In ages past the world ended. In the skies above Babylon, the greatest city on Earth, specks of black mist appeared, pulsated, and grew, extending until the heavens were engulfed by an ocean of darkness. Even in the darkness, gashes could be seen in the newly sundered skies and from them cyclone-like tentacles reached out and began to rip the world apart. As prayers to the gods went unanswered, helpless men, women, and children were swept up into the turmoil and into the Void beyond… In this way the world ended, and mankind fell from grace. Many centuries have passed and the descendants of those survivors who were ripped from Ancient Mesopotamia struggle for their existence between the cracks and in the shadows in the slums of Llyhn the Eternal City, a dystopian cosmopolis and trading hub at the epicentre between the Cosmos and the Void. Living in filthy alleys and shanties among beggars, slaves and the casteless, they scrounge for scraps that fall from palaces of the unknowable alien Unseen Rulers of the city. Humanity is very much at the bottom of the social hierarchy in Llyhn, a city inhabited and ruled by eerie beings from faraway worlds, bizarre sapient entities and otherworldly Daimons from beyond the Veil. However, there are factions in the city who want this to change, for humanity to rise beyond its meagre existence. Chief amongst these are the three enclaves of humanity. These are the Feerdani enclave, consisting of a thousand labourers and dork workers ruled by the one-armed, elderly despot, Feerada; the ruins known as Beggars Court, ruled by the corpulent and paranoid self-styled Beggar King; and the Assembly, an inclusive enclave governed by a representative body which is seen as a beacon of hope in Llyhn. 

The Player Characters are inhabitants of Llyhn Eternal, seeking matronage or patronage with one of the enclaves, getting involved in the rivalries between the city’s many factions, perhaps even voyaging out from the order and constancy of the Cosmos into the chaos and catalyst that is the Void to other worlds, perhaps on missions of trade, exploration, diplomacy, and more. Yet between the stability of the Cosmos and the ethereal, fluctuating ocean of the Void, is the Veil, a metaphysical entity which keeps them apart, though there are places where the Veil is weakened to the point where the boundary between the Void and the Cosmos is blurred. This is where border worlds such as Llyhn are located.

This is the set-up for Black Void , a roleplaying game of esoteric dark fantasy published by Black Void Games and distributed by Modiphius Entertainment. Although there have been many roleplaying game of late published in Scandinavia, nearly all of them by Free League Publishing, Black Void has the distinction of being a Danish roleplaying game. It may well be the first Danish roleplaying game to be published in English.

As the descendants of Earth, Player Characters can be Pureblood Humans; Halfbloods, the result of interbreeding with another species, often regarded with hostility by other Humans; or Voidmarked, either born of esoteric and Human parents or exposed too much to the chaotic nature of the Void. They may Llyhn natives and perhaps enclave members, outsiders from a backwater world, recluses from the city, or perhaps even Lost Children returned from traversing the Void or rescued castaways from missing expeditions or colonies. A Player Character is defined by his homeworld, Traits, Background, Attributes, Powers, and Skills. A homeworld provides a Player Character with a little background information and a Talent, whilst his Traits—Agility, Awareness, Stamina, Strength, Intellect, Persuasion, Presence, and Willpower, typically rated between one and five for Human characters, but can go as high as twelve for other species. They are the equivalent of attributes or characteristics in other roleplaying games. They typically average three for most Humans and most Player Characters. Traits and Flaws are advantages and disadvantages, whilst Background defines a character’s social standing, allies, resources, and ancestry. Attributes and Powers are somewhat different. Attributes—what would be called traits in other roleplaying games—can either be Physical or Esoteric. Physical Attributes, for example, wings or horns, may be found amongst Halfblood and Voidmarked characters, whilst only the Voidmarked may have Esoteric Attributes, such as Ageless or the beguiling Daimonic Whispers. Powers are supernatural abilities, either Mystic powers, Blood Rituals, or Void powers. Mystic powers enable a character to channel his mental energies or inner Void to manifest phenomena and change reality around him; Blood Rituals require deal with sacrificial divination, bloodletting rituals, and other practices in order to enhance the practitioner; and Void powers are innate inhuman abilities and manifestations, available only to the enlightened.

For the most part, character generation is done by Point Buy. A player has forty-eight Character Points to spend on everything. Half of these are assigned to the character’s eight Traits, giving them a value of three each. Deducting three from each Trait gives its bonus for actions and skill rolls, so a Trait needs to be at least four to provide any bonus. The other half is spent on Talents, Backgrounds, Attributes, Powers, and Skills. Talents and Flaws are associated with particular Traits. A Trait must have a value of three or more to have an associated Talent, or a value of three or less to have an associated Flaw. Being a Halfblood or Voidmarked character also costs points, but grants access to Attributes that an ordinary Human character would not have. 

Skills are ranked between zero and twelve, from Dabbler to Legendary, and must be purchased at a Rank of zero before they can be raised to a positive value. For every three ranks in a skill, a character can have a specialisation, but each specialisation costs three points. A character also has two other values. Enlightenment is a measure of his intuitive understanding of the greater Cosmos, Void, and the Veil, and can be a boon or a bane, but ultimately tracks his climb to illumination and the powers that grants him. Initial Enlightenment depends on a character’s origins and can only be improved through play. Wastah represents a character’s personal influence, typically ranging between one and three.

Our sample character is Bagrah, an orphaned Halfblood human who nominally works in an abattoir handling animals, but finds more work as a small time thief, thug, and hired muscle. His height and weird eyes unnerve many people, which can be to his advantage. He wants to improve his existence, but does not know how.

Name: Bagrah
Race: Halfblood
Homeworld: Enlightened – Core
Age: 19 Gender: Male
Appearance: Lanky and wiry; feathery hair, vertical; slits for eyes

Agility 4 (+1) (Talent: Fast Reflexes)
Awareness 4 (+1) (Talent: Vigilant)
Stamina 3 
Strength 3 
Intellect 3 (Talent: Focused)
Persuasion 2 (-1) (Flaw: Blunt [Mild])
Presence 2 (-1) (Flaw: Bad Aura [Mild])
Willpower 3 

Health: 28 Sanity: 8 Move: 5 Defence Value: 9 Enlightenment: 0 Wastah: 0

Backgrounds: Caste: Kalbi, Local 
Powers: Retractable Small Claws, Night Vision

Skills: Athletics 1, Animal Handling 0, Dodge 1, Larceny 1, Stealth 1, Streetwise 1, Unarmed Combat 1

Notes: +1 interaction from homeworld; +1 modifier to subterfuge, disguise and associated rolls.

Character creation and getting the points balanced between Backgrounds, Traits, Powers, and Skills is slightly fiddly to get quite right. At even the standard power level for starting characters a player will need to decide which of these his character will focus on. Certainly unless a character is focused on skills, he is unlikely to have any Specialisations as they are so costly.

Mechanically, Black Void uses a standard roll and add mechanic, employing a twelve-sided die. To this will be added modifiers from a character’s appropriate Traits, Talents, and Skills. An easy task has a difficulty rating of four, an average task a difficulty rating of seven, a challenging task a difficulty rating of ten, and so on, going up in steps of three all the way up to twenty-five for an impossible task. A roll of a one is a critical fumble, whilst a roll of a twelve is a critical success and enables the die to be rerolled and the result added. Various effect rolls, such as weapon damage, are rolled on two, three, four, six, and twelve-sided dice.

Combat uses the same mechanics, the difficulty to hit an opponent determined by his Defence Value. In general, combatants get only one action per round and this can be used up if a character needs to dodge or parry an attack, so a player will need to be more careful in his choice of actions as there is no automatic attack attempt. Armour reduces damage, but its bulk can impede attacks or other actions, and weapons can have other properties, such as piercing for a spear or knockdown for a mace. Both arms and armour can be modified and customised for further effects.
                                                                                               
Magic plays a major role in Black Void and comes in three types—Blood Rituals, Mysticism, and Void powers. Of these, only Blood Rituals and Mysticism are available at the start of the game, whilst Void powers come through being exposed to the Void or gaining Enlightenment. Magic is very different to that of other fantasy roleplaying games and has an adult tone in places. Notably, this is with Blood Rituals, the practice of ceremonial sacrifice of living animals, beasts, and sometimes even sentient or Daimonic beings. This is divided between bloodletting, the blood being consecrated, offered, or ritually consumed to confer its innate powers and thus a temporary ability, bonus, or advantage on the practitioner or other recipient, and sacrificial divination, in which the entrails and blood of a sacrificial animal are examined to elicit an answer to a query supposed fortune, insight, or providence. Mysticism is influenced by the Void and enables its practitioners to alter reality with inexplicable, wondrous, and oftentimes quite dangerous phenomena, and as such can only be practised by the Voidmarked, the enlightened, or those who have otherwise been affected by the Void. Practitioners of Mysticism are either Furores or Gnostics, depending upon if they use their Willpower or Intellect respectively. Furores tended to be untrained and unleash passion fuelled displays of unrefined powers, whilst Gnostics are trained and meditative, capable of creating more subtle effects. They cannot channel as much power as Furores, but know techniques which enable them to withstand the deleterious effects should they lose control of their power.

Our sample Mystic is Gulandam, a healer and scholar in good standing with the Beggars Court despite his appearance. 

Name: Gulandam
Race: Voidmarked
Homeworld: Llyhn Native
Age: 59 (Elder) Gender: Female
Appearance: Short and obese; speckled skin, hair tendrils, all black eyes, tendril beard, four fingers on each hand, four toes on each foot.

Agility 2 (-1)
Awareness 3 
Stamina 2 (-1) (Flaw: Obese [Mild])
Strength 2 (-1) (Flaw: Frail [Mild])
Intellect 4 (+1) (Talent: Quick Learner)
Persuasion 3 
Presence 3 
Willpower 5 (+2) (Talent: Resolve)

Health: 16 Sanity: 39 Move: 4 Defence Value: 7 Enlightenment: 0 Wastah: 1

Backgrounds: Educated, Local

Powers: Ageless, True Sight, Mysticism (Gnostic) 1– Spheres: Life (2), Mind (2)

Skills: Anatomy 1, Bladed Weapons 0, Enquiry 1, Herbalism 1, Occult Lore 1 

Then there is Enlightenment. Through a growing awareness and comprehension of the Cosmos and the Void, a Player Character can climb tiers of Ascension, becoming increasingly sensitive to the Void and able to express various powers. Enlightenment only comes about through play and it is up to the Arbiter to decide when a Player Character progresses.
Bagrah has been hired to mug Gulandam, part of the rivalries besetting the Beggars Court. The Arbiter Gulandam’s player must make an opposed Observation roll versus Bagrah’s Stealth check. The Stealth check figures in Bagrah’s Agility modifier and Stealth skill, which is +1 each. His player rolls the die and adds +2 for a result of 9, modified to 11. Gulandam has no modifier, nor the Observation skill, so is untrained and suffers a -3 bonus. His player rolls an 11, modified to 8. Bagrah has achieved surprise and consequently, beyond his natural Defence Value of 7, Gulandam cannot react to the attack. Bagrah unleashes his claws and leaps to attack. His player will add +1 for Bagrah’s Agility modifier and +1 for his Unarmed Combat skill. Unfortunately, Bagrah’s player rolls a natural 1—a critical fumble! This means his player rolls on the Mishap Table, the result being a ten in which Bagrah pinches a nerve and cannot conduct any combat manoeuvres the following round.In the next round, both players roll for initiative. Gulandam has no modifier, but Bagrah gains a total bonus of +2 from his Agility and Fast Reflexes Talent. Bagrah’s player again rolls a natural 1! There is no penalty for this, but Bagrah is obviously slowed by the pain. Gulandam’s player simply rolls a 7. Now both players will declare their characters’ actions. Bagrah’s player says that he will be doing no more than dodge whatever Gulandam attack will make, whilst Gulandam’s player decides that the Mystic will strike fear into Bagrah using the Mind Sphere of his Gnosticism. This takes three separate steps. First to determine the Potency of the Mystic channelling, then make a to-hit roll and roll, followed by a damage roll.Potency depends on the channelling time, range, duration, area, and the Rank of the Sphere used. An instant channelling time has a Potency of 6, but Gulandam has time to concentrate before Bagrah can act. Gulandam spends a second concentrating on the channelling, reducing his initiative to 3 and the Potency to 5. Range is inside three metres and duration is instant, so the Potency is not increased, but the target of one person increases it by 1. It is also increased by 2 for Gulandam’s Rank in the Mind Sphere. This gives his player a Difficulty of 9 to beat. To this, Gulandam’s player will add +1 each for Gulandam’s Intellect modifier and Mysticism Rank. He rolls a 9, adds +2, for a total of 11. Gulandam has successfully channelled the Gnostic forces and his player now makes the to-hit roll. Bagrah has a high Defence Value and Gulandam has a poor Agility, giving a -1 modifier to the attack roll. Fortunately, Gulandam’s player rolls an 11, which means Gulandam successfully strikes his assailant. At Rank 2 of the Mind Sphere, Gulandam can force Bagrah’s player to make a roll against Difficulty rating of seven. Unfortunately, Bagrah’s player rolls a 5 and Bagrah is suddenly affeared… This means he has to roll on the Fear effect table, and on a seven, Bagrah is panicked, and must flee for three rounds and is at a penalty to act against Gulandam.Black Void is split into two parts. The first half presents the rules for both the players and the Arbiter—as the Game Master as known in Black Void—and quite an extensive equipment list also, including lists of physician’s tools, infusions and teas, services and labour, and so on. The second half is for the Arbiter. Here it presents solid advice on running and setting up a game, before delving into the world or worlds of Black Void itself. This includes an examination of the Void itself and the means and dangers of traversing it; perforations between the Void and the Cosmos, and the appearance and nature of the perforations where they appear; and information about the most common routes through, in particular those overseen by the Unseen Rulers of the Eternal City. The focus of the Arbiter’s section is Llyhn Eternal and here it is given a good breakdown of the city’s sections, factions, and so on, complete with decent maps, personalities, and plot hooks. The bestiary provides a selection of strange  sentient and non-sentient races. They include the curious and diminutive four-armed Aq’Jarea, traders and travellers known to hire guides and guides; the Eybolq, a black-scaled, aquatic-looking creature that swims through the air rather than the water and has a strange aims and known to feed upon the mental capabilities of its targets; and the Harith, bulky, six-armed blobs of muscle known for their sense of honour, their singing voices, and the great flotillas they travel the Void in. Lastly, nine worlds are described as potential destinations to go beyond the Veil.

