That's No Moon...

Sep. 22nd, 2025 09:23 pm
ffutures: (Default)
[personal profile] ffutures
Playing around with my mirror lens on micro 4/3 again, this time with an aluminized mylar filter for solar work - gives a yellow tone which is "nicer" than the white of a more accurate filter.

Four sunspots are visible, but there is also a circular mark which is an artifact, probably grunge in the lens or on the sensor. Picture 1 is the best of 15 or so images, picture 2 is the same image with labels, picture 3 was taken separately with the camera in a slightly different position, showing that the four spots are real since they are still in the same position relative to the disc of the sun, while the round mark is in the same position on the frame but a different position relative to the sun.







Another Fantasy Bundle - Weird Bundle

Sep. 22nd, 2025 08:42 pm
ffutures: (Default)
[personal profile] ffutures
This is an offer of the Shadow of the Weird Wizard RPG frpm Schwalb Entertainment, based on the Shadow of the Demon Lord system:

https://bundleofholding.com/presents/WeirdWizard



Slightly less apocalyptic than the original game, but built around similar ideas. Not my cup of tea, but it's a reasonable idea if you like that sort of thing.

A Reminder re: Hey!Cafe

Sep. 22nd, 2025 09:41 am
dewline: (canadian media)
[personal profile] dewline
I'm maintaining an account on that Penticton, BC-based social media service, partly as a fallback measure in case I lose access to Mastodon, Bluesky and Twitter-as-was, and partly as a means of supporting made-in-Canada social media. You can find my account here:

https://hey.cafe/@dewline

Yes, I expect to set up something with Gander as well, for similar reasons.

Happier Birthdays to [personal profile] matociquala!

Sep. 22nd, 2025 09:37 am
dewline: Exclamation: "Hear, Hear!" (celebration)
[personal profile] dewline
Hoping you're doing well these days!

RIP: Bernie Parent

Sep. 21st, 2025 02:32 pm
dewline: A marker of my age and my sports interest (hockey)
[personal profile] dewline
Another piece of my childhood sports-watching life gone...

https://www.cbc.ca/sports/hockey/nhl/bernie-parent-obit-1.7639630

Star Trek Mapping: Getting Reoriented

Sep. 18th, 2025 09:41 pm
dewline: A fake starmap of the fictional Kitchissippi Sector (Sector)
[personal profile] dewline
Okay, where was I? 50 Leonis, Bowler 15 (yes, there's a star with that actual catalogue number!), 5 Puppis, Omicron Leonis, Ross 391...

Another RPF Bundle - Laironomicon

Sep. 15th, 2025 06:51 pm
ffutures: (Default)
[personal profile] ffutures
This is a bundle of the Dread Laironomicon, a system-neutral sourcebook from Raging Swan Press, with "the dread companion", a guide to sources for things in this supplement in other books from the same publisher. Basically, it describes a hundred locations for monsters, with surroundings etc., via a LOT of tables.

https://bundleofholding.com/promo/list/key/Hideaways

  


This REALLY isn't something I would want to use - it's basically aimed at dungeon-bashing and not much else - and to be honest I don't think I'd be very interested even if I was still playing these games. It's cheap and worth having if you really have no time to prepare for a game, but even when I was playing a lot of D&D I made very little use of this sort of thing, individual design works better for me.

Coincidentally...

Sep. 12th, 2025 06:22 pm
ffutures: (Default)
[personal profile] ffutures
I've been thinking about the "Dad's Dragons" RPG thing, and by chance I found a pack of cards in a charity shop today - each card has a teeny reproduction of a WW2 poster on it, e.g. the classic "Be like dad - keep mum". About 40 are relevant to Britain at the beginning of WW2, the rest are on similar American themes.

My idea is to give each player three cards, and let them play one if the situation seems relevant, with a -1 or -2 modifier on the difficulty of whatever they're doing; -1 for a bit relevant, -2 for very relevant.

I paid a couple of pounds for them - if anyone else wants a set they were sold by British Heritage ltd. - looks like they're no longer in production, but there is someone selling them on eBay (for a lot more) if anyone wants to know what they're like:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/145239451112

There are probably other ways to get similar images e.g. from art books such as these:

https://www.tgjonesonline.co.uk/Product/Slocombe-Richard/British-Posters-of-the-Second-World-War/8659133

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/365369778921

Just bought the second of these since it's pretty cheap.

