I don't know anything about Magic, so !g*mers and !spongebob will have to tell me why this is terrible beyond the obvious consumerist reasons. But there seems to be some drama about it, so here you go.

• /r/EDH: Secret Lair: SpongeBob SquarePants

• /r/freemagic: Are Ya Ready, Kids?

• /r/magicTCG: [SLD] Secret Lair × SpongeBob SquarePants: Legends of Bikini Bottom, Internet Sensation, and Lands Under the Sea (via Collider, sold 9 AM PT on March 24)

• /r/magicthecirclejerking: ThIs iS NoT A DrIlL

• /r/mtg: Could you all choose a side please

• /r/mtgfinance: Spongebob Secret Lair fully revealed

How fast is this mantoddler getting sued by Nintendo?

Imagine spending this much effort and money on a fricking fanfic, let alone one thats a love ode to a company that will probably sue and destroy you for much less than this just because they can. They don't care your a fan and "love" their IP, just buy our official product and shut up ladygarden.

Also check out the team of "developers" he hired to make this pile of shit. Notice anything?

Budalla is a trading town without any of the usual unspeakable pleasures offered in such places. The Solkhanite Blazegaurd , who are something between the Punisher and puritan preacher and are completely illegal but they've got spies in the city watch, treat a drug deal like they just caught you summoning the ruinous powers. Prostitutes and their johns get beaten up by The Sin Widows, Solkhanite women whose husbands have cheated on them. Usually with prostitutes. So, apart from getting beaten up by angry housewifes, what is their to do for fun in Budalla

The Acuff Sazuki Theater

A bizarrely popular musical variety theater starring Acuff Sazuki, a nipponese violinist. Acuff is the bastard son of a Nipponese diplomat to Remas and a half-brother of Meridean who runs the gowf course. Unlike her he plays up the "weird foreigner" angle. According to rumors his wife is cheating him on him but he doesn't care because they already had kids. The bathrooms in the theater are shockingly nice. He even has chess boards set up.

Adventure hooks:

One of the acts had to drop out due to a sudden case of "knocked up" and now Sazuki needs replacement acts. He's paying good gold and you can either perform or track down a replacement act.

Someone has declared a blood vendetta against Acuff and is trying to kill him. This isn't unusual in Budalla. What is unusual is that he doesn't know who it is or what he's supposed to have done. He hires the party to investigate and find out who is trying to kill him and why.

The South Pole History Museum

A museum and library about the old ones and their amazing civilization in Lustria and The Southern continent. Which means serious scholars regard as a bunch of crazy people. Not helping matters is that Sendhil Lundra the celestial wizard genuinely is mad and is haunted by strange visions of a goddess trapped beneath a city of ice and culture once destroyed by Chaos and now reclaimed. A hallucination of Solkhan screams at him every moment to find her and free her, but he sends out search teams and adventuring parties south in vain. Every scrap of information, every nugget of truth he unearth just adds to his confusion and his resentment of what he knows to be a hallucination of a god screaming at him. His skills as a trained celestial wizard are often in demand and are used to fund the museum and think tank. He keeps it quiet that the Celestial order sent him down here supposedly as a spy but actually to get the crazy wizard as far away from them as possible. He also resents this.

Jack Haryun is a fanatical sigmarite, a gullible crackpot scholar , and a paranoid enemy of Chaos. The bastard son of a minor noble house who entered the priesthood but was officially thrown out for "heresy" but really it was because he was an intolerable loon. He often accompanies or leads expedition because his skills with a hammer and a gun are significantly better than his scholarly abilities.

Heinrich krasniqi is a Veranian knight of the scroll stuck babysitting these lunatics. He's also the most conservative and sane scholar on staff.

Kuru the tall is one of the tallest of the pygmies. He's the height of a short Budallan man. He used to be the deed archivist before he retired to pursue his studies on the history of the pygmy people. According to his theories the pygmies are actually humans from another planet and their spaceship crashed here during the cataclysm or destruction of the polar gates. All humans are in fact descendants of pygmies and pre-Chaos taint beastmen but altered in height and skin colour as adaptions for the environment. Kuru usually leads any expeditions into the Southlands or Lustria wearing his bizarre shining pygmy-made armor and riding his war crane Anniball.