Black Void is a roleplaying game in which not only are the Player Characters at the bottom, but so is the rest of Humanity. They cower at the bottom of a highly stratified and strict caste system, wanting to improve themselves as does the remnants of Humanity. However, step out of line and the powers that be in Llyhn the Eternal, the Unseen Rulers and their servants, are all too ready to swat Humanity like insects. Improving themselves will take matronage and patronage, allies, dangerous missions, and more. At times it involves the Player Characters to the Void, which may change them, make them less or more than Human. The question is, as the last bastion of Humanity, are they and the enclaves of Humanity in Llyhn prepared to sacrifice that? 

Physically, Black Void feels as dark as its name suggests. All of the pages are given a faded sepia wash and whilst is quite heavily illustrated, the artwork varies in quality. Much of the black and white art is of questionable quality, whilst the majority of the full artwork is very, it is often too dark, often murky, to really see the rich detail that it probably has. It needs an edit too in places, but otherwise in terms of the text is decently written.

Black Void is an amazing fantasy creation, dark and different in its feel with a great deal of originality and yet… Black Void simply suffers from poor design in terms of the way in which it presents its information. Fundamentally it is not sufficiently upfront what the game is or what is about and what the players can roleplay and what they are doing. In fact, there is not really enough background presented to the players at all before they are given the means of creating characters and then the rules. For the Arbiter, there is no explanation of what the game is about until halfway—two hundred pages—through the book. What this means is that the players are given the means—or the how—of character creation, but not the why. They have no context for what they are creating which leaves the Arbiter with extra work to do in order to educate her players. Certainly, Black Void needed some sample characters complete with backgrounds and motivations, some background with in-game voices explaining the factions and what they want, and so on. That would have prepared the players for character creation, given them basics about the background, given them some ideas about what to play, and also prepared the Arbiter for her own half of the book. It does not help that the core book lacks a scenario to help her get started either.

Black Void is a fantastical creation, genuinely original. It reads as if One Thousand and One Nights has been cast upon an alien shore under skies of cosmic horror and that is a weird combination. As a roleplaying game, Black Void takes more effort and makes more demands upon the players and the Arbiter than what its very different setting should, all of them unnecessary if it had been more clearly designed and presented. If as a Referee you are looking for a different, original fantasy setting, then Black Void is worth investigating, but bringing it to the table will be a challenge.

With the likelihood of future shows this year becoming increasingly distant, at least before autumn, the good news about the last Triffid Ranch show before everything came down was getting to meet in person the lead singer for the Immortalz. … Continue reading →

A new Kickstarter from Goodman Games and good friend of the Other Side Jason Vey!

DCC RPG: Fred Saberhagen's Empire of the East


https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1409961192/dcc-rpg-fred-saberhagens-empire-of-the-east?ref=theotherside

So what do we have here?  Goodman Games.  Dungeon Crawl Classics AND Mutant Crawl Classics.  Jason Vey of AFMBE, Castles & Crusades, AND Night Shift fame.

I always enjoyed the work of Fred Saberhagen and discovered him at the same time I was getting into AD&D, so in a way I always associate him with AD&D even though I can't point to a single thing of his I imported into my games.

This might change that.

Jason has had a solid game design career.  He worked on a number of great AFMBE books for Eden, LOTS of Castles & Crusades and Amazing Adventures (which he is the line developer) and of course OSR games with Elf Lair Games.  And yes we worked together on Night Shift.

So these reasons alone are enough to get this. 

Best Left Buried is a fantasy horror roleplaying game in which characters venture into the crypts and caves below the earth in search of secrets and treasures and there face unnameable monsters, weird environments, eldritch magic, and more… Whilst deep underground, they will be under constant stress, face fears hitherto unknown, and the likelihood is that they will return from the depths physically and mentally scarred, the strangeness they have seen and the wounds they have suffered separating them from those not so foolish as to descend into the dark. Published by Soul Muppet Publishing, there are several versions of Best Left Buried. Although all three contain the same basic rules, they vary according to the extra information they contain. So Best Left Buried: The Zini Edition offers a lightweight, basic version intended for ease of play; Best Left Buried: Cryptdigger’s Guide To Survival includes more information for both player and information as well as everything in Best Left Buried: The Zini Edition; and Best Left Buried: Deluxe Edition contains everything plus background and extra rules.

Best Left Buried: The Zini Edition or A Doom to Speak – The Crypt Collection 1: Rules is probably the most accessible, presenting its contents in discrete, self-contained chapters or ‘Zinis’. The idea here is to minimise page-flipping and the format has also been applied to its companion, A Doom to Speak – The Crypt Collection 1: Dungeons. This is an anthology of fifteen mini-dungeons and mini-locales reduced to the ‘Zini’ format, just four pages per entry, written by a diverse number of writers working in the Old School Renaissance hobby. Each entry adheres to the same format, a title page providing an illustration of the dungeon’s main antagonist, a quick introduction to the dungeon, a page listing each of the monsters and any treasure to be found in the dungeon, and then a double-page spread showing the plans or maps of the dungeon, building, or locale with its room descriptions circling the map. The result is generally easy to read, though anyone used to traditional maps with their numbered locations may need to make a slight adjustment to get used to the self-contained design.

A Doom to Speak – The Crypt Collection 1: Dungeons is bookended by maps. It 
opens with a combined map and table of contents for the anthology’s content. The map is of the Eastern Isles, part of Soul Muppet Publishing’s The Thirteen Duchies of Lendal setting. It closes with a full map of The Thirteen Duchies of Lendal which shows an oddity that the Eastern Isles are actually in the west of Lendal. The map at the front of the book does at least mark the Eastern Isles’ major duchies along with the locations of the fifteen dungeons and their page numbers. This though highlights the issue of the lack background given in the anthology to either the Eastern Isles or The Thirteen Duchies of Lendal. A Zini devoted to either would have provided some context to the fifteen dungeons in A Doom to Speak – The Crypt Collection 1: Dungeons.

The dungeons or locations or encounters vary wildly and weirdly, from caves occupied by alien creatures from the stars and the unknown and halls and houses fallen to the macabre and the magical to islands which breath and swallow and ravines stalked by insectoid monsters. For example, ‘Hearteater’s Hall’ is a rural Elven manor house, home to the late Lord Holston, a Blood Elf who has and regressed into savagery and a meaty diet with servants who would love to have the Cryptdiggers to dinner, whilst ‘Like Family’ details Remly House, a manor home to a coven of mages which has not been heard from recently and so perhaps might be worth investigating or even burglarising… The Game Master will have fun with a particular NPC in this scenario, a talking book and there are lots of little details here for the player characters to dig into. Elsewhere ‘The Prophet’s Valley’ offers visions from the ninth child of a Gorgon at the end of a ravine—or plenty to steal and ‘Transmuter’s Tower’ is home to a noted wizard and sage who has not been seen since a calamitous sound was heard from within its walls. Other dungeons include tombs and caves and temples, and so on, some located in jungles, some in ravines, some by the coast.

Perhaps the two dungeons in A Doom to Speak – The Crypt Collection 1: Dungeons that stand out are not dungeons at all, but rather mini-hexcrawls which give the monsters and situations described room to breathe. Literally in the case of ‘Maw Isle’, and literally not in ‘White Hair’. ‘Maw Isle’ is part island, part tentacular monster, that hunts and crunches ships. The seas around the island seem to rise and fall as the island breathes even as shipwrecked survivors do their best to get by until rescue arrives or another ship presents a means of getting off the island. ‘White Hair’ is even stranger, a village, the surrounding hills, grottoes and tombs under a rain of white hair that falls each time a singular dragon takes to the sky. Exploring the mini-region exposes the Cryptdiggers to more and more of the strange hair and as it more and more gets everywhere, they get infected by it and they begin to transform… This is delightfully weird set-up, the infection driving the Cryptdiggers to discover what is going on.

In general, A Doom to Speak – The Crypt Collection 1: Dungeons provides a good mix of dungeons, houses, caves, and other adventuring location. There is always a sense danger to them, something not quite right about them, whether it is a mad researcher bent on obtaining hidden lore at all costs, alien scorpions attempting to conquer the world, or a fertility cult blasé about its sacrifices. The Zini format also leads to a sense of claustrophobia to the dungeons, if not the mini-hexcrawls. What they are missing though is context, the reason why they are there and, in many cases, why the Cryptdiggers would be interested in visiting such places. Now of course, the Game Master and her players can come up with motivations for the Player Characters, but there is no denying that one or two more, or even some, hooks would have helped to draw the Cryptdiggers into each location. 

Similarly, some information about the Eastern Isles would have been useful too, adding more context to the playing area for the Game Master and her players. Rounding out the anthology is a guide to adapting the monsters in A Doom to Speak – The Crypt Collection 1: Dungeons to Dungeons & Dragons-style roleplaying games. This nicely expands the utility of the book and its contents. There are innumerable roleplaying games for which the contents of the anthology would work, whether that is Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay or Mörk Borg.

Physically, A Doom to Speak – The Crypt Collection 1: Dungeons is a neat and tidy book, light on artwork, but what there is, is decent and the maps are all very clear.  Although in many cases, the Game Master and her players will have to supply context and motivations for the Cryptdiggers, A Doom to Speak – The Crypt Collection 1: Dungeons provides fifteen solid adventuring locations for a Best Left Buried game. They work as one-shots, but are flexible enough to work into a campaign or even be adapted to the dark fantasy roleplaying game of the Game Master’s choice, but whatever the choice of game, they should each provide a good session’s worth of play. 

The first third of 2020 has been quite the decade, hasn’t it? We should be thankful: it hasn’t gone full Mad Max: Fury Road (or even the Canadian version), and the current federal plan to open up everything was named … Continue reading →

The other day I posted some concepts for a set of "Old-School Compatibility Logos."

This morning I decided to expand on the idea some more.

Old-School Compatibility Logos Page
I created a page here with all the logos and a list of details about the games I like to use for each one.  I am not indicating 100% compatibility with a single game, but rather a compatibility with a play style.  I have also listed the DriveThruRPG categories I put items I have written that would use these logos/banners.

You can see that page here:  https://bit.ly/osclogos
If you could, please use this shortened URL for linking.

Sub-Categories on The Other Side store.
I also modified them slightly and used them as sub-categories over at the Other Side storefront at DriveThruRPG.



Here is how the Basic-Era Sub-Category looks.



Going to play around with it for a while and see what happens.

 MONSTER BRAINS - Stephen Romano Curator in Residence May 3 - 9 2020

LE POITEVIN, Les Diables de Lithographies,1832Impish devils dance, make merry, kidnap young maidens, engage in scatological activities, make mischief upon men and women. and generally have a hell of a time as rascals frolicking in diabolical fun. It is the most famous of all works, paint or print, by Le Poitevin, whose "Devilries" established a genre in the wake of the Romantic school's Mephistopheles and Faust, from scenes to fright to scenes that, as here, delight with lively charm. Le Poitevin's devilries with their light, devilish humor became extremely popular with other artists, such as Michael Delaporte and Bayalos. Le Poitevin (1806-1870) was a French painter and lithographer. As a painter, he specialized in marine art , as a lithographer he is best-known today for Devilries. He was a contributor to The Journal of Painters and Charles Philpon's La Caricature. He studied at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, a pupil of Louis Hersent and Xavier Leprince. Very popular in his time, he exhibited at the Salon from 1831 until his death in 1870
Josh StebbinsJosh Stebbins is a native of Enid Oklahoma. Josh works predominantly with pen and ink (which he is certainly not limited to). He has been doing art, drawing and illustration since he was very young. With only basic art courses in school and college, he is able to foster his pursuit for progression while expanding his own creative horizons. He is very thankful these days to be recognized for all the work he has produced on his journey in life thus far.
Josh tries to convey in his style and subject matter a sense of duality, strengthened by his choice to work mainly in black and white. His subject matter presents undertones of beauty in darkness. These subjects can run the spectrum from religion to horror, often looking at the human experience, mostly from a darker side. Josh says of his work, “People generally realize it’s there [the darker side], but don’t want to face it…for me the garden of Eden has long since had a ‘Sorry, We’re Closed’ sign on its gate.”
Barry William HaleBarry William Hale is a Sydney based artist whose work over the past 20 years has included painting, drawing, installation, video, sound and performance. He is considered one of the key exponents of esoteric art, specifically creating work which responds to concepts of western spirituality, philosophy and ritual.
Wolfgang Grasse (1930 - 2008)Wolfgang Grasse was born Dresden, Germany in 1930. At the age of 14 Wolfgang Grasse saw firsthand the hell and horror unleashed during the British and American bombing of the city of Dresden. This event traumatized him for the rest of his life.

