Imbricated Interests of a Ludic Ghoul

If there's a photo you want removed or name changed, please don't hesitate to contact me ASAP and I will get on it. My report on Cauldron 2025 can be found here . In October this year I attended my second ever Cauldron Con, a fantastic old-school D&D and adventure gaming convention in Rosenthal, Germany. It was - as expected - absolutely incredible. It’s a truly inspiring event/club/family and was the model for GrellCon . No podcasts, no panels, no experts, no useless lifestyle plastic crap in the shape of Dungeons & Dragons. Just pure love of old-school gaming and an opportunity to do as much of it as time and your mortal frame allows over several days. If you need an outline of the importance of this kind of convention – or even, this kind of offline event – in the face of a corporate world currently minimising human interaction and creativity as much as it can – please read Blackrazor’s blog post on the subject here. My notes are already vast and sprawling – I will b...

    That's right everyone, I decided to finally pull the trigger. Tickets are on sale here and are very limited, so you'll want to be quick off the mark!   This is  GrellCon , our first attempt at getting together a small-ish group (around 75 individuals) interested in old-school D&D, which in this instance specifically refers to Advanced Dungeons & Dragons , Original Dungeons & Dragons , and Basic/Expert Dungeons & Dragons  as well as any of the relevant retroclones.    Taking place in the historic Stanley Arts halls in South-East London, all games will be run on the 1gp = 1xp principle to ensure we're all on the same page and to maximise playing time over three gaming slots! The con on the Saturday will be preceded by a social meetup event on Friday details of which are pending.   Any questions do let me know - I'd love to see you there!        

Better late than never eh? Not too many compared to some years, but Animals Without Backbones and Incarnations both took me a long while. Definitely worth it, the former was some of the best stuff I have read in ages and the perfect Carcosa monster manual...love the style of the old Pelican non-fiction books. Also if you have any interest at all in classic death metal or grindcore you owe it to yourself to get the Scott Burns book. Fiction's not really stuck with me this year. Nothing truly blew me away apart from Shea and Grudova. The End of Everything (Astrophysically Speaking) - Katie Mack Spanky - Christopher Fowler Engines of Desire - Livia Llewellyn Polyphemus - Michael Shea The Coiled Serpent - Camilla Grudova Herne The Hunter #4: The Vulture's Shadow - John McLaglen Hawk Mountain - Conor Habib Herne The Hunter #5: Apache Squaw - John McLaglen Beware! - Richard Laymon The Doll's Alphabet - Camilla Grudova Entangled Life - Morton Sheldrake The Scott Burns S...

What are blogs and itch.io for if not to puke out dubious hobby projects for free?  This is the 20 page Crematory Ash-Can version of the ridiculous ruleset I cobbled together to run an eight player OD&D game with mutated undead in the Necropolis28 world last year . It's a one-shot prep document that got way out of control. Inspirations include early Gamma World , the Arduin Grimoires , and of course the independent undead skirmish miniatures game Necropolis28 . Includes tweaked combat rules and 56 blasted Gifts from the schools of undead magic, Blood/Bone/Plasm. I uploaded this as a way of procrastination while doing my taxes. It can be grabbed here . Enjoy!