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ffutures ([personal profile] ffutures) wrote2025-12-08 08:41 pm
Entry tags:

Another RPG Bundle - Forged in the Dark Bundle 3

This is a new bundle of independently-produced material for the popular Forged in the Dark rules-set, also including Blades in the Dark, the game that originated the system. Blades... has been in several previous bundles, the others are new.

https://bundleofholding.com/presents/Forge3rd

  

The mood of these ranges from zany comic-book comedy to gritty crime realism, heroic and not so heroic fantasy, and far-futures cyberpunks and transhumans. If you like more than one of the genres it's worth buying the whole bundle, you'll save money.

james_davis_nicoll: (Default)
james_davis_nicoll ([personal profile] james_davis_nicoll) wrote2025-12-08 02:53 pm
Entry tags:

Bundle of Holding: Forged 3



The third array of recent standalone tabletop roleplaying games using the Forged in the Dark rules system based on John Harper's Blades in the Dark from One Seven Design Studio.

Bundle of Holding: Forged 3
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james_davis_nicoll ([personal profile] james_davis_nicoll) wrote2025-12-08 02:08 pm
Entry tags:

Five Freshly Reprinted SFF Books and Series



Did you miss these books the first time around? Good news!

Five Freshly Reprinted SFF Books and Series
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james_davis_nicoll ([personal profile] james_davis_nicoll) wrote2025-12-08 10:20 am

Books Received, November 29 — December 5



Six works new to me: four fantasy, one horror, and one SF (also ttrpg). Four are arguably series.

Books Received, November 29 — December 5



Poll #33929 Books Received, November 29 — December 5
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 9


Which of these look interesting?

View Answers

New Edge Sword & Sorcery Magazine: Volume I, Number 5 edited by Oliver Brackenbury (December 2025)
3 (33.3%)

New Edge Sword & Sorcery Magazine: Volume I, Number 6 edited by Oliver Brackenbury (December 2025)
2 (22.2%)

New Edge Sword & Sorcery Magazine: Volume I, Number 7 edited by Oliver Brackenbury (December 2025)
2 (22.2%)

Black River Ruby by Jean Cottle (January 2026)
2 (22.2%)

The Flowers of Algorab by Nils Karlén, Kosta Kostulas, and Martin Grip (January 2026)
6 (66.7%)

Headlights by C J Leede (June 2026)
2 (22.2%)

Some other option (see comments)
0 (0.0%)

Cats!
6 (66.7%)

james_davis_nicoll: (Default)
james_davis_nicoll ([personal profile] james_davis_nicoll) wrote2025-12-07 10:18 pm

Well, this was weird

Another unconscious person on public transit. This guy just seemed to be terribly tired, but when he slumped over, he knocked his stuff on the floor. Several times. I kept putting his stuff back, and mentioned him to the drive on my way out.
rolanni: (Default)
rolanni ([personal profile] rolanni) wrote2025-12-07 06:21 pm

Sunday spin

Today -- that would be Sunday -- has been very strange and dislocated.

I got up what counts for "late" nowadays, declared to myself that I didn't want to eat breakfast, I didn't want to sit with the sun lamp, life was ashes, and everything a waste of time. Yeah, I know, but Brain Spin doesn't make sense. It just Spins.

I managed to talk myself into a cup of tea with the sun lamp by mentioning that I had to fill in my calendar for next week, so I knew where I needed to be when (next week being a thought difficult), and was thus not a waste of time. So, I got my 30 minutes of light. By then, it was really getting on, but I plea-bargained breakfast by pointing out that, by eating late and large, I could have a small, late lunch.

Hit the office a little after 10 and wrote until 3 (and this is how I wrote a book last year. No Brain Spin while writing.) Then I had my promised snack-called-lunch, changed out the cat fountains, did my duty to the cats and -- that's gonna be it. No, I did not do my PT homework. No, I did not take a walk. Nor did I throw myself off a high building, so I'm calling Life and me even on the day.

The cats have been keeping close; both Rook and Tali tried to figure out how to sit on my lap while I'm typing, but neither could make it work. Firefly, not being a lapsitter, kept watch from On High.

I have, for what its worth, figured out why this rough patch, now. December 5 would have been when we knew for sure that the meds weren't going to work, surgery was not a thing, and the downhill slope was one way.

It's nice to have a mystery cleared up, I guess.

Well. I still have tomorrow clear to write. Hopefully, with less spin.

Everybody have a good evening; stay safe.

I'll check in tomorrow.


selenak: (Romans by Kathyh)
selenak ([personal profile] selenak) wrote2025-12-07 05:33 pm

Spartacus: House of Ashur 1.01 and 1.02

More than a decade ago, the tv show Spartacus was a guilty pleasure of mine. I started watching because BtVS and AtS alumnus Steven DeKnight was the showrunner (since then, he's also gathered additional geek cred with the first season of the Netflix Daredevil), and kept watching because as gory and pulpy and trashy as it was, it (after a bad pilot) turned into something compulsively watchable, with interesting characters galore, complicated relationships and good acting. You can read my review of the first season and the prequel season here, of the second season here, and of the third and final season here.