His work has been categorized as surrealist and also as fantastic realism. The latter was how he liked to be described. Grasse died in 2008, four days after his muse and wife tragically drowned.

He is a stand-alone artist in our culture - and, perhaps, even in our times.
Das Kloster, weltlich und geistlich.  1845-1849Das Kloster ("The Cloister"; full title Das Kloster. Weltlich und geistlich. Meist aus der ältern deutschen Volks-, Wunder-, Curiositäten-, und vorzugsweise komischen Literatur "The Cloister. Profane and sacred. Mostly from older German Popular, Miraculous, Curious and especially Comical Literature") is a collection of magical and occult texts, chapbooks, folklore, popular superstition and fairy tales of the German Renaissance compiled by Stuttgart antiquarian Johann Scheible in 12 volumes, 1845-1849. Vols. 3, 5 and 11 are dedicated to the Faust legend. Vols. 7, 9 and 12 dealing with topics of folklore and ethnography were written by F. Nork (pseudonym of Friedrich Korn, 1803–1850).

Art in the time of the pandemic - Dance with Death as interpreted by David Deuchar 1778David Deuchar (1743-1808) had his dance of death published  in London 1788 .
Hollar's plates were much inspired by Arnold Birckmann's interpretation of Holbein's work, Deuchar has chosen the exact same variants that Hollar had chosen.
Deuchar's plates are signed HB i for "Holbein invenit" and DD f for "David Deuchar fecit" (i.e.: Holbein has invented the design, Deuchar has executed it). At the bottom of the frames it says "David Deuchar fecit".
Matthew DuttonMatthew Dutton is a multidisciplinary artist whose dark yet satirical works offer interesting commentary and insight about self, experimentation, and current events, .  Dutton received a BFA from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.  His work has been exhibited across the United States and internationally at art fairs and galleries such as The Blooom Art Fair in Cologne Germany, The Morbid Anatomy Museum in NY, the Wunderkrammer exhibit at The Bell House in Brooklyn, and published in the New York Times, Hi-Fructose magazine and many other notable exhibits and publications. 
Dutton keeps a studio in Chattanooga Tn.
Luciana Lupe VasconcelosLuciana Lupe Vasconcelos (b.1982) is a Brazilian artist whose work explores the realms of the mythic, the mystical and the occult through the use of traditional techniques, with a particular focus on the exploration of automatism in water based media. Her very distinctive style alludes to influences from symbolism and surrealism and marks a continuation of the tradition of women artists working with the subjects of magic and the occult. She has illustrated numerous book both in english and in Portuguese, including a Brazilian edition of Edgar Allan Poe’s The Raven. Her work has been exhibited internationally and was featured across online and printed media alike. She works and lives in Teresópolis, Brazil.
Ray Robinson - The Third Door.Witches? Poor DevilsEach of the paintings has a true circumstance…and the result of my ‘being there’
My general observation of my contribution was, as I wrote at the time‘When reason sleeps in the minds of the wiseWitches burn and demons rise’
Selections from lobby card and ephemera collection



Selections from Stephen Romano Gallery






     about Stephen Romano

Noah Berlatsky / May 14, 2020

“Men are like children; they’re very easy to please as long as we give them what they want,” declares sultry young witch Elaine Parks (Samantha Robinson) to her friend Trish (Laura Waddell) in Anna Biller’s 2016 film The Love Witch. The conversation takes place in the Victorian Tearoom, a women only coffee shop with pink on pink décor. A harpist plucks languidly in the background, and Elaine wears an enormous flowered pink hat as she talks with breezy intensity about what men want and how women must give it to them. Feminine sexuality sloshes about the screen like the tea in the cups. It’s flamboyant. It’s over-saturated. It’s camp.

Or is it? Biller has been outspokenly dismissive of male critics who link her work to ‘70s exploitation like Russ Meyer, or to a winking aesthetic of not meaning it. The film is about how Elaine uses love spells to attract men to love her. But once the spells take home, the men become irritatingly needy, and Elaine abandons them, under circumstances that often lead mysteriously to their deaths. Elaine’s seductions often involve sensual/silly strip teases, blatant nudity, and innuendo—some critics have seen it as soliciting bawdy giggles. But Biller insists, in a Sight and Sound interview, “I didn’t want to get anyone who was interested in camp or camping it up at all,” and she rejects “the word sexploitation, or exploitation, or sleaze, or trash, or any word that’s tawdry or debased on purpose.”

Camp, according to Susan Sontag, is “a seriousness that fails,” but a seriousness that is redeemed by “the proper mixture of the exaggerated, the fantastic, the passionate, and the naïve.” Biller’s Victorian Tearoom, and indeed her film as a whole, are shot through with exaggerated hats, fantastic dialogue, and passionately naïve pink. But, understandably, the director rejects the idea that these highly stylized elements indicate failure.

Part of the problem here is the definition. Sontag’s 1964 essay “Notes on ‘Camp'” is the most famous and influential description of camp, but it’s not necessarily the most insightful treatment. In particular, Sontag does not engage with, and at points outright dismisses, the connection between camp and queer communities, and between camp and the closet. By doing so, she removes much of camp’s political possibility. Camp becomes a way for (straight) people to laugh at tastelessness, rather than a way for (queer) people to laugh in solidarity.

In 1990’s Epistemology of the Closet, in contrast, Eve Sedgwick offers a definition of camp that is more closely tied to liberation and subversion. Sedgwick suggests that camp is a description of art in which the viewer—especially the queer viewer—is moved to ask, “What if the right audience for this were exactly me?”

The Victorian Tea Room scene, read in this way, is camp not because it is overdramatic, or self-parodic, but rather because it joyfully broadcasts queer possibilities. “The whole world doesn’t revolve around men’s wants!” Trish exclaims. That could be an ironized, semi-parodic sexploitation smirk. But it could also be a woman asking the woman in front of her to pay attention to other erotic possibilities and desires that don’t involve men. Part of the energy and delight of the scene is that it urges queer viewers to say, “What if the women talking intensely about love and patriarchy in a flagrantly pink, women only space are in fact talking to and about me?”

The camp in the scene is not just in its heightened same-sex feminization, but in the way it evokes earlier films and eras. The vivid red of Elaine’s Mustang could be a nod to the bright reds that terrorize the title character in Hitchcock’s Marnie (1964). The stylized retro costumes and décor recall Douglas Sirk—a director who Biller admires, and whose own movies are camp documents in themselves. Sirk’s 1955 All That Heaven Allows is about a widow, Cary Scott (Jane Wyman), who falls in love with a younger man, Ron Kirby (Rock Hudson), to the horror of her friends and children. Hudson is now known to have been gay, and the out-of-proportion disapprobation of the community resonates on current viewing as a metaphor for homophobia. The famous last scene of the film, a deer looking through a wall-sized bank of windows, is an image of otherness, virility, and cuteness—the viewer watches a stand-in for a queer viewer, and can say, with Sedgwick, “this movie is made for me.”

Part of the camp charge in watching All That Heaven Allows is the way that nostalgia intensifies, or makes possible, a queer gaze. The demand that Cary shut herself off sexually forever after her husband’s death appears preposterous because that’s no longer a demand made by our world. The deer looks not just through the window, but through time. Gender roles aren’t like that any more, and part of the camp exhilaration is the recognition that the movie was speaking to a future we now inhabit, where Cary Scott and Rock Hudson didn’t have to keep their desires in the closet.

Biller, for her part, uses the look of the past to cut her characters adrift in history, which also leaves them adrift in gender roles. Elaine floats and shimmies through burlesque houses, Renaissance fairs, hippie one-night stands, nude Satanic rituals, and affairs with boring business men. The time could be the ‘50s or the ‘60s, or an alternate present-day 2010s, where witches are common and persecuted, where magic maybe works. It’s a dream landscape in which it makes as much sense to wear a gargantuan hat as to leave a bottle with a tampon on the grave of your lover. Rules of proper behavior are fluid and constantly transgressed in a camp fugue of delighted, queer familiarity.

Some limits remain, though. The sexual tension between Elaine and Trish, for example, is squashed almost as quickly as it is raised. When Trish first sees Elaine, who is renting an apartment from her, she exclaims, “You’re so pretty!” But then she adds, “Oh I didn’t mean anything. I’m married and everything.” Elaine hesitates for an awkward pause (all the dialogue is punctuated by awkward pauses) before replying, “No. I didn’t think anything.”

The camp recognition of female/female eroticism is immediately disavowed. Nothing is meant; nothing is thought. Desire is funneled into conventional channels, which means that Elaine has sex with Trish’s husband, not with Trish herself, and that Trish, in a late scene, tries on Elaine’s make-up and wig because she wants to be the love witch, rather than because she wants to be with the love witch.

Elaine’s fantasies are constrained by heterosexuality in other ways as well. Witchcraft in the film is erotic power; it’s a way for women to assert their own desires, and impose them on men. But in the real counterculture, sexual liberation of women was often just an excuse for sexual harassment by men, and so it is among witches. The leader of the coven, Gahan (Jared Sanford), is a bearded pontificator who lectures women about their true womanly nature, explaining to them that they should perform striptease acts in a burlesque club. The Satanic initiation ritual he sets up involves him groping and perhaps raping new initiates. In one scene, he gropes Elaine’s breast before she pushes him away. Male violence squats even at the center of what is supposed to be female power.

Patriarchy also haunts Elaine’s affairs. Using her witchcraft, she fascinates men. But as she takes the stereotypically male role of free-swinging philanderer, the men are forced into the stereotypically female role of needy lovers. “He became just like a woman, crying at every little thing,” Elaine pouts about one of her conquests. Her witchcraft gives her the upper hand over men, but it retains the dynamic whereby relationships are about who has the upper hand over who. Elaine feminizes the men she sleeps with, and then is disappointed, because under patriarchy whoever is feminized is repulsive.

The dynamic here mirrors that of the 1933 Barbara Stanwyck vehicle Baby Face, in which a young ambitious woman, Lily Powers (Stanwyck), uses sex to advance her career, climbing the corporate hierarchy in a high rise bank building. Lily—somewhat confusedly inspired by the writing of Nietzsche—eventually realizes that material success without love is hollow, and gives her money to save the guy she loves.

Elaine doesn’t care about wealth, but her rapacious pursuit of love lands her in a similar bind. To be empowered means to despise the men she dominates, and her last act in the film is to plunge a phallic knife into the chest of her last disappointing lover. Where Lily is refeminized by self-sacrifice, Elaine is masculinized by murder. In both cases, though, stereotypical gender roles close around them, negating or paralyzing camp escape.

Camp is a utopian mode: it offers an alternative to the dead weight of natural convention by positing a world in which the marginalized are centered and celebrated. The Love Witch flirts with that kind of recognition and that kind of world. But ultimately its vision is more tragic than euphoric. The odd, alienated dialogue and the stylized costumes and sets don’t create a campy, artificial, liberated world. Rather they reference and acknowledge an alienated, artificial world that still permeates the present—just as in Marnie, where the main character’s every thought and action is determined by a trauma she doesn’t remember. The Love Witch is camp insofar as it prompts women, and anyone uncomfortable in patriarchy, to ask, “what if this were made for me?” But it is also, in a less hopeful vein, a depiction of what it means to be trapped in a tea room made of the past and gender, misogyny and love.

Noah Berlatsky is the author of Wonder Woman: Bondage and Feminism in the Marston/Peter Comics.

(The Texas Triffid Ranch Occasional Newsletter and Feedlot Clearance Sale is a regular Email newsletter, with archives available on the main TTR site at least a month after first publication. To receive the latest newsletters, please subscribe.) Originally published on April 28, 2020. … Continue reading →

One Man's God: Central American Mythos

I return to One Man's God today with one of my favorite groups of Mythos, and the one that is the most problematic in terms of dealing with real-world history and myths.


Central American Mythos is a catch-all section that includes gods and monsters from a variety of societies and times.

Olmec: 1500 BCE to about 400 BCE, Mexico
Maya: 2000 BCE to 1697 CE, southeastern Mexico (Yucatan), all of Guatemala and Belize, and the western portions of Honduras and El Salvador.
Mezcala: 700 BCE to 650 CE, Central Mexico.
Zapotec: 700 BCE to 1521 CE, Central/South Central Mexico.
Toltec:  900 CE to 1168 CE, Central Mexico. (and there is still debate on this)
Aztec: 1300 CE to 1521 CE, Central Mexico.

While these people and civilizations overlapped and had influences on each other, there are a number of distinct differences.


Another issue to deal with here is the nature of demons and the gods of these myths.  In a very real sense, these myths are the epitome of "One Man's God is Another Man's Demon."

Even according to scholars it is difficult to tell what is a demon and what is a god.  From the outsider's point of view, many of the Aztec and Mayan gods can be considered "Demonic" and were certainly called that by the Catholic Priests that would come to these lands from Spain (predominantly).

A good example are the Aztec Tzitzimitl, or demons (or gods) from the stars.  They were thought to have been the demons that attack the sun during a solar eclipse and also been the gods that protected to place where humans were created.