Any chaos artifacts they find are traded to one of the Imperial wizard orders in exchange for copies of rare books or scholarly exchange.

Do feel free to invite your own crazy or eccentric scholars and plop them in. The trick to writing good in-universe crackpot scholars is to make them almost right. Read up on old outdated Warhammer lore and have that be the in-universe text.

Adventure hooks:

They sent another expedition, but this time it's going to Praag. Does Mother Kislev call to you?

Some one tried to burn the place down in the night. Who tried to do this, and why?

Holy Word Theater

Holy Word theater specializes in showing stories out of holy texts dramatized as a grand spectacle complete with live animals, mock battles, special effects, and parlour tricks. Real magic is available if the owner can sucker a wizard into a contract this season. Her best season was when they were performing "The Life and Burning Wrath of Sigmar" with an Imperial Bright Wizard on staff to provide pyrotechnics. The theater also caught fire five times but art is never without cost.

Almeda Murati, the owner, is a Veranian and therefore has read most of the other major cults holy books and knows the best and most dramatic stories to put on . She is motivated by devotion to Veranian ideals, resentment against her actor parents for forcing her into this life instead of scholarly pursuits like she wanted, and overwhelming ambition to put on great shows and be a great actress. Also by the piles of gold her shows bring in.

Adventure hooks

The wizard in your party managed to get tricked into signing up for a season's worth of shows. Now the rest of the party has to figure out how to break his contract.

Almeda is bed-ridden and a strange new theatrical group is performing stories from a holy book none of the players are familiar with. Is that a rival theatrical company executing a hostile takeover, a chaos cult filling the public's head with filth, or something even weirder?

Snavely's Sour Chocolate Factory

Dr. John Benajim Snavely is a dear sweet man , although there are rumours his wife was a whore, but his chocolate is made with local milk and the Budallen cows are notorious for their poor milk quality. This gives it a slightly sour taste that he tries to offset with roasted almonds, raisins, peanuts, toffee and rice. His chocolate factory is the best smelling spot in the city. He sells a bar the size of a brick in a little cheap tin. He pays the widows, beggars, invalids, and cripples of the city to paint them so the tin is usually quite ugly, but some people collect them. Woe to the fool who insults the sour chocolate in the city, for many a traveller has been saved from starvation, boredom, or insanity by a brick of Snavely's Sour Chocolate.

Adventure hooks:

Mr.Lizard from the Chocolate City, the weird talking lizard from Lustria who serves as the mascot of Snavely's Sour Chocolate, has gone missing! Can your brave adventurers find him? Is he really a spy for the legendary lizardmen like the people at the South Pole museum claim?

Ten tickets are placed in the tins every week. Finding one lets you participate in the weekly factory tour. A rival confectioner wants you to break off from the tour and steal Snavely's recipes.

The grand Temple of Solkhan the widower

Theofan Nelli Paulson is the current head of the Blazeguard as well as the less illegal Brothers of the Som of the Sun's mercy. He is motivated by zealotry, overpowering compassion and very strong honor. He is so scrupulous and paranoid he doubts his own motives. He stopped flogging himself once he realized he was getting off to it and now attends the sermons of other churches as punishments.

The Grand Temple of Solkhan the Widower is the second biggest temple to Solkan in the world. The biggest is in the city of Remas. It is a beautiful Classical building with a small attached chapel for the Son of the Sun. The Reman cult of Solkan and the cult of Solkhan the widower do not get along but Solkan's entire cult is riven with fracture lines like that. A congregation where half of them aren't on speaking terms with the other half is normal.

