THE OLDSKULL DUNGEON B... CASTLE OLDSKULL - Oldskull Dungeon Encounters Book I Regular price: $1.99 Bundle price: $0.99 Format: Watermarked PDF From the dungeons deep beneath the haunted Ushirian Manor, Castle Oldskull, the first fiends and treasures are now unveiled at last … In this mini-supplement tome you will find 25 unique dungeon encounters and 25 treasures, unearthed from the author’s Castle Oldskull setting, dungeon level 1. The encounters herein are specifically suitable for adventuring parties of the first or second levels of experience. Compatible statistics are provided for Basic, Expert, and Advanced editions of the world’s finest old school role-playing game. These encounters were designed using the Gygaxian bestiary of 1977 and have been specially developed to reveal the extent to which classic monsters... CASTLE OLDSKULL - Oldskull Dungeon Generator Regular price: $0.99 Bundle price: $0.99 Format: Watermarked PDF Hello all, this supplement features an immense Gygaxian OSR random dungeon generator system, crammed into 83 pages. It’s focused on empowering you to create the sprawling level 1 of any mega-dungeon, or any smaller dungeon set to challenge adventurers of experience levels 1 to 3. The challenge levels of the monsters, traps, tricks, and treasures all reflect that difficulty level. You can use this book to design any number of dungeons, and if your group is patient you can even use it during play. You will also find some experimental solitaire rules here, if you like to practice the dungeon crawling yourself! This book’s systems interlock with the Classic Dungeon Design Guide series (CDDG1-3) as well as the Book of Dungeon Traps (BDT1) if you want to add more detail to any... CASTLE OLDSKULL - Oldskull Dungeon Tools Regular price: $0.99 Bundle price: $0.99 Format: Watermarked PDF At last, the culmination of years of old school dungeon design ideas, at your fingertips … Important Note: This is a spreadsheet program, with a user’s manual. This utility is designed to work with a desktop computer, with Microsoft Excel installed and also a word processor (allowing you to paste data output into an easily printable format). If you are using a non-desktop system such as a phone or tablet, you may become frustrated by your inability to use this tool to 100% of its intended functionality. Compatibility with other spreadsheet programs is unfortunately not guaranteed. Please purchase this product only if you have a system that can handle the formatted data and generators in a manner that will be helpful to you. These systems... CASTLE OLDSKULL - Oldskull Monster Generator Regular price: $0.99 Bundle price: $0.99 Format: Watermarked PDF The OLDSKULL MONSTER GENERATOR is the ultimate random monster creation tool, created specifically for both the Fifth and First Editions (5E, 1E) of the world’s first and foremost Fantasy Role-Playing Game (FRPG). Rules and guidelines are provided for both editions. This colossal page compendium contains the largest, most comprehensive, and most ambitious monster creation system ever devised. If you feel that your game might be suffering from a lack of variety in monsters and encounters; if you want straightforward help and guidance in refining your own monster concepts; or, if you just want to inject some old school Gygax-inspired, Arnesonian, and Lovecraftian atmosphere into your modern FRPG, then this is the perfect resource for you. Tap into the chaos, ... CASTLE OLDSKULL - Oldskull Treasure Trove Regular price: $0.99 Bundle price: $0.99 Format: Watermarked PDF The most ambitious old school treasure system, at your fingertips ... Are you weary of plopping down unimaginative treasures that read “1,000 gold pieces” or something similar? More detail would be great, but how do you get there? Do you have enough game and historical information to provide your players with intricate details on acid types, unholy symbols, perfume types, and realistic spices? Can you provide enough variety to fuel an entire campaign replete with hundreds or thousands of different treasure hoards? The challenge is a daunting one. How can you keep your players intrigued and exploring the endless intricacies of your world if every lair they visit is a predictable slot machine with only four vending bins for coins, gems, jewelry, and m... CASTLE OLDSKULL - Oldskull Tyrrhenia Map Pack - TYR1 Regular price: $0.99 Bundle price: $0.99 Format: Watermarked PDF An old school campaign world like no other … the fabled realm of Tyrrhenia which enshrouds the colossal manor known as Castle Oldskull, unveiled at last … Well met, adventurer! Welcome to the age-old land of heroes and perilous beasts. In this introductory “sandbox” campaign starter kit, you will find 18 full-color maps which comprise the old school FRPG realm of Tyrrhenia (the author’s mythic and folkloric interpretation