Tzitzimitl
Undead Demon
FREQUENCY:  Very Rare
NO.  APPEARING:  1-6
ARMOR CLASS: 3
MOVE:  12" Fly 24"
HIT DICE:  9+9 (50 hp)
%  IN  LAIR:  10%
TREASURE  TYPE:  Nil
NO.  OF  ATTACKS:  3 or 1
DAMAGE/ATTACK:  1-6 (claw)/1-6 (claw)/2-12 (bite) or bone club (1-10) + Special
SPECIAL  ATTACKS: Cause Darkness
SPECIAL  DEFENSES:  +1  or  better weapon to hit; double damage from sunlight
MAGIC  RESISTANCE:  25%
INTELLIGENCE:  Average
ALIGNMENT:  Chaotic  Evil
SIZE:  L  (9')
PSIONIC ABILITY:  Nil

Tzitzimitl are the demonic spirits of women who have died in child-birth or stillborn babies.  They appear as giant skeletal women wearing skirts decorated with the skulls and bones of their enemies. Around their necks, they wear the still-beating hearts of these enemies.  They are charged with protecting the lands where humans were created and thus they are invoked by a Curandero when a woman is giving birth.  They protect the mother and the child but demand that the ones that die be turned over to them.
They have been known to attack the sun during eclipses and this the time when they manifest in the Prime Plane. 
They attack with a claw-claw-bite routine or with a legbone from a defeated enemy.  On any successful hit with this leg bone, the victim must save vs. Paralysis or be blinded.
These creatures are semi-undead and can be turned by a cleric as Special.

One god in the book that works very well as a demon is Camazotz, the God of Bats.
His name means "Death Bat" and as I have pointed out before he could be a God, a demon or even a very, very powerful vampire.  In the Popol Vuh his description is very much demon-like.

Demon Lord, Camazotz
The Death Bat, Bat God, Sudden Bloodletter, Slaughter Lord 
FREQUENCY:  Unique
NO.  APPEARING:  1
ARMOR CLASS: -2
MOVE:  12" Fly 24" (infinite at night)
HIT DICE:  24+24 (132 hp)
%  IN  LAIR:  10%
TREASURE  TYPE:  Qx10
NO.  OF  ATTACKS:  3
DAMAGE/ATTACK:  1-8 (claw)/1-8 (claw)/1-12 (bite) + Special, Blood Drain 3 Points of Con
SPECIAL  ATTACKS: Cause Darkness, See in Darkness
SPECIAL  DEFENSES:  +2  or  better weapon to hit; see below
MAGIC  RESISTANCE:  50%
INTELLIGENCE:  Genius
ALIGNMENT:  Chaotic  Evil
SIZE:  L  (15')
PSIONIC ABILITY:  Nil

Camazotz is the demon god of bats and vampires. But he is not truly a god or a demon or a vampire but something that is thousands of years old and akin to all three.  Vampires pay him homage more out of fear than actual piety. Humans on the other hand worship and hope that he will reward them with the gift of immortality (vampirism).  He requires blood sacrifices every new moon.  Camazotz himself goes through periods of extreme torpor and frenzied blood lust.

Camazotz dreams of one day destroying the god of the sun.

Camazotz attacks as a vampire with a claw/claw/bite routine of 1d8/1d18/1d12.  His bite (any natural roll of 18, 19 or 20) will drain 3 points of Constitution per round.  Anyone reduced to 0 becomes a vampire under his control.

He can see perfectly well in even the most complete of darkness, magical or mundane. He can also cause darkness as per the spell to 100’.  In darkness his AC is reduced to -4 and +4 or better weapons are needed to strike him.

He lives in a dark cave-like plane know as Xibalba on the Abyss where he serves as a vassal to Orcus. Again this is not out of fidelity but out of fear of the Demon Prince of Undead.  The cave is dark and the floors are stained with blood.  In this cave, Camazotz can summon up to 1000 bats to do his will.

Camazozt appears as a giant bat whose mouth is filled with bloody fangs.  He can also appear as an old man or a young warrior with bat wings.

He also makes a great demon lord to the Nabassu demons from Monster Manual II.

Tlazōlteōtl
This goddess is listed as the Goddess of Vice in the book.  She is also a "sin-eater" or someone that takes on the sins of others.   Among other things she is also the Goddess of Healing, Midwifery, Childbirth and the Goddess of Sweeping and Brooms.

Sounds like a perfect witch goddess to me!

What is Missing?

As to be expected with several lands, cultures, and 3,000 years of history, a few things are missing from the pages of the Deities and Demigods.

For example Dwarves. Dwarves in earlier Olmec culture and then in later Aztec culture are considered to be "touched by the gods" or the offspring of "witches."

Werejaguars are also an important creature with many warriors having the ability to become jaguars in battle.

Werejaguars
FREQUENCY:  Rare
NO.  APPEARING:  1-4
ARMOR CLASS: 3
MOVE:  12"
HIT DICE:  6+12 (39 hp)
%  IN  LAIR:  50%
TREASURE  TYPE:  Nil
NO.  OF  ATTACKS:  3
DAMAGE/ATTACK:  1-4 (claw)/1-4 (claw)/1-6 (bite) + Special
SPECIAL  ATTACKS: Lycanthropic curse, see below
SPECIAL  DEFENSES:  Obsidian or +1  or  better weapon to hit
MAGIC  RESISTANCE:  0%
INTELLIGENCE:  Average
ALIGNMENT:  Neutral Evil
SIZE:  M  (6')
PSIONIC ABILITY:  Nil

Werejaguars are often found in tropical cities and ancient jungle ruins, but will appear in more temperate climates as well. These lycanthropes can assume the form of a jaguar, a human, or a bipedal, jaguar-like hybrid of the two forms.
Lycanthropy: If a victim is reduced to half total HP will become a werejaguar on next new moon.
Werejaguars can only be hit by obsidian weapons or by magic.

But the biggest miss, in my opinion, is the God Seven Macaw.

Vucub Caquix, or Seven Macaw, as a trickster demi-god and thus has the best chances of interacting with the characters.  Like many tricksters, he is chaotic, and also in this case evil.  He is associated with the Hero Twins Hunahpu and Xbalanque.  He tricks them into thinking he is the God of the Sun, Moon, and Corn.  They respond by killing him and becoming the gods of the Sun and Moon themselves while their father also becomes the new Corn God.  But like all good tricksters, he comes back.

I don't fault the authors and editors of the D&DG for missing certain aspects of these myths or getting them "wrong."  While researching this I was reading that new translations going on in the 1980s and into the 1990s changed how we now view these stories.  And again, with 3,000 years of myths told and retold across seven or more civilizations there would be more to put in than the book could allow.

There is a lot more I could go about here, but one of my goals is to contain myself to the entries in the book and only add when needed.

Daniele Cassandro / May 13, 2020

 

Donatella Rettore’s “Splendido Splendente” broke into mainstream Italy’s consciousness in 1979. It was dancey but definitely not disco, and it owed something to ska but had a sound that was unheard of on Italian radio. Rettore’s delivery was straightforwardly pop: a light soprano voice with a few embellishments but nothing too fancy that might distract from the lyrics. The title itself was part of the allure of this strangely alien song: Splendido splendente—Splendid Sparkling—was pure optical poetry, a prismatic, hypnotic coupling of words that immediately brought to mind the glittery stickers Italian kids of the late ’70s were rabidly collecting. They were called Super Stickers and you bought them at newsstands without knowing what you were going to find inside the packet: a sparkling pseudo-Warholian Marilyn Monroe? Or a velvety sticker with Mick Jagger’s face? “Splendido Splendente” was just such an unknown quantity and it hit you like a glitter cannon before you heard the first note.

Donatella Rettore—who performed under her authoritative-sounding surname, meaning “Rector”—was born in Castelfranco Veneto, not far from Venice, in 1953. After singing in a few local bands she moved to Rome, and in 1974 opened for Lucio Dalla, one of the iconic Italian singer-songwriters of the ’70s. Her first two solo albums didn’t chart, but she enjoyed runaway success in Germany and Switzerland with the Abba-soundalike single “Laiolà.” She recorded a few other interesting songs, but remained mostly unknown in Italy; so when “Splendido Splendente” appeared, it sounded like something from a future we now know all too well.

“Splendid sparkling
Even the papers say it
And I believe it blindly
A powerful anesthetic
And you’ll have a new face
Thanks to a perfect scalpel”

At the time, plastic surgery was starting to enter the lexicon of the Italian public. Famous for his work reconstructing the face of F1 driver Niki Lauda after the 1976 crash that nearly killed him, Brazilian plastic surgeon Ivo Pitanguy became an international celebrity, and Italians began to fantasize about the eternal youth evoked by stars like Joan Collins and Marina Doria, the Swiss champion water-skiing wife of Vittorio Emanuele di Savoia, son of the disgraced last king of Italy. Rettore taps into this new Italian obsession with a song that is superficially self-mocking and light-hearted.

“Splendido Splendente” is a post-human song before post-human was even a thing. Through the metaphor of plastic surgery, Rettore imagines a future humanity with perfect features and “pelle trasparente come un uovo di serpente” (“skin as transparent as a serpent’s egg”), smiling eternally in a state of blissful sedation. After this shiny (splendente) scalpel has worked its magic on her face, slicing it open and magically rearranging her features, she chirps that she “will smile eternally,” an eerie cross between Frankenstein’s monster and the Joker. Vanity, narcissism, money to spend, and the ultimate luxury—looking exactly like everyone else: it was the ’80s dream in a nutshell. But Rettore takes things even further:

“We’ll see how I turn out
An ageless man or woman
Without sex, resplendent vanity growing
For the rest of my life”

Rettore foresees cyber-transfeminism in the verses of a pop song: gender is the first thing that this glittering surgical ritual will erase. Gender is something that can be reinvented through technology and revolutionary practice. This peroxide blonde from Castelfranco Veneto had sniffed the scent of the 1977 sexual revolution in the air: just two years before, Italian philosopher and theorist Mario Mieli had published his “Elements of a Gay Critique,” where he had theorized a Marxist path to sexual liberation and a universal transexualism. Everyone is potentially trans, he said; it’s the capitalistic system that squeezes our sexuality and gender into tiny boxes. Mieli died in 1983, but his ideas lived on in the struggle of many gay, lesbian, and trans Italians who, especially in the years between 1977 and 1981, made their bold and uncompromising entrance into the  sleepy, mostly Catholic, and often sex-phobic landscape of Italian politics. Not even the most advanced minds in the communist and socialist parties could get their heads around the ideas driving this colorful and brash new crowd. These turbulent years, which trans activist Porpora Marcasciano vividly describes in her memoir, “L’aurora delle trans cattive” (“The Dawn of the Evil Trans Women”).

Androgyny was everywhere in mainstream Italian entertainment of the late ’70s, though. It might not have been an openly “gay” thing, but it was nonetheless a groundbreaking aesthetic moment in pop culture. With a flamboyant stage persona that mixed glam rock with an Italian sensibility for a good tearjerker, pop singer-songwriter Renato Zero was a star of prime-time family programming; polysexual pop star Ivan Cattaneo, one of the few openly gay artists in late ’70s Italy, created a sort of androgynous rockabilly persona and electro-punk cabaret act that Sigue Sigue Sputnik would have died for; and Amanda Lear, the muse of surrealist artist Salvador Dalí and cover girl of Roxy Music’s albums, was on TV all the time, hinting—before Lady Gaga was even born—that she might or might not have a vagina. Lear also was the main attraction of a TV show called Stryx featuring BDSM burlesque acts and winks to occultism and satanism, six episodes of which were transmitted in 1978 on RETE 2, the second of the country’s public television channels—all in the guise of “varietà,” that quintessentially Italian family entertainment built around elaborate dance numbers and comedy slots. But this TV queerness was all apolitical: it was simply brash, titillating entertainment. The discourse about queer and trans identities and LGBT rights was intense in Italy, but it was happening in a parallel universe, far away from the mainstream.

Mainstream Italian pop music in the late ’70s and very early ’80s was a very diverse landscape: classic singer-songwriters like Claudio Baglioni, Francesco De Gregori, and Antonello Venditti coexisted in the same mediasphere of futuristic, camp innovators as Rettore, Miguel Bosé and Anna Oxa. Italo disco, too, was flexing its muscles, and sexy pop-rock singers like Loredana Berté were experimenting with TV shenanigans international stars like Madonna would later exploit in larger markets. In the mid ’80s, the development of the music video as a promotional tool sanitized things dramatically: Italian pop started losing its DIY post-punk edge to pursue a less adventurous and more family-friendly approach, and the growing success of Silvio Berlusconi’s commercial TV stations had a huge impact on the progressive bleaching of the Italian pop aesthetic. Not that things stopped being sexual—Berlusconi’s idea of television was actually hypersexualized—but it was always gender-conforming and heteronormative. Basically, everything that was daring and experimental on Italian TV was turned into cheap entertainment for straight men.

Rettore’s “Splendido Splendente” is just a fun song. But like all good pop songs, it encapsulates a whole world and an entire culture. Rettore was reacting to the end of the androgynous and revolutionary ’70s and the beginning of an even more androgynous but mostly apolitical and greedier age. She doesn’t pontificate or over analyze. She just smiles as the anesthetic starts rushing through her veins.

Daniele Cassandro was born in Rome in 1970. After living for about a year in Austin (before Austin was cool), graduating in art history, and working in a record store, he became a journalist, starting out on the official weekly magazine of the Italian version of reality show Big Brother before moving on to more serious business as staff writer at teen pop magazine Kiss Me! In 2007, he moved from Rome to Milan to work at GQ and launch the Italian edition of Wired magazine, where he curated the Play section for five years. He’s now in charge of the special issues of Italian current affairs magazine Internazionale, and writes about music, art, and theater.