A common penance for members is having to hand out tracts. These can either be the amazing Son of the Sun series drawn by Shphend Hachu featuring him in his blazing golden armour fighting Stan and his cult, The Khornate Daemon prince Sid Grimsbane atop his chariot of blood and bone from which he rides out of his castle of Dread and agony in the hills, the preppy Nagash mortach Zaddicus Tombend who lurks in the nearby woods, the vampire lord Mace Darkmore, the Tallite queen of beastmen Zogai, the fallen gold wizard Blanca and his chemically-enslaved ice ghouls, the Tin God, Bloody Tears the vampiress, and countless others. Or boring theological tracts with titles like "Rotten Oranges don't fall from the Tree of Stan". Guess which ones people prefer.

Why do people still worship Solkhan?

Solkan, as previously stated, is an angry god who really really hates Chaos. He also doesn't particularly like humanity and wants you to be grumpy all the time like he is. Because being a stuck-up sourpuss protects you from Chaos. Or dead. He'd prefer you dead because then Chaos can't get to you. As for other races he likes dwarfs but they don't like him, ogres, orcs, goblins, mutants, dark elves, skaven, naga and beastmen should all die, Lizardmen are awesome, it depends on the dragon, every single Chaos-aligned dragon ogre should die, fimir tribes who worship him can be allowed to live, and halflings are perfect just the way they are. So why on earth would anyone worship this jackass? Why does he have such a following in Budalla?

Because of his followers actions during the many civil wars and blood feuds. When all other gods had forsaken the Budallan people during the nader of their civilization he was still there empowering his followers to hold the line against Chaos, Skaven, and the greenskins. All those dark forces Sun of the Sun allegedly fought? They're real. As the Budallans worked and struggled back out of the muck other gods were there to lend a hand but it was Solkhan the widower who stuck with them when they really didn't deserve it. It's hard to get mad at a god who holds you in contempt when you so richly deserve it.

Adventure hooks:

Solkhanites accuse your characters of being followers of the ruinious powers. And they're right. Run dumbass run!

Some sects of Solkanites regard the Son of the Sun as heresy. One of these fanatics is currently trying to destroy the chapel to him . While your players are still inside it.

Sinister cult of Budalla

Staninists

Stanislaw Gopcèvíć was an evil wizard who ascended to godhood. He's now the god Stan. Stan is not a chaos god, but he's still proscribed in almost every decent city and country in the world. Stan is a god of brutal vengeance who makes Solhkhan look cute and cuddly. That's the general impression the man on the street has. The truth is even worse. Stan is a god of genocidal vengeance and solipsistic narcissism. His strictures are

• never apologize

• always take revenge

• obey Stan

• you owe no one consideration or courtesy. Society has done nothing for you; burn it down if you desire

• no bad tactics; only bad targets

• kill all dark elfs on my altar so I can eat their souls.

• oppose the chaos powers and any god who isn't doing anything for you.

He hands out powers and gifts to his followers like they were candy. That's good for him because, following his battle with the Son of the Sun, he's trapped in the ruined dwarf city below Budella and wants you to bring him dark and wood elf souls to eat. His followers are mostly the power-hungry who decided that kidnapping and sacrificing superhuman sadomasochist slavers was a better fast route to ultimate power than signing up with the four jerks who want to blow up the world. They fight routine battles with the dwarfs and the other presence down there. The City Watch and Solkhanites also want to destroy them, but don't usually go into the tunnels.

The Staninites greatest champions is Stan's Daemon prince the Dark Angel. The Dark Angel doesn't hate Dark Elfs but acts like she does to make killing them easier. She is a princess of a fallen kingdom in the Border Princes and wants revenge on the entire Border Princes for destroying her father's kingdom. She is crippled unresolved trauma and insanity. Stan encourages thus so that she's easier to manipulate. He even made her forget her name so that she has no connection to her old life.

Adventure hooks:

Is one of your characters an elf? Then Stan wants to eat their soul.

A local wood elf has been kidnapped from the woods and Zogai the Talian queen of beastman is rallying her troops to rescue him and burn down Budalla so as to expand her domains. Rescue the elf or Budalla burns . Fight her and burn with it. Run away and let it burn.

