The Ash, the Elder, and the Hen Elm

 'The state of man dois change and vary, Now sound, now seik, now blyth, now sary, Now dansand merry, now like to die;      Timor Mortis conturbat me. '          - William Dunbar, 'Lament for the Makars' (c.1450) *** Yesterday morning, I walked to the shops. I listened to a short fifteen-minute podcast, released on Wednesday, written by Terry Robinson of Mage: the Podcast and performed by an actor, since he was - he said - recovering from a short illness. Yesterday morning, Terry Robinson died. I didn't know the man in the least, had never even exchanged a message despite lurking on the M:tP discord for years at this point. As such, I'm going to try to thread a needle here: His works meant a great deal to me, and I don't have any angle to approach a eulogy except from the perspective of what those works meant to me. However, I don't want to get too parasocial with it, or to do what Dunbar did and turn the deaths of those I respect into ...

Disclaimer: I wouldn't normally review a game I haven't played, but in this case Christopher Peter, the designer of Shadow Ops , reached out and asked me if I'd be interested. I could hardly refuse a free PDF of the game, so I agreed to do the review. I'd like to think I've been as honest as possible and acknowledged where my perspective is limited, but grain of salt etc. Prologomenon There are, as far as I can see, two main types of person who read a TTRPG review. THE USER: You want to see if you should get a copy of the book. Main (overlapping) subtypes: THE PLAYER: You're interested in running the game, or persuading somebody else to. Probably interested in how well the mechanics will allow you to do things that you want. THE READER: You're interested in reading through the book and going 'huh, cool!' then putting it on your shelf to gather dust. You may think you're 1.1 but 'never get around to it.' THE DESIGN NERD: You want to know h...

Somehow I have only painted (i.e. finished painting) THREE THINGS (minis, I painted some actual paintings too) in Autumn (i.e. September-November). The first of those was mostly done in August, too, and the last was done entirely on November 31st. I'm slow, what can I say, but at least I make up for it in quality   the number of games played  with the models  imagination I guess. 1: A Dark and Rainy Night Upon the Bay... (32mm, presumably Ricardo Andreis, Bestiarium Miniatures) Beneath lowering skies, a light can be seen far away. Surely, it is some safe harbour? (It is not). I don't have a name or much of a story for this guy. He was inspired by my love of the coasts of pretty much all of the western UK, from Cornwall up to the Hebrides (and the Orkneys can be included too) but especially around Morecambe Bay, a place which is very much not ideal for wreckers but with some deeper water would have had a lovely landscape for them. He's a wrecker, clearly, with his little l...