For those encountering carnivorous plants for the first time, they tend to be shocked by the sheer range of environments in which carnivores live. There’s the automatic assumption that they all live in hot, swampy jungles, and express shock at … Continue reading →

I had this idea for a replacement for the venerable, but retired OSR logo.
Half an idea really.

The idea is to have a logo I could use on my various works to indicate compatible content with a style of play, but not calling out any rule system in particular.

I came up with some logos over lunch, but I'd imagine that I would need to have some sort of sheet attached to them at the very least.   You know along the lines of "Basic-era Compatible" includes, but is not limited to 1. Race as Class. 2. Monsters with Morale scores and other salient features.

I need to give it more thought. A lot more thought to be honest.  But first I guess is there and interest in anything like this? Is there even a need for anything like this?

Share your thoughts below.  I designed them to be simple and easy to read.






Yeah I included 3rd and 5th eds here.  I still do stuff for those games.

I also included a compatible with The Witch one.  I have had a few people ask for some of my OGC, which I provided for free.  I figure if I pack up a couple dozen spells for something a link back is not too much of an ask.

Eve Tushnet / May 12, 2020

Sticking It to the Man: Revolution and Counterculture in Pulp and Popular Fiction, 1950 to 1980
Edited by Andrew Nette and Iain McIntyre
PM Press, 2019

The standard story of the postwar media landscape centers on the rise of television: news anchors and variety shows, cowlicked children of white couples who sleep in separate beds, the same flickering glow from every home—Donna Reed across the face of the world forever. But a series of books from PM Press points out that the television era was also the golden age of the pulp paperback. By the 1950s, a weedy efflorescence of experimental and salacious novels had arisen from the pulp swampland. Sticking It to the Man: Revolution and Counterculture in Pulp and Popular Fiction, 1950 to 1980, the second volume in this series, offers a host of short essays and interviews on how the lost world of the pulps reflected and sometimes advanced the many “revolutions” of the second half of the twentieth century.

Publishers struggled to keep up with the demand for cheap fiction. The hunger for writers allowed unexpected, previously-unpublishable voices to break into the industry: black men coming out of prison, gay and lesbian authors, sardonic and utopian visions of sex and violence. Sticking It to the Man implies that pulp fiction was a genuinely revolutionary arena—even if one of the most successful revolutions fostered there was the law-and-order ascension of Ronald Reagan.

The editors, Andrew Nette and Iain McIntyre, note, “Due to their lowbrow nature, few of these books were ever reviewed in major newspapers or magazines, instead relying on their lurid, eye-catching titles, images, and bylines to draw consumers passing through newsstands, chemists, barbers, supermarkets, and second-tier bookstores.” The pulp covers tend toward the spicy, the psychedelic; sometimes they entice the imagined reader by threatening him, as in the pointing finger on the cover of The Feminists. But Sticking It to the Man does the service of linking the most “lowbrow,” genre-dwelling pulps (Black Samurai 4: The Deadly Pearl; Night of the Sadist) with titles we’d now consider mainstream or experimental literary fiction, from Rita Mae Brown’s lesbian coming-of-age classic Rubyfruit Jungle to the “hallucinatory,” ferocious work of Zimbabwean chaos vortex Dambudzo Marechera. We get to see pulp fiction as a spectrum, from the churned-out series to the realist novel; and some of the most powerful prose comes from the middle of that spectrum, from genre writers like Chester Himes and Iceberg Slim.

To the extent that these books had a perspective in common, that perspective might be, “Order is chaos.” From Dark Angel: The Emerald Oil Caper to Dirty Harry to a host of sensitive gay novels with shadowy faces on the covers, these are books in which societal order has failed in some way, and the heroes are those who step outside the world they’ve been taught to respect. They’re often attentive to the ways even the factions you support will fail you. The focus on action, not thoughts (as a French publisher advised Chester Himes), lends itself to surrealism—a collage of absurd violence, which is also one description of totalitarian order as seen by its victims.

These are novels against harmony. Many offer a grim, chop-licking pleasure in the chaos, which even extends to biting the hand that unleashed them: The Set-Up Girls’ hero rails against the “no-law, no-restriction permissive society” even while his creator’s entire genre of anti-feminist action benefited from the loosening of the obscenity laws.

What we call “literary realism” reflects the beliefs and experiences of a narrow subset of society. Other people’s realisms are more apocalyptic: the titles of Donald Goines’s Whoreson and Dopefiend suggest a self-abasement that has become exaltation, a defiant embrace of degradation. Kinohi Nishikawa describes Iceberg Slim’s Mama Black Widow as “imagining the breakdown of the black family as a kind of urban Gothic.” A 2003 article describes the Goree Girls, a country-western ensemble made up of inmates at a Texas women’s prison, performing at the Texas Prison Rodeo for an audience of male convicts—grifters, cattle rustlers, murderers—as well as free visitors: “It was like something out of a dime novel,” the warden’s daughter said. And she was right—because “dime novels” were more likely than dollar ones to reflect the extremes of life experienced by women in prison.

Of the many subgenres explored in this volume, four stand out for their different relationships to the society that was born in “the long 1960s.” The novels of student or hippie revolution are often tales of retreat, even failure. The exceptions are either openly disparaging or nakedly naive—and “naked” is the word here, since you can’t have a student-revolution novel without sex, which ranges from the porny to the mystical without ever quite losing its air of self-absorption. The disparaging novels are condescending and the utopian ones are silly and it’s all sort of depressing; here, the pulps’ tendency to give the audience what it wants makes the entire genre an exercise in masturbatory self-comfort.

By contrast, the black cop/crime novels are among the most self-lacerating. Scott Adlerberg notes that Chester Himes introduces his black cop heroes in a confrontation with the locals in their beloved Harlem:

Whenever anyone moved out of line, Grave Digger would shout ‘Straighten up!’ and Coffin Ed would echo ‘Count off!’ If the offender didn’t straighten up the line immediately, one of the detectives would shoot into the air. The couples in the queue would close together as though pressed between two concrete walls. Folks in Harlem believed that Grave Digger Jones and Coffin Ed Johnson would shoot a man stone dead for not standing straight in a line.

Himes’s novels follow a heartbreaking trajectory culminating in his unfinished novel Plan B, in which the author kills off his beloved detectives in the middle of a “nightmarish” race war. The black cop walks the razor line, protecting his community in a way that also damages and represses it. He’s both the lawman and, as Gary Phillips notes, “heir to the bad-man mantle of black folklore.” Plan B, at least, suggests that the man on both sides is doomed and friendless.

The two successful revolutions whose seeds can be found here are gay rights and law-and-order. Michael Bronski argues that the pre-Stonewall gay paperbacks were surprisingly mainstream, free of the cliched tragic ending, and sexually-explicit. These were “how-to manuals” for those who might want to find and enter a gay community. Even early gay young adult titles were controversial but not underground: 1978’s Happy Endings Are All Alike, which Jenny Pausacker describes as “on a borderline between fiction and a [gay-rights] political pamphlet,” was named an ALA Best Book for Young Adults. Pausacker notes that several of these titles (unlike Happy Endings) have the protagonists explicitly reject labels like “lesbian,” but rely on exotic and violent tropes to code the characters’ intense same-sex love as doomed, dangerous, and queer. The books’ emotional intensity tantalized queer readers, while their insistent, even contrived tragedies depicted a world with no place for any form of love or commitment between girls or boys. (Pausacker gives a list of gay YA novels that end with the wistful parting of the couple, the one yearning brokenhearted at the window while the other walks away.) But all of these paperbacks, from Beebo Brinker to Hey, Dollface, are portraits of a community at the very beginning of the discovery that they might have a future. These are books about very early attempts to figure out what, if anything, same-sex love is for—unguided and urgent attempts.

As for law and order—Dirty Harry and its epigones are the product of a surge in violent crime, which soared from the 1970s to the mid-’90s. (Some of the essayists here seem to think that all the dead people were just Republican talking points.) These are novels of establishment failure. Seeing them here, alongside post-Vietnam novels like Going After Cacciato, First Blood, and Dog Day Afternoon, makes their common lineage clearer. The last irony of these books is how well they served a massive expansion of the government whose failures they explored. No, wait—the last irony of these books is that the authors of some series, including Death Wish and the Dirty Harry books, became so uncomfortable with their antiheroes’ popularity that they created “bad” vigilantes, inspired by the “good” vigilantes on the covers. These bad vigilantes exist so that Dirty Harry and Paul Benjamin can reject them, distinguishing their own vigilantism of necessity from the kind of violence done by men who really enjoy it. The Lone Wolf series even depicted vigilantism as descent into madness, a Watchmen of men’s adventure novels.

With this kind of anthology everyone will have their particular overlooked niche. I loved the volume’s willingness to range across continents and freely cross from more- to less-respected novels to show their commonalities. Still, I admit I wish the book covered revolution and unrest in young adult novels of the period (e.g. Lois Duncan’s Daughters of Eve or Doris Dahlin’s The Sit-In Game), or the rise of apocalyptic Christian fiction. Perhaps more noticeable is the lack of discussion of the impact of pulp novels on their high-art cousins. The penultimate chapter, on Marechera, comes closest; but I would have liked some exploration of what’s gained and lost in the transition from, for example, Rita Mae Brown to Jeanette Winterson. Is it fair to say the pulps have a certain humility, a lack of pressure to prove themselves? Does artistic ambition pressure authors to express hope, or at least meaning, rather than extremes of rage, despair, and gleeful violence? A lot of what the pulps indulge is ugly; does their aesthetic power come, in part, from their refusal to hide that ugliness behind intellect?

Eve Tushnet is the author of two novels, Amends and Punishment: A Love Story, as well as the nonfiction Gay and Catholic: Accepting My Sexuality, Finding Community, Living My Faith. She lives in Washington, DC and writes and speaks on topics ranging from medieval covenants of friendship to underrated vampire films. Her hobbies include sin, confession, and ecstasy.

Another beautiful Sunday, another successful flash sale, and with it a plan for more. Since the general forecast for the month of May suggests that we’ll have relatively cool (for North Texas) weather through Memorial Day weekend, feel free to … Continue reading →

Cover for ‘The Mask of Cthulhu’ by August Derleth, Grafton Books, 1987

New Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos, 1988

H.P. Lovecraft Omnibus 3, The Haunter of the Dark

The Trail of Cthulhu, 1988

H.P. Lovecraft Omnibus 1, At the Mountains of Madness, Grafton Books, 1985

H.P. Lovecraft Omnibus 2, Dagon and other Macabre Tales

Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos, 1988

Devil's Dream

Marion Zimmer Bradley's Star of Danger, 1994

Cover art for Christopher Priest's novel, The Space Machine, Pan Books, 1981

Cover art for The Courts of Chaos (The Chronicles of Amber series), alternative paperback cover, 1986




"Artist Tim White, 68, died April 6, 2020 after a long period of poor health. White was a prolific SF cover artist from the ‘70s through the ‘90s.
 
Timothy Thomas Anthony white was born April 4, 1952 in Erith, Kent, England. He studied art at the Medway college of Design, and subsequently worked in advertising for two years. He began doing cover paintings for New English Library and Science Fiction Monthly, and illustrated works by authors including Piers Anthony, Robert A. Heinlein, Bruce Sterling, E.C. Tubb, and A.E. van Vogt. He was nominated for six British Science Fiction Association Awards for Best Artist from 1981-86, and won in 1983. He largely retired from painting around 2000 due to health problems. White’s work was collected in The Science Fiction and Fantasy World of Tim White (1981), Chiaroscuro (1988), and Mirror of Dreams (1994). Mouches  (1983) is a wordless graphic novel." - quote source

A complete bibliography of White's work can be found at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database.

Last week I spent some time going over my proposed monster book.  Presently I have about 240 monsters and sitting at 170 pages without art.  Respectable but I am certain to make some cuts.   I have gone through all my Witch books and the majority of Monstrous Mondays.

The biggest issue at the moment is that I have done Monstrous Mondays for so long there are at least five OSR systems I have used, not to mention original monsters I created for other systems.  I can use those monsters, but just like the OSR ones I need to convert everything to a single system.

For a while, I was working on the notion that I should do this as an "Advanced" era book.  Trouble is I really don't see a lot of Advanced era books for sale on DriveThru.  It is pretty much dominated by Labyrinth Lord and Swords & Wizardry.  I want to make the book I want, but if I want to pay for art it also needs to be a book people will buy.

Advanced Labyrinth Lord seems like the best compromise, but even then it is missing a couple things I want. Well. That is where Monstrous Mondays come back in!

I think I'll use this space to workshop a few monster stat blocks that work with what I want.
In particular, I want to have something similar to what I was doing in the early 80s; the free mixing of "Basic" and "Advanced" eras.

Something that plays like this.



I could start with a standard Labyrinth Lord stat block, add-in ability scores or ability score adjustments like Blueholme does.  Maybe include some of the OGC elements I like best from Adventures Dark and Deep Bestiary and OSRIC.

To be honest, I have not quite made up my mind just yet.
But let's try something out.

Here is a good test. I'll convert a Ghosts of Albion creature to this new format.  A good choice is one that was inspired by a 1st creature that was in turn inspired by the mythical fairy creature.
So here is my Monstrous Monday version of the Cù Sìth.