Download: https://adeptus7.itch.io/lovecraftian-inspirations-from-real-life-and-beliefs

This free brochure (28 pages)contains inspiration drawn from the beliefs of peoples who actually inhabit the Earth now or in the past, or from facts taken straight from history or science. Each case includes the suggestion, how given beliefs or facts can be interpreted in the spirit of cosmic horror, emphasizing their appropriate elements or bending them slightly. Sometimes the descriptions are quite brief – a detailed discussion of each topic would take a lot of space and time. These are rather teasers intended to show why a specific thing may be interesting for fans of eldritch vibes and possibly encourage them to take a closer look at the topic.

The article is intended primarily for Game Masters who play games in systems inspired by Lovecraft's works, such as Call of Cthulhu or Delta Green. However, I hope that other fans of cosmic horror will also find something for themselves here. The interesting facts presented here may also be interesting for people who are not familiar with the work of The Loner of Providence, but some of the references may be unclear to them.

Here are contents:

GREEK MYTHOLOGY

Typhon – a classic but forgotten abomination

Zeus – embodied energy

In his house underground, dead Hades waits in sleep

Apollo – beautiful, deadly light

Hermes is the gate, Hermes is the key

NORDIC MYTHOLOGY

A jotun is not the same as a giant, but it can be made into an abomination

Odyn = Nodens, Loki = Nyarlathotep

Or is Odin an abomination?

Einherjers and Odin the human

POLISH FOLKLORE AND LEGENDS

Jan Twardowski – the first man on the Moon

Silen night, starry night

Church in Trzęsacz – Deep ones do not leave their own, even after death

TRUE (OK, SLIGHTLY FAR-FETCHED) HISTORY

Invasion of the Sea Peoples

Greater Germanic Antarctica

The emperor out of the time

The Indus civilization

TRUE (SERIOUSLY) SCIENCE

Mad mathematicians

Humans like ants, ants like zombies

Halny and other foehn winds – the whisper of the wind brings madness

ABRAHAMIC BELIEFS

Covenant with God and Melchizedek

Succubi/incubi, aliens and a sorcerer-pope

Double faith

Stone from the sky, genies and angels

apparently it's some one-off alternate-universe thing, but le heckin' CHUDS might like it because it's a 40k skin (with kaiju) on mechwank.

Sure, and I doubt that the BT writers are about to careen into preaching ethnonationalist theocracy, but I mean... propaganda can be accidental. Like, Heinlein set out to write progressive scifi about more tolerant societies and ended up a crypto-fascist icon. And as the saying goes, once nazis start hanging out at your bar, you're not a bar anymore, you're a nazi bar. They're your market, and you'll end up serving them.

this le heckin' RAT-M chorus kills fascists:

Oof. I lived in the Midwest for a long time. Lot of great folks, but some of those who work forces, are the same that burn crosses. Where I live now is a state that has a long history of mixed peoples and so these issues, still exist, but aren't at the forefront anymore.

:

writing an ideology into a piece of fiction, and even having it as the protagonist in that fiction, is not a bad thing and means nothing. making clear statements that This is Good and the way Things Should Be in a lore descriptor thats written to be in an objective tone, however, is a clear statement of endorsement by the author. this is basic media literacy?

Apart from Luigi and Salvatore, who are the anchor store in the Great Galleria, there are plenty of opportunities for adventurers to lighten their purse in Budella.

The Great Galleria is a great glass buildings cleverly designed to let the sun shine in and lit with salvaged dwarfen glow spheres at night. It was built by dwarfs not from the area. A massive Statue of Solhkhan the widower stands in the center of the mall. Arms crossed. Glaring down. Scowling. At his base is engraved the phrase "are you spending your money wisely?" in classical and Riekspiel. This was the Galleria's builder's attempt to appease the Solhkhanites and it mostly worked. Statues of other gods are scattered throughout the Galleria. As an indoor mostly glass marketplace the Great Galleria is mostly just a strange novelty, but there are a few stores that might interest an adventurer .

