Ostensible Cat

Many, many moons ago, there was a shared worlds concept going around the OSR Blogosphere called the Sea of O'Sr. The idea was that bloggers would create their own islands to populate this shared worlds sea. I really loved the idea and wished it had taken off a bit more (check out the Lands of Ara blog post about it from way back when:  http://carterscartopia.blogspot.com/p/sea-of-osr-adventure-path.html ). It was a fun idea and I've often thought about it. In fact, Isle of Maedsid, which is now being worked into a full Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperborea adventure to be published by Jeff Talanian and Northwind Adventures, actually started off as a Sea of O'Sr concept. Today, in between virtual Gary Con seminars, I dug into some of my old maps and art doodles and came across a map that was originally designed for the Seas of O'Sr project and was going to find a home as a sublevel of the Maedsid adventure, but ultimately just fell by the wayside. Anyway, w...

I've been participating in the virtual Gary Con XII events and having a great time. I was part of the artists gathering last night hosted by Lloyd Metcalf and did a little doodle while they were dazzling us all with their digital skills. I've not yet really done much mor than dabble in the digital space. Mostly because it sort of wracks my brain trying to get the hand and eye to coordinate and get stuff on the screen. Practice, practice, practice I suppose. I'll give it a go as it does seem like something I should do since I have lots of pen and ink drawings just sitting in my closet. Anyway, here's a wizard piece that I did. I rather like it and think I'll use it in the Delve! Zine issue that I'm plucking away at. I have a notion to do some magic system rules for old school systems for Pact, True Name and Summoning magic. It's a bit ambitious so I may just keep working on it and my classless role playing system in the back ground and try to do something...

Quarantine has begun here in New Zealand,  or to be precise, it we are in the 48 hour beginning of lockdown prior to it going into effect for the next four weeks. Sure, I will be working from home for the day job, but there is going to be an extra bit of time that I do not normally have to take advantage of. Outside of family activities, I want to get to work on some personal projects. One is getting back to some regularity with this blog. I have also begun working on my classless game system. It is a bit of a daunting task, but really, it is just for me to get it off my list. I mean what serious hobby gamer hasn't taken a stab at their own game system or modification of an existing one? I think it is important to nail down what I want to achieve in order give myself a framework to work in, and probably more importantly, something to hold myself accountable to so I don't go completely off the rails and waste the time I have at hand. Let me start with some things I don't wan...

Something I have been ruminating on for a bit is the whole D&D class system. While I love D&D (particularly 1e AD&D or 0e), I have found myself growing a bit weary of the class system and the whole Vancian magic system. Blasphemy I know, but as someone who cut their teeth on Michael Moorcock's works, the current structure just seems to less and less fit my needs. I know that there have been the Stormbringer/Elric!/Basic Fanyasy systems from Chaosium, but they never really scratched that itch for me. Don't get me wrong, the whole Basic Fantasy system is a great system, but my first gaming experience was D& D and I want to find a way to satisfactorily bend it to my view of fantasy. And yeah, that might mean ditching the class based system and changing up the magic system a bit. I ran across the Black Hack and Knave not too long ago, and they come pretty close to what I want. If you factor in the 3.5 D&D rules for pact/truename/rune magic, then you have got my ...

I wasn't planning on attending Gary Con this year, but am looking forward to next year's convention being my first. It's kinda strange having been a fairly active participant in the OSR since 2005 or so, but living overseas has kept me from really being able to meet people in the community (other than the time I attended Gen Con in 2011). Because of that, I feel somewhat isolated from the community and that really does kinda bum me out a bit. However, I am pretty excited about the whole idea of a vritual Gary Con. I know, I know, it isn't the same as being able to attend in person, but not being able to really attend any conventions in person makes the virtual convention attractive to me. I hope that everyone weathers the storm of Covid-19 and stays healthy and safe. We've been somewhat fortunate here in New Zealand to not have had much of an outbreak, but we are at the begining of Autumn down here and I suspect that it might make for a rather hairy cold/flu season....

Is there anybody out there? Hello, hello, is this thing on? Anyway, it has been quite some time since I have contributed anything to this blog. More importantly,  or rather, more to the point, it has been quite sometime since I have really felt like blogging or really doing much of anything else. In all honesty, last year was pretty challenging for me in so very many ways and for a lot of reasons. I think that the most challenging part was the loss of my brother. To be honest, we'd been pretty estranged for many years. At any rate, I won't go into the details, but that along with various other challenges in the last year really took the wind out of my sails. I don't think I realised how much of a depression I was in until just about two months ago when the numbness of the past two years really started to wear off and I just started to really feel things again. I think the most striking thing was that I really started to feel passionate about gaming and comics again. That mi...