Now a spin-off of said show has just started (in my part of the world, you can watch it on Amazon Prime, but this seems to be different in different countries - like the original show, it gets shown on STARZ in the US) with the first two episodes released. I was alerted to this a few months ago when Steven DeKnight entertainingly shot down the whiny "Woke!" complaints by the usual suspects that started as soon as the first pics were released, showing, OMG, a black woman in a central role among the cast. (Given the original show had several prominent female characters, some of which were poc, and also had canon on screen important m/m relationships, and of course had at its central subject a slave revolt, it beats me why anoyne familiar with said original show should have assumed the show creators being inclined towards the Orance Menace type of entertainment and (lack of) ethos beats me, but there we are. Anyway, the premise of the show per se didn't feel like a must watch to me (more about this later), and I might have hesitated given all the Darth Real Life stuff dodging me, but all the indignation of ignorant fanatics definitely worked as great advertisement. What is the premise? Basically a canon AU, with the title of the spin-off: "Spartacus: House of Ashur" being a giveaway. I.e. it shows what would have happened if one of the original show's villains hadn't spoiler for the original show ) - what would have to Ashur, personally, that is, since everything else that happened in the third season of the original show still did happen in the canon AU which starts in what sounds like not even a year after the original show ended. While Ashur had been a good and entertaining villain, I hadn't exactly yearned for a "What if?" about him, yet, see above, external circumstances plus the fact the show really HAD been compulsive watching for me made me tune in and check out the first two episodes.

Gratitude! )
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james_davis_nicoll ([personal profile] james_davis_nicoll) wrote2025-12-07 08:51 am

Space Skimmer by David Gerrold



Who killed the empire? More importantly, what does it take to get men to process their emotions?

Space Skimmer by David Gerrold
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greenwoodside ([personal profile] greenwoodside) wrote2025-12-07 09:10 am
Entry tags:

Holiday, reading/watching, Christmas cards

Holiday... )

Reading/watching... )

I feel like sending Christmas cards. If you'd like a Christmas card, please leave your address in a locked post or, if that's not possible, let me know and I'll share my email. Be warned that while I'm very organised about buying Christmas cards, and even at writing and stamping them, I tend to fall down when it comes to actually posting them. So the card will definitely arrive, but it might be in time for Christmas 2026 or 27.
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rolanni ([personal profile] rolanni) wrote2025-12-06 07:34 pm

City Life

Saturday. Grey and intermittently snowing.

I've been up since way too early. Sat with my sun lamp, did the morning PT homework, oatmeal for breakfast, threw in a load of laundry, got with the WIP. Taking a break now to make rice and to heat up some soup for lunch. May add in half a sandwich, for, yanno, variety.

So! Let me tell you about last night. Around 10 pm, I'm finishing up reading my chapter and drinking my mug of tea and I hear a WHOMP from outside. I figured a tree limb had let go, and started to get up (which meant shifting Tali and Firefly) when I heard the sound of metal being hit and dragged, and I thought to myself, "Oh-oh."

Opened the curtain and looked out. There was a car pulled to the curb, going away from town, and a largish dark pile in the lane going into town, and as I'm getting the curtain all the way out of my way, another car drives toward town, makes no effort to avoid the large dark pile of what I'm now tentatively thinking may be a deer, or -- worse -- a human -- and drags another piece of metal with them. This car at least pulled over.

In the meantime, somebody from the car at the curb, who apparently hit the very largish dark pile while it was still moving, comes back to the scene, and a car heading out of town pulls to the curb, and somebody gets out of it. Both of these folks had their phones in hand. Someone from the car that had not avoided the pile came back down and handed what looked to be a good-sized piece of fender to one of the people who were now trying to clean the metal bits out of the road, goes back to her car and drives away.

The guy whose car had been in the accident is talking on the phone by this time. There's a degree of consternation on display but no out-and-out horror, nobody's kneeling by the big dark lump, so I come down on the side of "deer."

And! since this situation was being competently handled by people who were actually dressed and in winter coats, I left them to it, and closed the curtain.

A couple minutes later, I saw a blue light slide along the curtains, then stop.

This morning -- all gone! No large dark object in the road, no shred from a wounded car, nor even a bloodstain on the tarmac. Nothing in the paper. Might've been a dream.

I checked with Rook, who had, on the first WHOMP, jumped to the top of the cat tree to look through the gap in the curtains that I leave for just that purpose. Rook says, Not a dream. Yeah, sometimes it's hard to tell, but this happened, Mom. I'm taking his word for it.