Cù Sìth
Cu Sith by NyssaShawFaerie Animal
Frequency: Very Rare
No. Enc.: 1 (1), Pack 1d4 (1d6+1)
Alignment: Lawful (Chaotic Good)
Movement: 150' (50') [15"], Run 210' (70') [21"]
Armor Class: 7 [12]
Hit Dice: 4d8+4 (22 hp)
Attacks: 1 (bite)
Damage: 1d6+5
Special: Blink, Detect Magic, Hide (5 in 6), takes 2x damage from cold iron
Size: Large
Save: Monster 4
Morale: 12
Treasure Hoard Class: Nil
XP: (working on this, see below)

The Celts were well known for their love of dogs. But the Cù Sìth (“coo shee”) or “Fairy Hound” has a special place in Celtic lore. Often described as a large hound that is either all green or all white with red ears. They have been alternately seen as bad omens, horrible stealers of children, or a fierce and loyal protector, the Cù Sìth features in many tales.

Tales feature the Cù Sìth as a spectral hound, one that forebodes doom like the Barghest, though those hounds are more often black in color and their malevolence is more universal than that of the Cù Sìth. Also, the Cù Sìth is more commonly associated with the Faerie and sometimes valiant, but tragic, warriors and the Barghest is more closely associated with witchcraft.

The Cù Sìth can be found most often near or around fairy mounds. A good sign that a mound is, in fact, a faerie mound is the proximity of a Cù Sìth to it.

Cù Sìth can also interbreed with other dogs which will typically produce one Cù Sìth per liter; sometimes more, sometimes less. Odd are the ways of the faerie folk.

Cù Sìth pups are rarely if ever tamed. If one wishes to remain with a non-faerie then it is of their own choosing.

--
OK.  Let's talk through this stat block.

Creature Type: Faerie Animal

I am going to include a creature type. This will be a short-hand for a few things.  Faerie in this case means can speak elven and sylvan, takes double damage from iron and *maybe* need silver or magic weapons to hit.

Frequency: Very Rare

I like frequency.  One of my favorite Advance era stats that we don't see in Basic era.

No. Enc.: 1 (1), Pack 1d4 (1d6+1)

Fairly self-explanatory.

Alignment: Lawful (Chaotic Good)

I want to include the Good-Evil axis along with the Law-Chaos one.  Both will be listed.

Movement: 150' (50') [15"], Run 210' (70') [21"]

Movement is listed for Basic era Turns and (Rounds) and [Advanced era].  Special moves will be spelled out.  So no //# /# to confuse anyone.

Armor Class: 7 [12]

Armor Class is listed with both Descending and [Ascending] types.

Hit Dice: 4d8+4 (22 hp)

For HD I am going to include the die type, any extra hp and hp (the average of the die type).

Attacks: 1 (bite)
Damage: 1d6+5

Attacks and Damage are split up.  Though I could easily put these on one line.

Special: Blink, Detect Magic, Hide (5 in 6), takes 2x damage from cold iron

Special attacks, moves, and defenses are here.  This is vaguely Basic era, but also from other games I have used.

Size: Large

I like including size here. Also, I am considering using size to change HD type as it does in newer games.

Size HD Type Space Examples Tiny d4 2½ by 2 ½ ft. Imp, sprite Small d6 5 by 5 ft. Giant rat, goblin Medium d8 5 by 5 ft. Orc, werewolf Large d10 10 by 10 ft. Hippogriff, ogre Huge d12 15 by 15 ft. Fire giant, treant Gargantuan d20 20 by 20 ft. or larger Kraken, purple worm
Save: Monster 4

Most often monsters save as monsters, but sometimes a class might be used for special cases.

Morale: 12

I really enjoy Basic era style morale.

Treasure Hoard Class: Nil
XP:

These two are trickier since they rely a lot more on the game they are emulating AND the specific rules.  For the book I might create my own Treasure Type but I am also considering just going with the LL Horde Class and repeating the table in an appendix.

XP will really vary from system to system.  I have a Google Sheet that calculates for different games based on HD, special abilities, and the like.

Here is the output for the Cù Sìth for various games.

Base+hp*/ SA1**/ SA2***/SA3TotalBasic75123070187Advanced75783070253LL802405555430BF24004040320OSRIC75783070253SW1200120120360SS4010420300194OSE755050175289mean253median253mode
Not at all the same is it.

I might forgo putting in XP and letting Game Masters calculate it themselves based on their game of choice.  Mind you there might even be some error in my sheet above.  I built it years ago and have added to it but I have not back-checked my math in a while.

How often do you all use the XP line?

So I have ways to go just yet.

On the tail of the Old School Renaissance has come another movement—the rise of the fanzine. Although the fanzine—a nonprofessional and nonofficial publication produced by fans of a particular cultural phenomenon, got its start in Science Fiction fandom, in the gaming hobby it first started with Chess and Diplomacy fanzines before finding fertile ground in the roleplaying hobby in the 1970s. Here these amateurish publications allowed the hobby a public space for two things. First, they were somewhere that the hobby could voice opinions and ideas that lay outside those of a game’s publisher. Second, in the Golden Age of roleplaying when the Dungeon Masters were expected to create their own settings and adventures, they also provided a rough and ready source of support for the game of your choice. Many also served as vehicles for the fanzine editor’s house campaign and thus they showed another DM and group played said game. This would often change over time if a fanzine accepted submissions. Initially, fanzines were primarily dedicated to the big three RPGs of the 1970s—Dungeons & Dragons, RuneQuest, and Traveller—but fanzines have appeared dedicated to other RPGs since, some of which helped keep a game popular in the face of no official support.

Since 2008 with the publication of Fight On #1, the Old School Renaissance has had its own fanzines. The advantage of the Old School Renaissance is that the various Retroclones draw from the same source and thus one Dungeons & Dragons-style RPG is compatible with another. This means that the contents of one fanzine will compatible with the Retroclone that you already run and play even if not specifically written for it. Labyrinth Lord and Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay have proved to be popular choices to base fanzines around, as has Swords & Wizardry.

For the most part, the current wave of fanzines is all fantasy orientated, a great many of them dedicated to and supporting the Old School Renaissance in one form or another. Essentially an Old School form of support for an Old School style of roleplaying game. So when a new fanzine appears dedicated to a different genre it can be a breath of fresh air and when that fanzine approaches its subject in more thoughtful and detailed fashion, then that breath of fresh air might be more than a little minty fresh. So it is with Back to the Spaceport: A Fanzine for Science Fiction Games. This is a Science Fiction fanzine dedicated to all types of Science Fiction gaming, so roleplaying and miniatures, for example. It is also a Science Fiction fanzine dedicated to Science Fiction in all of its many subgenres—urban (Cyberpunk and dystopian), post-apocalyptic, interstellar travel, Victorian and Edwardian, and so on. It is also a Science Fiction fanzine which is very British in its approach to Science and it also a Science Fiction fanzine that when necessary, is prepared to examine the issues posed when gaming with a particular Science Fiction genre.

Back to the Spaceport: A Fanzine for Science Fiction Games Phase 1, Datapacket 1 is entirely written and edited by David Haraldson and you can tell that it has a serious intent from the moment you open the front cover. He takes the time to credit all of the artists, the fonts used for each article, and the particular games. This is not necessarily interesting, but it points to an aspiration towards a professionalism and a seriousness. Then flip through the pages of the fanzine and there are copious footnotes, often links to outside sources of research and the like. In terms of presentation, the fanzine is clean and tidy, perhaps slightly cluttered in places, with artwork used judiciously. The use of different fonts for article titles is very eighties, as is the organisation of the contents into different departments. So ‘Yesterday’s Tomorrows’ for Edwardian and Victorian scientific romances, ‘Bright Lights, Mega City’ for urban Science Fiction, ‘Into the Ruins’ for post-apocalyptic Science Fiction, and so on, which is all very White Dwarf magazine.

The first department is ‘Yesterday’s Tomorrows’ and ‘The Green Hills of Venus’. This is the write-up of the first from the Challenger Distinguished Lectures given by Professor Octavian Black. It presents his findings on the successes and failures of the first few expeditions to Venus, starting with the 1889 Chadwick expedition. In classic style, it presents Venus as a hothouse jungle planet, complete with lizardmen and megafauna, but also hints at secrets deep within the planet. Complete with a story hook and lots of knowing Easter eggs if you know the genre, its gets the fanzine off to a good start.

‘Manchester, So Much To Answer For’ is the first entry for the ‘Bright Lights, Mega City’ department, presenting two Manchester-inspired gangs—the Rusholme Ruffians and Frank’s Gang a.k.a. the Sidebottoms. The former is a gang inspired by the eighties band, The Smiths, whilst the latter a gang inspired by the papier-mâché mask-helmet wearing media personality/artist, Frank Sidebottom. More attention is paid to the latter than the former and it shows with more ideas on their gang structure and how to use them. Certainly, Frank’s Gang makes for a fun prank/performance gang to add to a Cyberpunk roleplaying game as well as the Judge Dredd & The Worlds of 2000 AD Roleplaying Game and Vurt: The Tabletop Roleplaying Game. ‘Me And My Melancholy Motor’ for ‘Into the Ruins’ provides the TEdison Razorback, a vehicle with an A.I. and a personality for getting around a post-apocalyptic world akin to that of Gamma World or Mutant Crawl Classics. Complete with a personality table and mental health crisis table, it provides a fun NPC for Game Master to bring to her campaign and roleplay.

The highlight of Back to the Spaceport: A Fanzine for Science Fiction Games Phase 1, Datapacket 1 is ‘Mx. Land & Dr. Britling See It Through’. The longest article in the issue, it explores the nature and problems of the Steampunk genre and how it applies to gaming as well as how the Steampunk movement regards gaming. In the first case, rarely as a ’punk genre and typically as a neo-colonial, imperialist celebration, and in the case of the latter, badly. Of the roleplaying games available, it highlights Marcus L. Rowland’s Forgotten Futures as probably the best roleplaying game of Victorian and Edwardian scientific romances and it also presents a manifesto for exploring the genre in the pages of Back to the Spaceport. This is an absolutely splendid read, interesting and thoughtful, certainly all but worth the price of the fanzine alone.

The articles for the departments ‘STL Signals’ and ‘Standing Orders’ are more personal and prosaic in nature. ‘STL Signals’ looks at PBM—or ‘Play by Mail’—games and the author’s experience with a couple of PBM games, Riftlords and Phoenix: Beyond the Stellar Empire. It is diverting enough and again harks back to the heyday of the hobby in the eighties. ‘Standing Orders’ is devoted to Science Fiction miniatures wargaming and ‘21st Century Fighting in Built-Up Areas’ looks at urban conflict scenarios in miniatures games where the line of sight extends across the whole of the playing area. Written for use with Ground Zero Games’ Stargrunt II rules, the rules and suggestions here can adapt to any rules system the reader prefers, the article is useful for anyone running these types of games, but is otherwise just a little esoteric in comparison to the other articles in Back to the Spaceport.

Of more use perhaps is ‘Art Crime’. Written for the ‘Under Other Constellations’ department, it is a set-up and a cast of supporting NPCs suitable for any Science Fiction roleplaying game in which interstellar travel is possible. Here the idea is that the transportation of ordinary goods is too expensive to make it worthwhile, but the shipment of luxury items, including art, does not. It consists of four detailed NPCs—The Thief, The Investigator, The Amateur Sleuth, and The Collector—around which the Game Master can build a scenario or encounter. Written for use with FrostByte Books’ M-Space and Design Mechanicsm’s Mythras Imperative, it would easily work with any number of Science Fiction roleplaying games and adapting the plot and NPCs should be easy enough. Lastly, ‘Music for Spaceports’—a nice nod to Music for Airports—reviews three albums of music suitable for use as background sounds in Science Fiction games. Of the eight articles in Back to the Spaceport: A Fanzine for Science Fiction Games Phase 1, Datapacket 1, this feels like filler.

—oOo—
In addition to the fanzine itself, Back to the Spaceport: A Fanzine for Science Fiction Games Phase 1, Datapacket 1 comes with an Old School Renaissance Science Fiction pullout. ‘On Xanadu, A Stately Pleasure Sphere!’ is written for use with White Star: White Box Science Fiction Roleplaying and similar Science Fiction roleplaying games, as well as Mindjammer – The Roleplaying Game: Transhuman Adventure in the Second Age of Space, it presents a Space Opera-style scenario/hexcrawl on the planet Xanadu, the best source of the Star Flowers, a delicacy amongst the galaxy’s elite. The planetary governor, Magnus Dominus, spends his time in seclusion in his imperial palace whilst working the planet’s population piteously hard growing the precious star flowers. The set-up is open to multiple plots, including assassinating the governor, abducting him and putting him on trial, stealing something from his art collection, fomenting rebellion, and so on. This could easily be mixed in with the ‘Art Crime’ article from the issue. Overall, this is a nice extra to the actual issue and easy enough to add to a Game Master’s campaign.

—oOo—
It is a pleasure to have a fanzine which covers a genre in the variety of its subgenres and one which does so in as high a standard across all of them. It sets the bar high for future issues, one that we can only hope that the author can maintain for the second issue and also when other contributors write for it. Back to the Spaceport: A Fanzine for Science Fiction Games Phase 1, Datapacket 1 is an engaging piece from beginning to end, thoughtful and interesting, the article Steampunk a superb highlight.

