Coffee, Code, and Chronicles

The cosmopolitan city-state of Marienburg, capital of the “Wasteland," is home to scores of respectable taverns, clubs, and restaurants, catering to an ever growing merchant class calling the largest port of the River Reik home. Serving the lower classes in the districts of Marienburg are hundreds of watering holes, dives, dens, and snugs. One such Kneipe  is the Brickskeller, or in the common tongue, Brick Cellar. Here the criminal boss Pit van Kars, a priest of Ranald, the patron deity of all rogues, and his gang, all acolytes to be sure, runs his city wide operations. As a priest, if part-time, he evangelizes to all that seek meaning to their behaviors and absolution for the actions on the streets and canals of Marienburg. Herr van Kars influence is far reaching, as far north as Almshoven and very likely with cult contacts deep in the Empire itself. His operation is without boundaries in endeavor or entrepreneurship. Herr van Kars is known to employ the finest forgers in Marien...

In the 200 years since the Great Chaos Incursion that left the village of Almshoven mostly in ruins, save its well known lighthouse looking over the Manaanspoort Sea, Almshoven is again inhabited. It is also known for its massive Garden to Morr, still in use, but largely overgrown and permanently shrouded in a mist or fog the clutches at the weeds and headstones, defying even the hottest day. The centuries old ruins invited treasure hunters, or grave robbers, depending on which side of the calculus one viewed the participants. The character of these opportunists naturally invited others and Almshoven is almost a proper village again with a functioning port.  It's having your bare feet on the ground in Almshoven that one finds the details disquieting. Almshoven is run by a brute of a man known as “The Gut." His laws are simple: Permitted to duel; if challenged, you get to choose the weapon. Until death or submission. No interference. Or you’re dead. No magic. Or you’re dead. No...

It's that time of year: when I dust off my writing brain and start thinking about my theme for the A to Z Blogging Challenge. In all the years I've been doing the A to Z Challenge, I've been pretty consistent: table top roleplaying game (TTRPG) themes and related grim, dark fiction with a decidedly Warhammer feel, and I think I'm going to be leaning into this theme again. I've blogged about my player's characters, my setting, my campaign, my take on playing the game. This year, we will revisit one of those campaigns from 11 years ago: The Gigantic Melancholies of the Princeps . An almost five year campaign set in a “border princedom" in a stretch of territory south of the World's Edge mountains of the Empire. Here Orcs and Goblins raid hard scrabble settlements of disaffected Elves, entrepreneuring Dwarves, outcast Humans, and shifty Halflings. Every settlement is run—ruled?—by a wannabe Prince (or Princess); often strongmen (or strongwomen):  some tyra...

Revisiting some early blog posts. Goals Well, six months later you have two posts in December. And A to Z 2026 is around the corner. Work and work related Continuing Education just creeped in and demanded more and more of my recreational time. Cigar Rituals Recall my ritual when smoking a cigar ? When the label finally lets go, I'll take the cellophane wrapper and re-tighten it to a roll small enough to fit into the label and release it. It will spring open again, pushing the label fully open. I'll then study the art and notes of the label before placing it too in the ash bowl. My ritual complete. I, of course, thought readers might like a visual; a visual for the non-smoker or the cigar curious. F1 2025 and 2026 The F1 season ended. While Max Verstappen didn't clinch the Championship, his run to the final race was phenomenal. I'm happy for Lando Norris, though I wanted Max to have his fifth championship. The next four months to the 2026 season will be exciting. New en...

I stumbled on, by accident, a Kickstarter for a “documentary" on the making of The Final Sacrifice . Take my money! And as a former Film/TV Producer and Location Manager, I had to learn more about the production of this movie, 37 years after its independent release. I first saw The Final Sacrifice on Mystery Science Theater 3000 (MST3K) in the late 90s (Google tells me it would have been 1998). The right people will get it. The riffing on MST3K is easily in my top three episodes alongside, in no particular order, Time Chasers  and Space Mutiny . As a home brewer of some local renown I brewed an IPA recently that gave a serious nod to Zap Rowsdower (portrayed by Bruce J. Mitchell ) in The Final Sacrifice . Called Rowsdower's Final Sacrifice ,  it was a BIG Triple IPA, coming in at 10.9%. You may recall I blogged about this beer in March! The Kickstarter organizer and the director of The Final Sacrifice , asked me to post a picture of my label for Rowsdower's Final Sacrifi...

I've started seeing an emergent trend in Role Playing Games (RPGs) of late.  The issue with using the word “emergent" is that the algorithms at play in many platforms are geared to feeding you more of what you watch. Platforms become echo chambers.  Solo gaming may in fact not be emergent at all. But I consume a lot of role playing media on YouTube and there are a few “soloists" that I've caught and thus YouTube desires to feed the beast. Of the two “soloists" that have my attention, the first has more than 20,000 subscribers, the other just 920. The former is published, the latter is prolific and seems to be highly detail oriented with a lot of personal frameworks to drive the story telling in a purely randomly generated manner. Soloing I'm told is also called “journaling." I like this framing and as one that watches a limited amount of the available content can see how “journaling" is apropos . A gamer can quickly find themselves seeking to capita...