of late medieval Italy and Magna Roma). There is a beautiful full-color satellite image showing all of the Tyrrhenian peninsula and seas beyond; a concise guide-sector map showing how all of the ultra-detail maps connect (as well as the adjacent lands and isles within the World of Oldskull)... CASTLE OLDSKULL - Sword & Sorcery Book I Regular price: $6.99 Bundle price: $0.00 Format: Watermarked PDF After decades of development, Kent David Kelly and Wonderland Imprints are proud to offer you the CASTLE OLDSKULL fantasy role-playing game system. This first rules volume, OLDSKULL SWORD & SORCERY I: BASIC PLAYER CHARACTERS features all the rules new players and Game Masters require to orient themselves in the fantasy world. Here you will find rules, guidelines, and advice for creating newly-emboldened Player Characters in search of adventure in the unknown. The Castle Oldskull Sword & Sorcery Adventure Game is designed in modular fashion, allowing you to progress and expand your realms with bold new challenges, wrought in a world of limitless imagination. Additional volumes in this series detail character empowerment, level progression, dungeon adve... CASTLE OLDSKULL - The Book of Dungeon Traps Regular price: $0.99 Bundle price: $0.99 Format: Watermarked PDF Tumbling boulders crushing over powdered bones, Death pits filled with gibbering slime, Strangling vines, enchanted lodestones, lightning bolts, Hateful wraiths Imprisoned in chests of ancient gold, Chained by holy symbol and silver seal ... Every mechanical horror, every thief’s demise, Every fell contraption Lies here, deep in this book of secrets. Would you like to fill your dungeons with traps, but you can never find coherent rules or guidelines to show the way? Are your players weary of arbitrary deathtraps? Have you ever searched in vain for a system which codifies spells into magical traps? Are you bored with the “famous four” — pits, gas, arrows and poisoned needles &m... CASTLE OLDSKULL - The Classic Dungeon Design Guide Regular price: $0.99 Bundle price: $0.99 Format: Watermarked PDF Deep dwarven cities of the underworld, Infested by conquering orcs, Enslaved by demons of skull and pyre ... Black labyrinths of mad demigods, Proving grounds for daring adventurers And graveyards for greedy fools ... Twisting passages, all alike, Where lurking trolls and shadow beasts Guard the deepest riddles of the nether ... If you have ever wanted to know how to quickly and masterfully create your own mega-dungeon for your pen-and-paper Fantasy Role-Playing Game (PNP FRPG) campaigns, this is the perfect book for you. This Game Master’s guide will show you, step by step, how to take your vague-yet-promising ideas and how to sculpt them with precise and careful design decisions (enhanced, if y... CASTLE OLDSKULL - The Classic Dungeon Design Guide II Regular price: $0.99 Bundle price: $0.99 Format: Watermarked PDF The sequel to the Classic Dungeon Design Guide is here ... Have you read every dungeon design book out there, but you’re still hungry for great ideas to amaze your players? Would you like to possess the tools to generate countless millions of randomized results for bizarre rooms and shrines, dungeon doors, magical laboratories, skeletons, Lovecraftian abominations, and torture chambers? Then this is the book for you. This massive tome is the direct sequel to Wonderland Imprints’ Gold Medal Best Seller, CDDG1: THE CLASSIC DUNGEON DESIGN GUIDE. Where Book 1 was a basic inspirational tome filled with thousands of ideas, Book II: Dungeon Mastery Design Tables is an advanced nuts-and-bolts guide that provides you with hundreds of pages of tables wh... CASTLE OLDSKULL - The Classic Dungeon Design Guide III Regular price: $0.99 Bundle price: $0.99 Format: Watermarked PDF Enchanted fountains shadowed by gargoyle sentries, Tricksy nymphs cavorting in crystal pools, Unholy altars, sacred shrines, Undiscovered treasure vaults, Thousands upon thousands of wondrous rooms Filled with treasure, tricks, magic and eldritch horror, All awaiting your heroes’ intrepid discovery … What greater mysteries await far below, For only the most dauntless magi And fearless warlords to ever find? Continuing the proud tradition of the CLASSIC DUNGEON DESIGN GUIDE series, Book 3: The Labyrinth Lexicon provides you with a nearly endless array of dungeon room types which you can use to build any size, plan and theme of dungeon you desire. This is the largest and most ext... CASTLE OLDSKULL - The Oldskull Deck of Strangest Things Regular price: $0.99 Bundle price: $0.99 Format: Watermarked PDF For all levels, all classes, all who dare. Shake your old school campaign to its foundations with the ultimate magic item … THE OLDSKULL DECK OF STRANGEST THINGS is a deluxe supplement detailing the hundreds of effects created by a Tarot-inspired minor artifact. Profusely