Unknown artist, found in an estate in Maine.  Early 20th century, oil on canvas.  The painting seems to depict a dryad, a tree nymph or tree spirit in Greek mythology. ..
Fritz Gareis (1872-1925) “the Light” circa 1920 ink and watercolor.
Andreas Cellarius Harmonia macrocosmica : sev Atlas universalis et novus, totius universi creati cosmographiam generalem, et novam exhibens 1708
Bookplate THE INFERNAL GRAND PRINCE MARBUEL. excepted from "Doctor Johannes Faust's Magia Naturalis et Innaturalis"Marbuel is the seventh grand prince of hell. He stands under the planet, his regent is called Gabriel, a Throne angel of the Holy Jehova. He appears early on Mondays at 1, 4 and 9 o’clock, but at night at 10 and 12 o’clock in a human form with a grey cowl and holds a key in his hand.Excepted from "Magia Naturalis" 1848.full illustration here
Iconic Devil Andirons circa 1930’s, flame cut steel
M.A. Smith "Last Reveilie" circa 1950's made in a V.A. Hospital.








Unknown artist , Germany circa 1900 "Execution of a Witch" Oil on Canvas with handmade painted frame.
Unknown artist , Germany circa 1900 "Execution of a Witch" Oil on Canvas detail.

Unknown maker, Masonic Birdhouse, painted wood, circa 1940's

Unknown maker, Masonic Birdhouse, painted wood, circa 1940's

Unknown Maker, Midwestern USA, circa 1880 - 1900 Arc of the Covenant Angels, Handcarved and polychromed wood,

Unknown Maker, Midwestern USA, circa 1880 - 1900 Arc of the Covenant Angels, Handcarved and polychromed wood,

Unknown Maker, "Venus", date unknown, Plaster cast of Venus De Milo, red velvet, hand carved frame.  Found in an abandoned lodge in Michigan in the 1950's, possibly a Rebekahs  lodge.  This work was included in the show "NO STARS: A Twin Peaks Tribute Exhibition" in NYC in October 2019.

Hermon Finney.  Eve With Serpent.   Plaster with paint. circa 1950's.

Unknown artist, Illustration, possibly for pulp magazine, circa 1940's, Ink and Gouache on carboard.

Aeron Alfrey “Gorgon Scrambler” Ink on paper 2017

Erna Kd (Indonesia) "The Sorceress" ink on paper 2015Alex Kuno Untitled Pencil on paper 2016
John Everard “ADAM'S FIFTH RIB” 1935 Photogravure
Walter Bird "Devil Dancer" photogravure 1930

Jaya Suberg Untitled 2019 photgraph

Alexis Palmer Karl "The Serpent", production still from "The Persistence of Ritual" film, 2019  photograph

Dolorosa De La Cruz "Invocation of la Reina Roja 2" 2014 gouache pencil and gold ink

Soey Milk "Propinquity" Pencil and watercolor 2014

Aurore Lephilipponnat “William Mortensen Inspired” 2017 pencil on paper
Eldon Garnet “NO.” #3 1997 Chromogenic Color Print

Lacaze Théophile Diablerie Demons Writer Baudelaire 1839, pencil

Unknown maker, American, ceramic Devil, circa 1940's
Unknown photographer, Mourning Woman, circa 1875. 
1929 Press Photo Mourning 1920s Women Dressed in Black Madame Foch France
Large Painted photograph Victorian Woman in Mourning circa 1875
Keystone View Company, 1894

Press photo 1949, London

Ken Weaver "It Was Eternity That Reached Out First" 2019 Daguerreotype printed on aluminum
 Studio photograph 1923

 Unknown photographer, Vernacular snapshot, circa 1940's

Original Lobby card Virgin Witch (1972) Director: Ray Austin

Bookplate American medical journal, after De Monstris, 1865

Inge Vandormael "Offering" 2018  pencil on paper


Dan Barry “Krampus” 2015 antique frame, found paper, graphite, elmers glue

India Evans "Cosmic Connection" 2016 Mixed media collage
Eddie Adams Desciple of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh 1979, Poona, India.

Unknown photographer, "Devotee of a Witchcraft Cult in Brazil", 1956, Silver print.

Unknown photographer "Native Tibetan Devil Dancers with Masks, Lamas" 1910, postcard.

Burt Shonberg (1933 - 1977) "Edith (I should have Loved you Better)" 1958 Casien on panel.
H. Freitag, Germany 1939, watercolor.

Unknown artist (Niko Lucassem) "Tanzteufel" (Dancing Devil), 1948 pastel on black paper
Unknown Maker, American, circa early 1900's "devil and Dancer", carved and polychromed wood.
Emily Andersen "Enter 3 Witches" 1944 Oil on canvas
Unknown maker, WW2 War Painting with Satan, gouache, circa late 1940's early 1950's.
H.C. Evans & Co. Devil Freak Show Banner Remnant. early 20th century
Pipe Rack with Lincoln Imp, carved and painted wood with ornamental metal attachments, c. late 1800's.
Pipe Rack with Lincoln Imp, carved and painted wood with ornamental metal attachments, c. late 1800's.
Luciana Lupe Vasconcelos “Anatomy of Madness” 2018

Tiffany Hsiang “Manatee” 2016 pencil on paper
Unknown artist, Group of 9 watercolors depicting shrunken heads, British, circa 1940's
 Unknown artist, watercolor depicting shrunken head, British, circa 1940's

 Unknown artist, watercolor depicting shrunken head, British, circa 1940's

Romeyn de Hooghe (1645 - 1708): bookplate from “Hieroglyphica — Symbols of Ancient People” 1735. MYTHOLOGY-ICONOLOGY-EVIL-HYROGLYPHIC
Plate 28 shows evil Gods. This plate shows A. Herimis; B. Joosje Tidebaic; C. dragon; D. Abaddon; E. Temptation in the Garden of Eden; F. treasure keeper; G. treasure guard; H. goblins; I. pagan dance; K. De Witte Vrouw (the White Lady); L. Larunda; M. Harpies; N. Wrath of the harpies; O. Nightmare; P. Earthquake; Q. Scylla; R. Charybdis; S. Syrtes.
Full series here

Bookplate, Illustration from "Oeuvres diverses de M. de Fontenelle." 1728

Bookplate, excerpt from Scheible, J. (ed.) "The Flying Leaves of the XVI. and XVII. Century, in so-called one-sheet prints with engravings and woodcuts, first from the field of political and religious Caricature"
Olga Fröbe-Kapteyn, “The Grail”, screen print, circa 1930.Full series here

Unknown Maker, Hand Painted Serpent Mirror, late 1800's, American.
Unknown Photographer "THH GHOST" circa 1880 - 1900 Glass plate negative with wax paper wrapping with pencil.

 Unknown Photographer "THH GHOST" circa 1880 - 1900 Glass plate negative.

 Unknown Photographer "THH GHOST" circa 1880 - 1900 Print from glass plate negative.

John Godwin "Anton Szandor LaVey" 1972

Nyahzul C Blanco "Starman" from the exhibtion "Saint Bowie" at Stephen Romano Gallery
Manuscript page depicting demons in Hell Rajasthan, India, early 20th century
Cynthia Marshall (1945 - 2018) "Venus" undated, Acrylic on canvas
W.M. Morris "Judgement Day", American 1924, Oil on canvas.







Masonic funerary ceremonial taxidermic bird, circa 1875 - 1880.  Found in midwestern lodge, in a handmade glass case.

Photograph of Masonic funerary ceremonial taxidermic bird, circa 1875 - 1880.  Found in midwestern lodge.
Colin Christian "Teeth" 2015
Colin Christian "Alive" 2015
Unknown photographer, Vernacular snapshot, circa 1950's
Unknown photographer, Vernacular snapshot, circa 1940's
Unknown photographer, Vernacular snapshot, circa 1940's
Unknown photographer, Vernacular snapshot, circa 1940's
Unknown photographer, Vernacular snapshot, circa 1940's
Unknown photographer, Vernacular snapshot, circa 1930's
Unknown photographer, Vernacular snapshot, circa 1940's
Japanese erotic snapshot 1940's
Unknown photographer, Vernacular snapshot, circa 1930's
 Unknown photographer, "ELECTROPLASM"©, Vernacular snapshot, circa 1930's

 Unknown photographer, "ELECTROPLASM"©, Vernacular snapshot, circa 1930's


 Unknown photographer, "ELECTRORB",© Vernacular snapshot, circa 1930's


 Unknown photographer, Vernacular snapshot, 1941

Unknown photographer, "Seance" vernacular snapshot, circa 1940's
 Unknown photographer, Vernacular snapshot, circa 1930's

Unknown photographer, Vernacular snapshot, date unknown

 Unknown photographer, Vernacular snapshot, circa 1940's

 Unknown photographer, Vernacular snapshot, circa pre1940's

 Unknown photographer, Vernacular snapshot, 1949.

Unknown photographer, Vernacular snapshot,  circa 1920's

 Unknown photographer, Vernacular snapshot, circa 1930's

 Unknown photographer, Vernacular snapshot, date unknown

 Unknown photographer, Vernacular snapshot, date unknown


Unknown Artist, American, Watercolor depicting "9th Circle Treachery" of Dante's Inferno

Unknown Artist, American, Watercolor depicting "Geryon Leading Dante To The 8th Ring Of Hell" of Dante's Inferno

Unknown Artist, American, Watercolor depicting "Virgil At The Entrance Of Hell" of Dante's Infernofull series here
Man with Skull and Open Book photo-postcard c. 1900
ODD Fellows Banner, c. 1880, Texas.
Bookplates illustrating the works of Jacob Bohme 1665
More images here

Jen Bandini “The Black Lodge” 2019 ink on paper


Japanese Vernacular photograph 1940's depiction vampiric woman
Unknown Maker, circa 1940's "The Black Stag" Carved and polychromed wood, antlers.
Unknown Maker, circa 1940's "The Black Stag" Carved and polychromed wood, antlers.
Unknown maker, "The Venus of Detroit", 1940's, African American Fertility figure found in Detroit Michigan.  carved and painted wood.  More views here.
Kim Bo Yung "Sentinel" 2015 ink and watercolor on paper.
Ceremonial Wand, Boston MASS c. 1800 Carved and inscribed Scrimshaw bearing the inscription "AMASARAC" the demon entity possessing magical and transformative powers over spices and herbs. Presumably this wand was used to handle such spices and herbs during ceremony, while conjuring AMASARAC to empower them.

Unknown Photographer, "Woman with Tiger Mask" circa 1930's
Unknown photographer, "Nude with Devil Mask" circa 1940's, photograph
Leonard Frontinak Tiger painting. Exhibited "Opus Hypnagogia" Morbid Anatomy Museum
Unknown Photographer Veiled Woman with Shrunken Demon Head. circa 1920's, Photograph 
William Hope, Group of 3 spirit photo, photo postcards, 1920's
Jack Edwards, Spirit photograph at Camp Silver Belle PA, circa 1940's.
Jack Edwards, Spirit photograph at Camp Silver Belle PA, circa 1940's.
Robert Boursnell Spirit photographer  circa 1900
Falconer Brothers Spirit Photographers circa 1930
Édouard Isidore Buguet, Spirit Photograph of Madame and the materialization of Allan Kardek May 28 1874. Kardek was the founder of the " Revue Spirite" Part of the message of the sign reads: "Amis, continues propager notre doctrine, adieu pour toujours" "Friends, continue to spread our doctrine, goodbye forever"
Apocalyptic Painting by unknown maker (signature illegible) circa 1940's, Midwestern American Unknown medium, probably enamel or house paint.
Pair of Apocalyptic Paintings by unknown maker (signature illegible) circa 1940's, Midwestern American Unknown medium, probably enamel or house paint
A. Fiorello (dates unknown) "The Right To Arm Is The Right To Kill" circa 1960 - 1970 painted plaster relief

A. Fiorello (dates unknown) "Behold the Profit-Patriots & Their Greed-Power Guardians " circa 1960 - 1970 painted plaster relief
A. Fiorello (dates unknown) "Duality Of Extremes" circa 1960 - 1970 painted plaster relief
Wolfgang Grasse "The Broom" ink on paper 1981

Ray Harryhausen (1920-2013) - Oil on board painting from the estate sale in 2015, possibly used for reference for Sinbad, Ray Harryhausen in pencil on reverse of frame, framed, 23 x 36 inches
Wolfgang Grasse "Dresden" 1977, Acrylic on panel
Wolfgang Grasse "The Throne of Death" 1999 Acrylic on panel
Wolfgang Grasse "The Kingdom of Death" 1999 Acrylic on panel
Wolfgang Grasse (1930 - 2008) "The Fallen Angel of Love or Sodom and Gomorrah" 1999
Wolfgang Grasse (1930 - 2009) "South East Garden". 2000, Acrylic on panel.  Depicts  Jiutian Xuannü, the Chinese goddess of war, sex, and longevity.