Coincidentally, there was a deer in the Long Back Yard this morning when I opened the curtains at Way Too Early.

And that is the end of my story.

#
Still writing. Well. Editing, tightening, writing scenes, taking scenes out. This in service of a less...goopy narrative. Or so I tell myself. The problem with the Just Write the Scenes You Know method -- I'm sure I've said this before -- is that it requires a lot of structural work, once you figure out what the story's about.

Also, this book has a lot of characters -- Ahem. You there, in the back, would you care to share your amusement with the rest of us? What's that? Oh, there are always too many characters in Liaden books? Honey, you ain't seen nuthin'.

So more of the same tomorrow, with the exception of laundry, which is done now, and mostly put away. Leftover soup for lunch. After, I froze two-thirds of what was left, which leaves me another lunch or breakfast in the fridge.

Rook did me the favor of tipping over my Yeti water tumbler while I was writing -- the good news! There wasn't much water left. The bad news! I'd forgotten to seal it so what water there was went all over the desk.

Cleaned up, and Rook came back to revisit the Scene of the Crime. Whoa, there was water in there? Who does that?"

Those who have been following alone at home may be interested to learn that I found proof that last night's accident did happen -- a triangle of the yellow plastic that covers a vehicle's fog lights. Boy, that stuff is tough.  Also, sharp.

Coon Cat Happy Hour is over, and I should find something to eat, my own self.

And that? Is all I've got.

Everybody have a good evening. Stay safe.

I'll look in tomorrow.


james_davis_nicoll: (Default)
james_davis_nicoll ([personal profile] james_davis_nicoll) wrote2025-12-06 09:18 am

(no subject)



Geneviève Bergeron (born 1968; aged 21), civil engineering student
Hélène Colgan (born 1966; aged 23), mechanical engineering student
Nathalie Croteau (born 1966; aged 23), mechanical engineering student
Barbara Daigneault (born 1967; aged 22), mechanical engineering student
Anne-Marie Edward (born 1968; aged 21), chemical engineering student
Maud Haviernick (born 1960; aged 29), materials engineering student
Maryse Laganière (born 1964; aged 25), budget clerk in the École Polytechnique's finance department
Maryse Leclair (born 1966; aged 23), materials engineering student
Anne-Marie Lemay (born 1967; aged 22), mechanical engineering student
Sonia Pelletier (born 1961; aged 28), mechanical engineering student
Michèle Richard (born 1968; aged 21), materials engineering student
Annie St-Arneault (born 1966; aged 23), mechanical engineering student
Annie Turcotte (born 1969; aged 20), materials engineering student
Barbara Klucznik-Widajewicz (born 1958; aged 31), nursing student
rolanni: (Default)
rolanni ([personal profile] rolanni) wrote2025-12-05 06:40 pm

Story Time

So, I spent an hour, or maybe a little more than an hour this morning in my writing space, looking for the place where Talizea yos'Phelium is born (Ghost Ship, as it happens, first published in August 2011, and if the Liaden Universe® ran on Real World time, Lizzie'd be cabin boy, or maybe at Scout Academy, instead of walking, now, except when she don't.)

One of the things that my search convinced me of is that I really should sit down and read All the Liaden Books, which I've never had time to do.  I still don't have time, unless I want to dedicate my free-time reading in 2026 to the Liaden Universe®.  

Anyway, what with looking for Lizzie's birth, and checking another couple of pertinent events, I only wrote about 700 new words.  However!  I did write, and I have the supervisors to prove it:


Lunch was broccoli cheese soup, riffing off of a recipe in the insurance company's newsletter.  Then I had correspondence to tend to and real life chores, plus PT homework.  I went downstairs eventually to do my duty to the cats, and take a walk. 

Then before going back upstairs and maybe getting some more words written, I peeked into My Studio to look at my project, and said, "Oh, I'll just cut one piece," which -- you know how this goes, right?  Right.  I cut out all the rest of the pieces.  The next step is grinding, but that really does need to wait until I get this draft done.  This will be easier to police than the cutting, since I don't have a grinder here at home, but will need to rent a studio-with-tools at the glass shop in Manchester.


Tomorrow, now free of driving back and forth to Brunswick, is a Writing Day, and I have lots of leftover soup, so I won't actually have to stop for more time than it takes to heat up a bowl and cut a piece of bread. I have two scenes sketched in, so I'm hopeful of a productive day. 

For this evening, Coon Cat Happy Hour has been served -- and appears to have been consumed -- I'm all caught up on everything  (except calling for a haircut, which for some reason I keep forgetting to do) so!  I believe I'll pour myself a glass of wine and go read for a bit.

Everybody have a good evening. 

 


Dork Tower ([syndicated profile] dorktower_feed) wrote2025-12-05 09:10 pm

Bill Bored – DORK TOWER 05.12.25

Posted by John Kovalic

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