illustrated throughout with beautiful card motifs, and with printable color card sheets in the back. 100+ pages. The purposes of this supplement, fully detailing the deck for use in your campaign, are as follows: [1] To make a new tarot deck magic item for old school FRPGs, which surpasses the complexity and quality of all others, while retaining the original Gygaxian spirit of the earliest masterpiece. [2] To clarify generally vague abilities and... CASTLE OLDSKULL - The Oldskull Necronomicon I Regular price: $0.99 Bundle price: $0.99 Format: Watermarked PDF That is not dead which can eternal lie, And with strange aeons, even Death may die. (Al Azif, Necronomicon, Scroll 50, fin.) THE GREATEST NECROMANCER of H. P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos, Abdul Alhazred, comes to vivid and haunting life in this compelling first codex from the most fabled and infamous grimoire of black magic that the world has ever known: THE NECRONOMICON. This book is a treasure trove for any Game Master who wants to embrace the old school of Fantasy Role-Playing Games. Herein lie the terrible secrets of Great Cthulhu and his cult, of the sunken city of R’lyeh, of Alhazred’s necromantic incantations, of the Nameless City, of Nyarlathotep, and the horrible cannibalistic Ghuls who stalk the storm-wrought wastelands of Yemen an... CASTLE OLDSKULL - The Order of the Scarlet Tabard Regular price: $1.99 Bundle price: $0.99 Format: Watermarked PDF Hale companions, ready and true, prepared to brave the dungeons deep in the name of hard-won gold and glory … Behold the doughty and stalwart men- and women-at-arms who hail from the Free City of Grimrook, the infamous and ever-ready “Redshirts” from the mercenary company known as the Order of the Scarlet Tabard! The old school rules always encourage us to include men-at-arms ready for hire by any low-level Player Characters, so that the adventuring party’s strength is bolstered in the dungeon. After all, if there are not enough bodies in the ranks to soak up those pit traps, fatal spider bites, and energy drains, all of those nasty attacks go straight to the imperiled and beloved heroes who are played by the players. But while the ru... CASTLE OLDSKULL - The Pegana Mythos Regular price: $0.99 Bundle price: $0.99 Format: Watermarked PDF Maidens weaving a spell of clouds Over a ruined city of the spice Sunken beneath the venom sea, Blood-painted cultists Chanting beneath the storm moon, Sacrificing innocents to Mung In the name of immortality … The world of a thousand wonders which inspired H. P. Lovecraft’s Dreamlands, and the Cthulhu Mythos Comes to vivid life once more In this Swords and Sorcery supplement For any Fantasy Role-Playing Game. From the peerless works of Lord Dunsany, from my surreptitious campaign notes they come at last: the secret Gods, Monsters, and Heroes who inspired the very foundation of the World of Castle Oldskull. How was the world created? Who... FROM THE FIRE - A Post-Apocalyptic Survival Epic Regular price: $4.99 Bundle price: $0.99 Format: Watermarked PDF The end of the world. The beginning of destiny. * A proven Amazon Best Seller (#1 in Action & Adventure Fiction, 2012; #1 in Post-Apocalyptic Fiction, 2014; #3 in Dystopian Fiction, 2014; 5-Star UK Best Seler, 2017) * Over 80 5-Star Reviews for the Saga and Episode Novellas * The Entire Acclaimed Series: Episodes I, II, III, IV, V and VI in a Single Volume ON APRIL 4th, 2014, 6 billion and 783 million people died in the blinding white fireballs of the Pan-Global Nuclear Holocaust. Sophie Saint-Germain, wife and scientist and mother of one, was not among them. She lived for a time, and so her words endure. The reclamation of her terrifying story is a miracle in itself. Uncovered during the Shoshone Geyser Basin archaeological excavations of 2316, Sop... HAWK & MOOR - Book 1 - Deluxe Edition - The Dragon Rises Regular price: $0.99 Bundle price: $0.99 Format: Watermarked PDF Lake Geneva, 1972. Gygax. Arneson. Come experience the Golden Age ... THE CREATION of the world’s preeminent Fantasy Role-Playing Game (FRPG), Dungeons & Dragons®, is one of the most fascinating tales to be told in all the shared histories of entertainment, play and game design. Two very different men, David Lance Arneson and Ernest Gary Gygax, undertook an unprecedented collaboration which gifted us — as their shared legacy — with one of the most intriguing games the world has yet experienced. Their game did not just simulate one isolate corner of reality; it dared to encompass the entirety of all realms of adventure, the consensual playground of the human imagination. HAWK & MOOR tells the story of Dave and Ga... HAWK & MOOR - Book 2 - Deluxe Edition - The Dungeons Deep Regular price: $0.99 Bundle price: $0.99 Format: Watermarked PDF THE CREATION of the world’s preeminent Fantasy Role-Playing Game (FRPG), Dungeons & Dragons®, is one of the most fascinating tales to be told in all the shared histories of entertainment, play and game design. Two very different men, David Lance Arneson and Ernest Gary Gygax, undertook an unprecedented collaboration which gifted us — as their shared legacy — with one of the most intriguing games the world has yet experienced. Their game did not just simulate one isolate corner of reality; it dared to encompass the entirety of all realms of adventure, the consensual playground of the human imagination. HAWK & MOOR tells the story of Dave and Gary, and the many other people whose efforts gave first life to the game we know a... HAWK & MOOR - Book 3 - Lands and Worlds Afar Regular price: $0.99 Bundle price: $0.99 Format: Watermarked PDF THE CREATION of the world’s preeminent Fantasy Role-Playing Game (FRPG), Dungeons & Dragons, is one of the most fascinating tales to be told in all the shared histories of entertainment, play and game design. Two very different men, David Lance Arneson and Ernest Gary Gygax, undertook an unprecedented collaboration which gifted us — as their shared legacy — with one of the most intriguing games the world has yet experienced. Their game did not just simulate one isolate corner of reality; it dared to encompass the entirety of all realms of adventure, the consensual playground of the human imagination. HAWK & MOOR tells the story of Dave and Gary, and the many other people whose efforts gave first life to the game we know and love today.... HAWK & MOOR - Book 4 - Of Demons and Fallen Idols Regular price: $0.99 Bundle price: $0.99 Format: Watermarked PDF THE CREATION of the world’s preeminent Fantasy Role-Playing Game (FRPG), Dungeons & Dragons, is one of the most fascinating tales to be told in all the shared histories of entertainment, play and game design. Two very different men, David Lance Arneson and Ernest Gary Gygax, undertook an unprecedented collaboration which gifted us — as their shared legacy — with one of the most intriguing games the world has yet experienced. Their game did not just simulate one isolate corner of reality; it dared to encompass the entirety of all realms of adventure, the consensual playground of the human imagination. HAWK & MOOR tells the story of Dave and Gary, and the many other people whose efforts gave first life to the game we know and love today.... HAWK & MOOR - Book 5 - Age of Glory Regular price: $0.99 Bundle price: $0.99 Format: Watermarked PDF THE CREATION of the world’s preeminent Fantasy Role-Playing Game (FRPG), Dungeons & Dragons, is one of the most fascinating tales to be told in all the shared histories of entertainment, play and game design. Two very different men, David Lance Arneson and Ernest Gary Gygax, undertook an unprecedented collaboration which gifted us — as their shared legacy — with one of the most intriguing games the world has yet experienced. Their game did not just simulate one isolate corner of reality; it dared to encompass the entirety of all realms of adventure, the consensual playground of the human imagination. HAWK & MOOR tells the story of Dave and Gary, and the many other people whose efforts gave first life to the game we know and love today.... HAWK & MOOR - The Steam Tunnel Incident Regular price: $0.99 Bundle price: $0.99 Format: Watermarked PDF THE MORE SINISTER urban legends concerning the Steam Tunnel Incident run as follows: A young genius, seduced and deluded by a mind-controlling fantasy game, abandoned his Satanic gaming cult because he feared for his life. He then delved into the netherworld, a labyrinthine “dungeon” of steam tunnels running for miles beneath a sprawling university. There, under the influence of drugs, occult talismans, evil magic or mere insanity, he mistook fantasy for reality and tried to slay his invoked dragons, demons and devils in real life. Finally, he became hopelessly lost in the tunnels. Facing a slow and horrible demise in the endless dark, he committed suicide. Or, he was murdered by a conspiracy of Lucifer-worshipping gamer-cultists who silenced him to... LORDS OF OLDSKULL - Book I - Krampus Regular price: $0.99 Bundle price: $0.99 Format: Watermarked PDF As cav’lier golems march and wheel, In tiny danse of death and holm And arc their blades of mint and bone To tinkling chaunt of glockenspiel; And from the shadow’s watching wall? Krampus sighing, claimeth all. See his sorrowed eyes abright, Bells a-tinkling in the night; Sixty-six the bells they are, Shiv’ring silver-bright I see: Bell woven to brimstone, beard, and mane, Regardless of thy slumber feign’d. From the wintery shadows He comes, and when he sings, none dare keep their most forbidden secrets from his clutches … Are you looking for something a little different to spice up your old sch...

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