Adventure hooks:

A dwarfen fanatic is determined to steal back the glowglobes.

One of the coins they paid the dwarfs with was, unbeknownst to them, bronze painted to look like gold. Now the dwarfs have sent a representative asking for triple that coin's worth or else they'll burn the galleria down.

Hamoud's Roasted meats and breads

A delicious shop specializing in Arabyian meat dishes and their flattened bread it also has the misfortune to be directly across from a mosaic depicting the destruction by fire of the Order of Exalted Murder by the Solhkhanites. Faris Munchy, an ogre maneater learned how to cook like this when serving as a mercenary in Araby. There's always an ogre or two in the shop. The mosaic seems to just make them hungrier.

Adventure hooks:

There's a rumor the meat he's using is people. The party is hired to investigate

A rival restaurant wants to close this place down permanently. The party can either be hired to do guard work or sabotage

Rawbones and Bloodyhide War Beasts

A firm specializing in selling warhorses and fighting animals of every sort. Their showroom/stable is a noisy barnyard of weird creatures. Not pitfighting dogs because that's illegal in Bodella. Run by the Halfling clans Rawbones and Bloodyhide., two of the scariest groups of Halflings you'll ever meet.

Or at least that's the impression they deliberately cultivate. In reality it's one clan called the Flowerpicks who started this bit because they needed a way to offload some battle-scarred warhorses and just found playing dress-up as battle-scarred psychos way too fun and profitable. They've since branched out into Koreshian giant fighting roosters, Warhounds, "battle cattle" which are just steers of the Albion Shaggy breed trained to follow along after horses, badger mounts, trained riding swans, "warhogs" which are just castrated feral boars captured as piglets and housebroken, sabertusks, and occasionally something really exotic, but still mainly specialize in selling gnarly old horses as "experienced warhorses".

"Yeah he's old and walks poorly. He was owned by a knight of the Blazing Sword who rode him into battle against a dragon! He got both his legs broken when the darned lizard picked him up and dropped him. You think a horse can't recover from a broken leg? That's because you're a stupid human who doesn't know how to properly care for one. Feh!"

Despite the fact that it's a scam any animal sold by them will be reliable, brave, and good-tempered. The Flowerpicks are excellent animal trainers and veterinarians.

Adventure hooks:

An ogre is supposed to be bringing them a mammoth, but he's late. Go and find him!

The Flowerpicks's secret is out! Now they need ro reestablish their street cred and the party is hired to job to them.

The Burning Sinner

The Burning Sinner is the Great Galleria's only tavern. It is a place of genteel poverty: Clean but poor . Fallbedeer the 'armless, a retired one-armed mercenary who bought the place sight unseen, keeps it as clean as he can but business is slow. Mainly because of the decor which the purchase agreement forbids him from changing.

The Great Galleria was built during a brief Solkhanite reign of Budella and so the walls of the tavern depicts drunks burning to death. In one corner is a shrine to Myrmidia.

Adventure hooks:

Fallbedeer wants to redecorate to bring in clientele, but needs the players to find the best Dwarf lawyer in the city to renegotiate his contract. The dwarf no longer comes up from the tunnels and so you'll have to go in and find him.

Someone keeps trying to bash the walls open. Actually multiple someones. And none of them can explain why. They just feel the need to rip open a particular chunk of wall.

Tirana Bookstore

A bookstore run by Adrion Pallati, a retired mercenary prince, and Marcuren Abeline, a retired watch-guard who took an arrow to the knee. They stock a wide variety of texts in a wide variety of languages. Haggling depends upon who is present. Adrion sells it at the price he sells it at and no other while Abeline is easily impressed by tales of adventure and can usually be haggled down.

Adventure hooks:

The remains of Adrion's old army have been found. As part of a necromancer's army he's building in The Border princes. He needs brave adventurers to come with him and Abeline, because Abeline is a lousy shot, and put them down and rebury them in a proper grave

You find an ancient treasure map in one of the books you bought.

