It is where I am, anyway. After receiving some unexpected attention on Thought Eater's Humpday Blog-o-Rama it came to my attention that I probably wasn't doing enough to promote the material
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| Left: google data centre thing; right: an illustration of Borge's Library of Babel, drawn by Erik Desmazieres. Hahaha I'm joking! It's the other way around! |
So, bearing in mind that I have no intention of replicating the humpday blog-o-rama's size, scope and level of detail, I thought it best to limit myself to reporting back on five posts each week. Obviously it would be contrarian to do this on Wednesday so... five posts every Friday? it's alliterative, which means it will be an instant phenomenon. And to keep things mildly spiced, I'l make an arbitrary selection based upon the five most recent posts in the Library of Babel.
Actually, scrap that: if you want to view the five most recent posts in the library of babel, take a look at the right hand column of your screen. I've moved the blogroll up so that it's underneath the ARCHIVE IN EXILE and should be easier to find. If your blog isn't on that list and you feel as though it should be, let me know and I will add it.
INSTEAD, this new regular "feature" will highlight my five favourite bloposts over the past week, or between the current post and the previous post, whichever is most interesting. The plan is to make this a regular Friday occurrence but I have horrendous self-discipline when it comes to doing things that are actually enjoyable.
But before I continue... special mention must go to Dragons Never Forget for posting the most comprehensive and informative RPG blogroll I've yet seen. What sets this apart from the numerous google sheets and online lists (which have been very helpful, and I'm not disparaging them) is that the author has included A PARAGRAPH of descriptive text, alongside an approximate post frequency for 450 INDIVIDUAL BLOGS.
It truly is a thing of beauty. Read it here!
Okay, drums and bugles please! Hence commences the inaugural FIVE ON FRIDAY: BABELIAN LIBRARY!
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CAVEGIRL'S GAME STUFF:
REVIEW - THE SHIVERING CIRCLE
This is the blog of award winning RPG writer Emmy Allen, the creative genius behind Gardens of Ynn, The Styggian Library and Wolfpacks and Winter Snow. Her blog, like all of my favourite blogs, is a showroom for Cavegirl's incredible imagination, as well as acting as an occasional devlog for her current projects.
This post is different in that it is a review of an RPG resource by another author. It is a thorough and insightful review of a relatively obscure recent release, The Shivering Circle by Howard David Ingham. I won't go into too much detail, as I want you to follow the link and read it for yourself, then say "A mash-up of the occult and social realism set in contemporary rural Britain sounds fucking interesting, I'm going to buy that".
This post was also one of three that I read this week that made me realise I should do more to promote the work of others to my burgeoning readership (the other two are linked above), so it is partially responsible for this post existing in the first place, which is not as elliptical as I'm trying to make it sound.
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OF SLUGS AND SILVER:
PETIT ALBERT SPELLS: MORE TRANSLATED BY REQUEST
https://slugsandsilver.blogspot.com/2019/10/petit-albert-spells-more-translated-by.html?showComment=1571978222511#c8490327236513987903
This blog's author, Ancalagon, is quite active on the OSR subreddit and the OSR discord. Recently, they have embarked on a massive project: translating an eighteenth century French Grimoire of "real" spells once pored over by "real" practitioner of magic!
The results veer between the fantastic and the mundane (many of them appear to be recipes) but a surprising quantity are "gameable".
This particular post details the making of a sleep lantern, a deadly miasma and a reliable travelling staff, amongst many others.
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BOX FULL OF BOXES
DYING EARTH MONSTERS PART II - DEODAND
https://boxfullofboxes.blogspot.com/2019/10/dying-earth-monsters-part-ii-deodand.html
I'm cheating a little bit here as this post is over a week old but a) I am a big fan of Jack Vance's Dying Earth and b) the deodand has been randomly popping up here there and everywhere over the past few weeks, and if you've noticed this too, allow my confirmation bias to contribute to your Baader-Meinhoff effect! This post is about deodands, and when you've finished readung it, you should look up what a deodand means in Old English law: it's nearly as interesting as this post.
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GOBLIN PUNCH:
D6 DUNGEON MERCHANTS
http://goblinpunch.blogspot.com/2019/10/d6-dungeon-merchants.html
I will continue to advocate for Arnold Kemp for as long as he continues to write brilliant stuff and not be a dick, or until I am unable to do so. I have a weird notion that the latter will occur before the former. In other words, if you are yet to read his blog Goblin Punch (I seriously doubt that any of my readers fall into that category, but just in case), go there now and wallow in its grimy splendour.
This post arrived as part of a cavalcade of October posts (as I write this, a fourth has just galloped in) after a quiet September. The post details six idiosyncratic encounters in the dungeon, ranging from scuttling dungeon bugs (possibly voiced by Gilbert Gottfried: someone said this online, somewhere, but I cannot retrieve their comment! Help me out!), to a sentient... rash(?) called Charlie Pox.
It's fucking golden, is what it is. Treat yourself.
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THE HILL CANTONS
REGIMENTAL GOATS, BOUNTIES, AND FREE PASTURAGE FOR ALL: NEWS FROM THE HILL CANTONS RETURNS
http://hillcantons.blogspot.com/2019/10/regimental-goats-bounties-and-free.html
This morning I casually glanced at my feed and saw a new post by Chris Kutalik. The Hill Cantons blog was one of the first I started following, when I started this up nearly five years ago. Somehow recent posts from that blog have passed me by, so I actually hadn't realised it was still active: it was both exciting and nostalgic for me to witness a Hill Cantons post this morning.
Chris Kutalik is the creator of What Ho! Frog Demons, Fever-Dreaming Marlinko, Slumbering Ursine Dunes, The MNisty Isles of Eld and, of course, the Hill Cantons, all available at this link. This post is an update of what is going on in the Hill Cantons at present, and gives a flavour of what is meant by pure Slavic/Vancian/Moorcockian acid fantasy.
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Here ends the inaugural Five on Friday. Have a productive weekend.
Sofinho
(DM in Exile)
I'm insanely honored to be mentioned on a list of blog entries along with such luminaries such as Cavegirl and Arnold K. Thank you so much!
ReplyDeleteI don't intend to translate *all* the spells, but I think by the time I'm done there will be a few dozens. I think I've well established what kind of material is in there, the next batch will be chosen on adventuring potential mostly.
And then what? Move on to a new grimoire! :)
I think it's an interesting series and one deserving of attention, so I make no apologies for including you alongside such luminaries! One of the most interesting things about the spells you've translated so far is the frequency of temporary magic items, and I think this is something that has a lot of gameable potential.
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