Charles A.A. Dellschau (1830 - 1923) "Aero Bomba" 1921 Further images here
Charles A.A. Dellschau (1830 - 1923) "Goose" 1898
Charles A.A. Dellschau "Aero Myo" 1918
Charles Dellschau "Sky Lubrication" 1920

William Mortensen "Mort De Guillaume" (Death of William). Depiction of William the Conquerer being lowered into his tomb.  1935, photograph

William Mortensen (January 27, 1897 – August 12, 1965) was an American photographic artist, who first gained acclaim for his Hollywood portraits in the 1920s in the Pictorialist style and later for viscerally manipulated photography, often touching on themes of the occult.
www.williamortensen.com
William Mortensen (1897 - 1965) "The Initiation of a Young Witch" Photograph 1928
William Mortensen (1897 - 1965) "The Old Hag with Mask" Photograph 1928
William Mortensen (1897 - 1965) "The Old Hag with Incubus" Photograph 1928
William Mortensen (1897 - 1965) "The Old Hag" Photograph 1928
William Mortensen (1897 - 1965) "Preparation For The Sabbath" Photograph 1928
William Mortensen (1897 - 1965) "The Sorceress" Photograph 1928

 William Mortensen (1897 - 1965) "The Sorceress" Photograph 1926

 William Mortensen (1897 - 1965) "Courtney Crawford with Masks" Photograph 1926

 William Mortensen (1897 - 1965) "Faye Wray with Masks" Photograph 1928

William Mortensen (1897 - 1965) "Balphagor and the Lost Souls"1928 Photograph
William Mortensen (1897 - 1965) "The Schrapnel" 1929 Photograph

William Mortensen "The Heretic" 1926 Photograph

William Mortensen (1897 - 1965) "Circe" 1932 Photograph

William Mortensen (1897 - 1965) "Self Portrait with Courtney Crawford" 1926 Photograph

William Mortensen (1897 - 1965) "The Elemental" (also titled "A Hindoo Woman") 1928 Photograph

William Mortensen (1897 - 1965) Untitled ("Saint Courtney") 1926 Photograph

William Mortensen (1897 - 1965) "The Old Hag" 1926 Photograph

William Mortensen (1897 - 1965) "Victory Ball" 1926 Photograph

William Mortensen (1897 - 1965) "Madame de Pompadour" 1926 Photograph

William Mortensen (1897 - 1965) "Hypatia" 1926 Photograph

William Mortensen (1897 - 1965) Untitled 1926 Photograph

William Mortensen (1897 - 1965) "Nicolo Paganini (The Devil's Violinist)" 1934 Photograph

 William Mortensen (1897 - 1965) "Jezebel" Photograph 1928

 William Mortensen (1897 - 1965) "Isis" Photograph 1928

 William Mortensen (1897 - 1965) "The Witch Lady Morgan y Dylwythen Deg" Photograph 1926

  William Mortensen (1897 - 1965) "The Witch Lady Morgan y Dylwythen Deg" Photograph 1926

  William Mortensen (1897 - 1965) "The Witch Lady Morgan y Dylwythen Deg" Photograph 1926

  William Mortensen (1897 - 1965) "The Tantric Priest" Photograph 1932

  William Mortensen (1897 - 1965) "Madame LaFarge" Photograph 1934

  William Mortensen (1897 - 1965) "The Heretic" or "A Spider Torture" Photograph 1926

William Mortensen (1897 - 1965) "Woman with Mask and Skull" Photograph 1926


Darcilio Lima (1944 - 1991) "The Prince" ink drawing, 1968Exhibited at Reina Sophia Museum, MadridExhibited at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Darcilio Lima, "The Magi" Lithograph, circa 1975Exhibited at Reina Sophia Museum, Madrid


Darcilio Lima, Untitled Lithograph, circa 1975Exhibited at Reina Sophia Museum, Madrid


Josh Stebbins Untitled pencil drawing 2019
Josh Stebbins on MONSTERBRAINS
Josh Stebbins "Tragedy / Devil"  pencil drawing 2018

Josh Stebbins "Mortensen's Incubus"  pencil drawing 2018
Kris Kuksi "Auto Cephalic Supplicating Machine" 2011 Mixed Media

Kris Kuksi "Venus Admiring Mar's Gun" 2008 Mixed media.
Kris Kuksi "Seraphim at Rest" 2015

Barry William Hale ‘Phantasma Phantasia: Milites Diaboli - [the soldiers of the Devil] Triptych” 2016 paint and marker on paper mounted on illustration board
Barry William Hale on MONSTERBRAINS
Barry William Hale "Dwellers on the Threshold" Automatic drawing Triptych, marker or paint on card, with photographic print of magical caligraphic ritual floor design. 2019
Martin Wittfooth "Entheogen" 2012 Oil on canvas
Ray Caesar "Sisters" 2005 digital media
Unknown maker, California, circa 1930's - 1940's.  Group of figures, mixed media, possibly poppets used in ceremony.  more details here

 Unknown maker, California, circa 1930's - 1940's.  Group of figures, mixed media, possibly poppets used in ceremony.

 Unknown maker, California, circa 1930's - 1940's.  Group of figures, mixed media, possibly poppets used in ceremony.

Unknown maker, California, circa 1930's - 1940's.  Group of figures, mixed media, possibly poppets used in ceremony.  
 Stewart Farrar "Alexandrian Witchcraft Initiation Ceremony of Janet Farrar (nee Owen), U.K. 1970"

Stewart Farrar "Alexandrian Witchcraft Initiation Ceremony of Janet Farrar (nee Owen), U.K. 1970"

Group of Shaman's prayer alter objects, Guatemala circa 1970's.  mixed material.Shaman's prayer alter object, Guatemala circa 1970's.  mixed material.

Hans Baldung Grien "The Witches Sabbath" date unknown
Theodule Ribot (1823 – 1891) "The Witches"  circa 1935
Roland Hendrickson "Season of the Witch" c. 1960. Signed photogravure
Solar Eclipse, Yerkes Observatory glass lantern slide, 1918  
LE POITEVIN, Les Diables de Lithographies, 1832Full series on MONSTERBRAINS
LE POITEVIN, Les Diables Erotique de Lithographies, 1834Full series here
Unknown photographer, Witch photo, late 1800's, American.
Excerpted from "Vol 2 - Das Kloster" , 1845 published by Johanas ScheibleFull series here


Jullian Baker "Knight Death and the Devil" oil on panel, 1960.
Grimoire page by an unknown hand, British, possibly 19th century, ink and unknown substance on cloth.
Grimoire page by an unknown hand, British, possibly 19th century, ink and unknown substance on cloth.

Grimoire page by an unknown hand, British, possibly 19th century, ink and unknown substance on parchment.

Grimoire page by an unknown hand, British, possibly 19th century, ink and unknown substance on parchment.

Grimoire page by an unknown hand, British, possibly 19th century, ink and unknown substance on cloth.

Grimoire page by an unknown hand, British, possibly 19th century, ink and unknown substance on parchment.

Cast bronze depiction of demon Pazuzu.  18th century.


Mario Mercier, production still from "La Papesse" ( A Woman Possessed)  1975
Unknown photographer, "Devil and Dancer" circa 1930's
Josh Stebbins "The Patron Saint of Lost Causes" Pencil on paper 2019clockwise Wolfgang Grasse, Rosaleen Norton, William Edmondson, Henry Darger,Charles Dellschau, Darcilio Lima.  Center Stephen Romano.  Based on the concept of a spirit photograph.


about Stephen Romano

On the tail of the Old School Renaissance has come another movement—the rise of the fanzine. Although the fanzine—a nonprofessional and nonofficial publication produced by fans of a particular cultural phenomenon, got its start in Science Fiction fandom, in the gaming hobby it first started with Chess and Diplomacy fanzines before finding fertile ground in the roleplaying hobby in the 1970s. Here these amateurish publications allowed the hobby a public space for two things. First, they were somewhere that the hobby could voice opinions and ideas that lay outside those of a game’s publisher. Second, in the Golden Age of roleplaying when the Dungeon Masters were expected to create their own settings and adventures, they also provided a rough and ready source of support for the game of your choice. Many also served as vehicles for the fanzine editor’s house campaign and thus they showed another DM and group played said game. This would often change over time if a fanzine accepted submissions. Initially, fanzines were primarily dedicated to the big three RPGs of the 1970s—Dungeons & Dragons, RuneQuest, and Traveller—but fanzines have appeared dedicated to other RPGs since, some of which helped keep a game popular in the face of no official support.

Since 2008 with the publication of Fight On #1, the Old School Renaissance has had its own fanzines. The advantage of the Old School Renaissance is that the various Retroclones draw from the same source and thus one Dungeons & Dragons-style RPG is compatible with another. This means that the contents of one fanzine will compatible with the Retroclone that you already run and play even if not specifically written for it. Labyrinth Lord and Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay have proved to be popular choices to base fanzines around, as has Swords & Wizardry. 

Another fanzine, another different fanzine. Time & Tide is a fanzine dedicated, to SLA Industries, the 1993 Scottish roleplaying game set in a far future dystopia of corporate greed, commodification of ultraviolence, the mediatisation of murder, conspiracy, and urban horror, and serial killer sensationalism, recently expanded with the supplement, SLA Industries: Cannibal Sector 1. Published by Tanya Floaker following a successful Kickstarter campaign as part of the first Zine Quest, Time & Tide is subtitled ‘A fanzine examining why people love SLA Industries and the World of Progress’. It is of course not the only fanzine for SLA Industries. In the early noughties, tTH bIG pICTURE showcased another role for the fanzine, that is serving as a focal point for a roleplaying game’s fandom and support, often when that roleplaying game is between editions or out of print. As was the case with SLA Industries.

Time & Tide comes as thick sheaf of paper, a wodge of white text blocks on all dark photo backgrounds and scrappy art which screams late eighties, early nineties do-it-yourself layout. It is all filler, no game, but nevertheless all love, no hate. As the subtitle says, this is a fanzine about the love that the fans have for SLA Industries. At a hundred pages in length there are actually very few articles in the fanzine—just eight in all. There is also quite a bit of white—and more often than not—black space. The fanzine includes fiction, interviews, cake recipes, and more.

Time & Tide opens with ‘So Dark it’s U.V.’, a discussion of just why SLA Industries continues to be popular in spite of its sporadic publishing history. It also looks at the elements and themes of the game—of constantly changing technology, of suppression of knowledge, and of a truth that has its own dangers in knowing, overlaid by a Splatterpunk sensibility that reinforces the notion that life is cheap, that death can be comical, and that thrills meaning ratings (until the next thrill gets better ratings). It is a solid opening piece which lays the groundwork for the rest of the fanzine.

The highpoint of the fanzine is the ‘Interview with Nightfall Games’. The first of two interviews in the Time & Tide, this is with Jared Earle, co-author of SLA Industries and Mark Rapson of Word Forge Games, the new publisher of the roleplaying game. Conducted before the publication of SLA Industries: Cannibal Sector 1, this is a lengthy piece which looks at the history of the game and its future, in particular, its evolution as a war game setting in addition to being a roleplaying game. This is an informative and entertaining piece which really explains both Nightfall Games and Word Forge Games in the run up to the publication of SLA Industries: Cannibal Sector 1 and SLA Industries, Second Edition. The other interview is ‘Real Time’. This is with Ste Winwood about his involvement in running SLA Industries fan groups. Again, this is another personable interview highlighting the effectiveness of the fans in keeping a game alive with their support.

Between the two interviews is a much longer article, ‘The Mall of Progress’ by Ed Hill. This supports the new wargaming aspect of SLA Industries as the author takes the reader through the evolution of the terrain that he used to fight confrontations between the various factions in the World of Progress. So it goes from Cannibal Sector One over the Wall into Downtown and onto Garbage Alley and out again into the Ruined Mall and the Mall of Progress, and then back in again to a wretched housing block called Grim House. The step-by-step process looks at construction methods and the changing technology used and is accompanied by innumerable photographs. Unfortunately, these photographs hamper the article at every turn, being too dark and too murky to discern any detail. Whilst murk fits the World of Progress, it is not what you want in a wargames article where photos should bring to life what the designer has been doing. Worse, the layout of the article means extends the article over and over, and at a quarter of the fanzine’s page count combined with the poor resolution of the photographs, it just feels bloated and boring.

Tamsyn Kennedy’s ‘Underneath It All’ is the first of two pieces of fiction in Time & Tide. It tells of an Ebon’s almost worker drone existence before an encounter forces her awake and brings her to the notice of those that make her take the next step in ‘evolution’. This balances the humdrum with the eventual realisation that there is an alternative path in the ‘World of Progress’ to climbing the corporate ladder. The other piece of fiction is ‘Your Hole/Their Hole/My Hole’ by Roger Duthie which is very much the opposite of ‘Underneath It All’, telling of the wet, dank, stagnant, often horrifying nature of living on the dole in Downtown. It is quite a creepy piece, capturing life in the Mort City equivalent of a 1980s Glasgow council flat—elements of SLA Industries being a reaction to growing up and being unemployed in Thatcher’s Britain—from multiple points of view, intruders mundane and monstrous, as well as the dwelling’s occupants.

Quite literally filler, Coz Winwood’s ‘Cake Sector One’ gives recipes for SLA-themed baked goods. Three recipes are given—in oddly American measurements given the roleplaying game’s Scottish origins—and their inclusion would have been fine if they had there to offset something more substantial in terms of content in the fanzine. As it is, ‘Cake Sector One’ is all too light and fluffy in all too light and fluffy issue. Nice wordplay on the title though and there really ought to be a cooking show aimed at Shivers on duty in Cannibal Sector One within the game itself. Lastly, ‘The Bigger Picture’ is a more personal piece about SLA Industries played a role in his life and helped him when times were difficult. Hopefully the new edition of the roleplaying game and the chance to play again will make his better.

Physically, Time &  Tide is scrappy and scruffy as mentioned earlier. It certainly echoes the style of fanzines from their heyday in the eighties. Overall, it is difficult to come right out and recommend Time & Tide. It is just too light and fluffy in its content—even if that content is dark and oppressive in tone, but then what would expect, it is for SLA Industries after all—to be anything more.Time & Tide will of course appeal to devotees of SLA Industries, but it is nothing more than a diverting read as it does not include any support for the roleplaying game or the war game rules. Had it done so, then there might have been reason enough for the reader to look at it more than just the once. Time & Tide is very much not essential to playing SLA Industries and so nice enough to have if a fan, but you will not miss it from your gaming shelves if you don’t have it.