Outside the Great Galleria

The Cat House

A tea house with a bunch of tamed cats dedicated to ito the cat goddess, a local deity that might have a more sinister side. Ricadiel Zjarr is the shopkeeper and high priest of Ito, a role into which he was drafted quite against his will. He loves cats but thinks Ito is a creepy bully. The cat House is his way to get some money out of the whole thing. He sells a variety of trinkets related to Ito Including icons of Ito mauling to death various animals that represent the chaos gods, a book of folktales which mostly feature Ito being an abusive jerk to the other gods and her constant schemes to ascend from "the little God's table" as well as the many gruesome and inventive way she punishes those who harm cats, and miniature idols to put in your home so that Ito won't rip your eyes out on her Holy Night of "Ito comes to some random cat-killers house and rips his eyeballs out". Come in, have weak and overpriced tea, and pet some cats.

Adventure hooks:

The place has been set on fire by drunken mercenaries angry it's not a brothel. Rescue the cats or face the wrath of Ito.

Sick of people complaining it's not a brothel he's gone about as far as he legally can in that direction by hiring a bunch of attractive young women as wait staff and putting them in cat ears and as little clothing as they can legally get away with. A solkhanite vigil is being routinely held in front of the shop now, but that's a routine matter in this town. What's not routine is when they start turning up murdered. Is Ito talking her vengeance or is something even more sinister going on?

The museum of Malakai Makkaisson

A museum and mechanical workshop dedicated to the life and career of the infamous slayer engineer. It contains the remnants of many of his projects and models of them as well. Run by an Imperial Dwarfaboo engineer named Gustaf Kaiser, who was run out of the empire for his attempt to copy the dwarf gyrocopter. He's so far replicated the Imperial steam tank, but has only gotten one built so far. The gyrocopters keep exploding on him, but he has so far built a few very small airships that can fit about one party of adventurers in reasonable comfort. His main business, however, is plumbing and stoves.

Adventure hooks:

You need to get someone far away and high up in a hurry. Time to buy a Kaiser blimp!

Malik is visiting the museum!

Mountaintop Gowf

A gowf course on an artificially flattened mountain. Oiginally built by dwarfs who were taught the sport of gowf by their albion cousins. Now maintained by Meridiean , a bastard child of a Nipponese ambassador to Remas who still conducts herself with the courtly demeanor of the Nipponese imperial court , her gowf-obsessed husband Guelph Zalli, and their children Zezak, Natë, Cmenduri, Korbi, Mënryë, Dragöi, Vurdalak, gjakatare, Mari, and Djali(multiple births were common in both family's bloodlines). Gowf isn't real-world golf but a drunken insane mutated cousin of golf as we know it. The Ball is small and leather and you have to buy at least three buckets to get through the course. On hole one you have to be careful not to get your ball stuck in a small crack in the masonry, there's a tamed gelded beastman on hole four who will eat your ball if you land in what he considers "his turf", at hole six you have to hit your ball over a massive hole, the many water traps scattered throughout the course will carry your ball off the mountain, one of the trees in hole seven will eat one of your balls no matter what, hole nine is angled so that you can never get your ball up the hill or out the sand trap, hole ten is angled like the Crooked Kislev border, hole Eleven is through grass, dirt and stones, hole 14 is through a windmill, hole fifteen is layered like a Nekharan pyramid, Hole sixteen has multiple false holes to dump your ball off the mountain, hole seventeen is a sand green hole, hole eighteen is full of rocks and will bounce you ball every way but to victory, and hole nineteen is played in between two ponds stocked with Nipponese magic koi who will curse your ball if you land in their pond. This is considered a nice easy course for beginners. You can rent a trained goat to carry your bags.

Adventure hooks

Something has got the ball-eater upset and some brave adventures are hired to Investigate

You have to play a round while negotiating something.

Analysis vid from the Tal/Botvinnik match during the 1960 world chess championship.

