Wednesday, June 26, 2013

Lost in the Railsea

After the disappointment of 'Kraken' (I found it too much like a typical Harry Potteresque fantasy of mages and muggles. But the Star Trek magic is a riot) Railsea by China Mieville is refreshingly fun and unique.

The world of Railsea is exactly that, an endless wasteland covered in rails. Trains of every description set out to explore, trade, salvage and hunt the great beasts that burrow below the rails. It is a dangerous place; great moles, ant-lions, burrowing penguins, naked mole rats and many others monsters lurk below the dirt, ready to attack and feast upon anyone who dares set foot onto naked ground.

The book is solid gold for anyone who wants to add a little weird to any steampunk campaign.  Almost any other kind of campaign would get a lot of millage from the monsters, gadgets and locations (just the tavern names alone are awesome).

But what really intrigued me are the descriptions of the skies above the Railsea. It is divided into two sections. The downky is what we would consider 'normal'; full of clouds and birds and planes etc.

But above that lies a layer of thick, rolling clouds known as the upsky, where Lovecraftian monsters inscrutably float in the swirling miasma. Their only interaction with the trains and the people aboard are the occasional tentacle that plucks an unwary trainsman or the fallen hulk of a body that sometimes crashes to the earth, the unfortunate loser of some epic, cyclopean battle. Not even the maggots will eat the flesh of these misshapen and alien creatures.

Now that is how you introduce Old Gods into a campaign. A roll of dark clouds slowly making its way up from the horizon ....

No, I have not posted anything in a while; still beating my brains out trying to find time in my schedule to write. I find it unbelievably frustrating that as the older you get, the less time you have to accomplish so much less. 

Killer Aikido and Katori Shinto Ryu

Show them this the next time someone says that Aikido isn't any a real martial art.  

Japanese swordfighting in Viet Nam. 

Monday, June 3, 2013

Jose Pou

One of my gaming group has launched a REDBUBBLE site to raise a little cash. Check out his awesome designs, they proudly display them on various parts of your body!