Update 15th September - the second book has arrived and is VERY good and remarkably cheap, new A4-format paperback with 20 pages of intro and 45 pages of colour posters for £3.67, definitely worth having for scene setting for anything set in WW2 Britain.
ffutures: (Default)
[personal profile] ffutures
The final Rifts bundle this week, completing the run of all of the world books etc. for the system. This is another repeated bundle, previously offered last year.

COALITION WARS
   https://bundleofholding.com/presents/2025Coalition



last time I said "The new collection is material that was originally published in 2000-2002 - at a quick glance it looks like the interdimensional war that's at the core of this system hotted up to 11, and possibly mainly of interest to players who like a LOT of combat in their adventures." Not really much I can add to that.

ffutures: (Default)
[personal profile] ffutures
This is another big bundle of material for Palladium's Rifts RPG, this time concentrating on different geographical areas including England, Atlantis, etc. etc., previously in a bundle in December 2022.

https://bundleofholding.com/presents/2025RiftsLands

  

In 2022 I said "This appears to include some new material, but I don't know if it's new or new editions. Rifts fans can probably judge for themselves." In fact the copyright dates are mostly in the 1990s, but at a quick glance the bundle does include books from 2012 and 2017.

One more bundle to come, completing a run of all of the Rifts worldbooks.
ffutures: (Default)
[personal profile] ffutures
This is something I'm thinking of running at Dragonmeet at the end of November, and possibly publishing as a small game supplement with two or three adventures and support material.

Basic idea is a "twenty years later" continuation of Too Many Dragons, one of the adventures from my Nesbit book, Fables and Frolics, possibly adding in some of the Dragon Player Character stuff from the Tooth and Claw setting. The first adventure was set in a Welsh village where a group of meddling kids tried to find a dragon before its eggs hatched and its children devastated the countryside. At the end of the adventure they usually end up helping the dragon deal with the real threat, a meddling dragon wizard who is trying to gain favour in the Dragon Emperor's court (in another dimension) by persuading the dragon to reunite with her husband, the Emperor. The kids aren't going to be a threat if she brings them up properly.

Flash forward say 25 years to 1940-ish. The baby dragons are now teenagers (hatching took a LONG time), and live and work among the humans in the same village (dragon magic includes shape changing). Mum is still around, of course (dragons are VERY tough and live for centuries) and now runs the village pub or something of the sort. But the war is causing a few problems:
  • Meat is rationed, and dragons are obligate carnivores who need a sheep every two weeks or so, or equivalent. Each.
  • They're coming up to conscription age and while their shape changing is good, it isn't perfect and probably won't fool the sort of medical you have to take to join the forces or be medically excused from service.
  • There's now an important and very hush-hush military base in the area - RADAR, mining rare minerals for Britain's beginning nuclear weapons research, or something of the sort - and everyone is being warned to be on the look-out for suspicious activity, aircraft, strange lights, etc. etc.
  • Probably other things I haven't thought of yet.
Although they're dragons, they're patriotic Brits and do want to do their bit for King and Country, and since they're not quite old enough to enlist they've joined the local branch of the Home Guard. Some of the older members are aware that they are dragons and will try to help, others are blissfully ignorant.

I think there would be a mixture of draconic and human player characters. Say two dragon "boys" and a "girl", Mum (probably an NPC), and two or three humans, at least one of whom starts off not knowing anything about dragons. Throw in the usual sort of Dad's Army problems, problems from dear old Dad (the Dragon Emperor) who wants his heirs well away from those horrible violent humans, and so forth.

Any thoughts? Plot ideas? And are there any games / settings I should bear in mind as covering similar ground?

August 2025

Sep. 10th, 2025 02:57 pm
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[personal profile] muninnhuginn

August 2025

Read:
Shorts:
Non-fiction
 
Attended:
  • A New Day
 
Nothing much to see here. Just work, a few outings, and a whole heap of fatigue. Hey ho! Onwards with the program.

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