The Ash, the Elder, and the Hen Elm

If you're at all interested in Warhammer Fantasy Battles, you've probably been pointed to this before, possibly by somebody currently in the process of losing a game to you: Dr. Luke Blaxill, wargamer, historian and (thereby) unknowing instigator of the most entertaining late essay of my first year at uni, describes Stillman as something of a 'grail knight' or cloistered monastic figure, somebody to be respected for their commitment but not necessarily somebody to be - or who can be - emulated. I'll let you watch the video rather than spoiling the conclusions - it's a solid analysis of the points, well worth it. If you'd like to know more about Stillman and his work, I can't add much to this  article . 1 Watching Dr. Blaxill's video got me thinking though - I certainly can respect the dedication of the analogous religious ascetics without believing the same things as them, and I can draw inspiration from that dedication in pursuing my own convictions

This is a type of post I'm planning on making semi-regularly on this blog  where I write for an hour about something on my mind relating to TTRPGs or wargames, make one round of basic edits and then post it. It's a way to get some writing practice in and force me to actually use this space regularly even if I'm otherwise busy. This should be about a 12-minute read, which'll probably be typical of the format. This time around, I'd like to share an idea that's one of my favourites from my home D&D setting (well, home Fantasy Heartbreaker setting now I've made my own system for it) of Theon. This is a faction who I introduced very, very briefly to fill a plot hole and allow me to rapidly transition a game from mildly wacky military fantasy into high political intrigue, which rapidly snapped back into extremely dark and vicious military fantasy and then apocalyptic PVP free-for-all as these things are wont to do. I'll tell you about it some day(?) In the

 I've been reading Steven F. Kruger's Dreaming in the Middle Ages of late, and I quite like it. It provides some great quotes that should be ample inspiration for people to bring dreams into their games more. "Writers of the high and late middle ages ... saw dreams as dangerous, associated with pagan practices and demonic seduction. On the other [hand], they claimed that dreams could be divinely inspired and tell the future. After all, Saints' lives were filled with revelatory dreams." pg. 7 A fair number of people occasionally use a divine, prophetic dream or a mysterious nightmare, but I wonder how many make telling the difference between the two a challenge for their players?  [Quoting Macrobius on the visum or spectral dream] "The dreamer thinks he is still fully asleep and imagines he sees spectres rushing at him or wandering vaguely about, differing from natural creatures in size and shape, and hosts of diverse things, either delightful or disturbing. T

Erm... I solemnly swear I was not high whilst producing this.  It started off as a voice recording completed when I found myself fascinated by a tree whilst out on a walk, staring at it and almost unable to move. I've since interpolated some additional thoughts and edited the text for flow and comprehensibility, as well as adding the gameable elements at the end, but the core remains. If I had to summarize it, I'd say it's an attempt at using a short piece of xenofictional roleplay to put myself - and you - in the mindset to create more interesting and horrifying eldritch and unknowable beings, since the current crop of large squids, oozes with eyes and space demons fails, to me, to capture much of what's really interesting and horrifying about the Weird. The first two parts will hopefully be of interest to anyone who likes that sort of thing; the last is a creature based on the ideas therein developed, aimed at TTRPG GMs, Storytellers, Keepers etc. Average read time sh