Michael Raston's "Angel's Burial Ground" Review'd

Overall Michael Raston's "The Angel's Burial Ground" suffers from a lack of glamour. There's something here, some things beautiful and interesting, but it's stuck behind (A) the lack of an illustrator and (B) some occasionally mediocre prose.

(A) The lack of an illustrator
1. The cover is ugly.

2. That which is entirely new and interesting within the text can only be visually suggested by the public domain art collages.

3. The angels, in particular, seem begging for illustration, they're colorful as fuck:

for example.

4. It's simply a less-appealing book without beautiful or interesting illustrations.


(B) this book has a smattering of humor and self-aware charm but, for the opening at least, it relies on straightforward description of fantasy elements, which, ultimately, in the scope of other ARTPUNK products, seems mediocre.

1. I think a good introduction is actually quite important to the rpg books that I like. think about Deep Carbon Observatory's introduction... minimalist. A widely loved part of AR&PL's opening:

The many zany intros of James Raggi. A good introduction is a good indication that the writer intends to do away with what's normally dry and boring.

STRAIGHT-UP GOOD THINGS:

1.The space described is claustrophobic and wonderful and detail-rich, unique and scary:

another example.

2. The lore of the scale-men particularly appealed to me.

MIDDLING THING:

This text seems reasonable, although not particularly convenient, to use as a reference text. I'd print out the map page and refer to it, etc.

But: I've mostly stopped using resources that don't fit entirely on one page.

IN CONCLUSION:

about half of what drew me into TRPGS again was texts which were self-conscious departures from the fantasy norms for prose. Not just departures from fantasy norms, but departures from prose norms.-- Surprisingly presented texts...

the odd joys of CULTIST SIMULATOR

I can't figure out the Stag's Riddle but I've got the right ritual to turn my depression into demons. And I'm just raiding the hell out of various international sites. I start killing all the detectives sent after me. And yeah, I'm eating their bodies.

But eventually some kind of Constatine mfer gets sent after me and he knows how to kill my demons... not good....

also I figure out i need to have 36 grail points to beat the game. So I need to like get 10th level Grail tools, rituals, and like a lvl 10 grail influence. and by this time my hunger for bodies is generating a lot of notoriety and the Constantine guy has killed like 6 demons so I'm getting nervous.

For the entire duration of playing this game I've had an issue with my ergonomics so clikin and draggin little cards was kind of a strain. This game does not do the best to make clickin and draggin those little cards super easy. It's pretty simple and functional though.

Cultist simulator is also self-care simulator with the addendum that the eventual goal is to develop greater and greater viscious cycles. You have to take your mental and physical health seriously, with the caveat that to pursue your spiritual goals you will put these things at risk. And more significantly, the lives of others, which may or may not trip up your own little cycles of self-care and renewal.

I have found Cultist Simulator broadly as a potent metaphor for the creative process in a life, the cycles of care and funding buffeting a spiritual journey which is poisonous. The slow accumulation of the supernatural that the fictive elements in CULTIST SIM provides helps create this sense of a gathering magic which is parcel to my best experiences with creativity.

Moreover, the us-vs-them experience, being hunted by the results of your mischief, underlines my desire to see artistic exploration as an antagonistic exercise. You can make enemies in the art world or in the artistic discourse, there is always a time to fight, those duties are represented in the game.

Deeper tragedy, too. An artist can use participation in a tragedy is a way to get some juice.

And of course, the possibilities of manipulating your emotions via your (artistic/occultist) work.

drug lord generator for Tzop Secret

drug lords template:
1 machine gun kelly
2 pharmacorp head
3 mac os name e.g. "snow lion"
4 irish grandma
5 the godfather
6 roll on dunkey's supervillain generator (http://rememberdismove.blogspot.com/2019/01/d50-villains.html)

the drug lord retaliates:
1 bombing attempt (ballisitics 40)
2 2d6 gangsters (30 skill) attack
3 pc resource destroyed (skill 50)
4 pc resource subverted (skill 50)
5 poisoning (skill 50)
6 come up with something more bizarre

their resources:
as a base:
>manpower
>supply
>territory
>judges and politicians
>50 base skill

extras: (they get 1/d4/d6/d8 of these)
1 WEB affiliation (may call on one favor from WEB)
2 +25 skill in one skill
3 1 luck point
4 science + piece of advanced tech
5 xtra capable bodyguard (combat skills 70)
6 come up with something more bizarre

larceny 1870 kentucky review

larceny 1870 kentucky straight bourbon whiskey $26.99 as I bought it

tastes kinda like soda. but also whiskey