Sorry gang, I have a week filled with medical diagnostics. So, no update on the covenant project for now. 2013. I’m so glad you are gone. Seriously. I thought the whole slow torture with Amber thing was terrible, but then you had my doctor calling me three days before Christmas saying “You know those turning…
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Ars Magica : The Harvest
I’ve been collecting books for years. In part this is because I’m a librarian, and so I’m trained to see the value in written things. In part it’s because I’m an Ars Magica author, and so I have a tendency to pick things up and think :”One day I may need this for a book…
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A quick update on the Vanilla Covenant Project
It’s still fermenting away on its own page. New this week: complete stats for the other three Companion level characters. Next week I’ll be skipping for the holidays, then returning with some grog kits, and the beginning of the serious folklore work. You might think the 5 000 words of folklore you see there now…
Read MoreStats up for the autocrat over on the vanilla covenant page, and an odd image I discovered on my hard drive
So, the vanilla covenant project is moving forward again: stats for specialists this and next week. Also, I found this on my hard drive while I was cleaning out. I’m guessing I did it before the associated book came out?
Read MoreGraphic Novels MOOC interview
I was interviewed about a MOOC I was studying, and the interview has just been published. It’s at the tail end of this bio piece about my lecturer. http://www.westword.com/2013-10-24/news/william-kuskin-university-of-colorado/
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Vanilla is everywhere because it is delicious
Over on the Ars Forum, people have been suggesting we don’t have enough material for new players, and so I’ve decided to write some material which is based on making the obvious design choices. It’s about a covenant which is a castle on a hill by a faerie forest. It’s in Summer, and has senior…
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Four weeks ago, when Amber died: a minicomic for Comic Books and Graphic Novels (via Coursera)
An explanation for why the blog has been so quiet of late, and a rough draft for my graphic novel essay. Final submission draft It is very similar to the rough photos. I tried to redraw it, but when I laid out the first grid, it looked too artificial. I like that this has the slightly warped…
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Go Play Brisbane August 2013 – Sesion One
In the first session I played Lady Blackbird. We did some character generation, and my take was this: Rodriguez the Space Ninja Silence (Movement, Attacks, About Motives) Destroying Things (Precision, In Person, Retrotech) Gadgets (Improvised, Retrotech, Stolen) Keys: Impatience with frivolity Desire to perform a single, decisive action which resolves situations. Secrets: One Perfect…
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Heathcliff: I’d step away from the window if I were you
So, listening today to Kate Bush and “Wuthering Heights” I was struck by a few questions. Why does the ghost have to keep telling Heathcliff it is Cathy? Surely he knows what Cathy looks like. It’s not an amorphous blob. It looks, if we are to believe the film clip, rather like a woman in…
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Virtue sets for characters in “The Shadows in the Smoke”, an Ars Magica adventure for GoPlay Brisbane
I’m wanting to give strong direction to new players here, so the virtues can’t just be “Divide by 2 rather than 5 for spellcasting totals”. I’m looking to give a serious twist to the characters, and put in some Victorian steampunk pseudoscience too. Here are the basic virtue sets Monkey Testicles Your character has eight monkey…
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Games From Folktales 