By the way I'm introducing !chess for the amateur chess players, chess enthusiasts, and grandmasters of rdrama

!pinggrouplovers

Because I'm at Gary Con and feeling salty - I think the idea that younger gamers want a "safe" game - whatever that means - is utterly wrong. Participation trophies are there to make the parents feel good about themselves. The kids know it's a show.

— Mike Mearls (@mikemearls) March 20, 2025

Because I'm at Gary Con and feeling salty - I think the idea that younger g*mers want a "safe" game - whatever that means - is utterly wrong. Participation trophies are there to make the parents feel good about themselves. The kids know it's a show.

The meaning of play comes from the sense of risk. We roleplay because it is a place where we can experience risk, loss, and defeat without enduring tangible harm. We're wired as humans to roleplay to learn how to navigate life's twists and turns.

Whether it's a dead character or failure in whatever context the session presents, the bigger the threat, the more meaning play has to us emotionally and spiritually. Removing it from the game turns it into time-wasting slop.

Bonus post:

Three attacks from an anti-paladin wielding a vorpal unholy blade. Three decapitated characters. #garycon pic.twitter.com/sdA3K2dfJo

— Mike Mearls (@mikemearls) March 18, 2025

Three attacks from an anti-paladin wielding a vorpal unholy blade. Three decapitated characters.

As you can see in the image, this is a scenario from an edition of D&D where a vorpal sword decapitated on a roll of 17-20 (actually 20-23 counting only the item's modifier but it had +3 on the attack roll).

Attended the Weird Hope Engines opening day at the Bonnington Gallery in Nottingham (yes, I also made my pilgrimage to the Space Marine Statue outside GW)

It was pretty good; lots of strange art on account of it being done by OSR artists (in case the name wasn't a clue), like this crocodile god by Zedeck Siew

and these adorable little critters by Scrap Princess (you can read more about each of them on his blog)

Plus the remainder of other assorted artworks

On the opening day there was also a zine fair, where several prominent OSR personalities were holding panel talks, selling their stuff, and signing books.

I got my copy of Deep Carbon Observatory signed by both Patrick Stewart and Scrap Princess, and snagged a couple of other neat little bits and pieces like zines made by local artists.

The panels were good - if you're thinking of going later on in the run, they won't be happening but the art will still be there and the gallery will probably have copies of various games for sale.

It's free, so it you're nearby Nottingham any time between now and the 10th of may, definitely drop in.

Getting assaulted by a 60 year old woman who was screaming "IM FIRST IM FIRST" as I'm walking toward the door and proceeds to bump me out of the way really takes the cake for me. All to get cards for her 35 year old "collector" son…

Good luck to everyone card hunting, I hope you avoid the crazies.

Budalla is a city state in the mountains between the Border Princes and Tilea. It's a major trade hub as one of the most stable and safe passed through the mountains. It once ruled significant chunks of the Border Princes but that was many years ago under its founder: "the Little Prince" Bujar Mbret Imire, dwarf-friend, wielder of the magic sword Fat Mire, rider od the clockwork horse, and reunifier of the Budella tribe. Lord Bujar founded the city and ruled a small empire before he died peacefully in his sleep. This marked the end of stable sane rulership of Budella and his empire immediately collapsed into civil war as his sons fought. Civil war continued on for centuries and was not stopped by the collapse of the dwarf hold underneath their town, the fall of the city of Tylos, conquest by Reman, abandonment by Reman, war with the skaven, or the Red Pox

Budella's history in the modern age begins with the self-proclaimed "son of the Sun", who claimed to be the chosen of Solkhan the widower and conquered the city-state and surrounding farmland with his army of fanatics and penitents. Solkan is worshipped locally as "Solkhan the widower", and is one of the major local gods. His reign over the city was marked by both charitable outreach and brutal repression of dissenters. He outlawed slavery, prostitution, extrajudicial killings, cruel and unusual punishments, public execution, gambling, adultery, hard liquor, and any magic besides healing. The Academy of Medicine, Budella's only school where magic is taught, was established under his rule and "join or die" was his official policy towards all spellcasters. Multiple rebellions, usually led by wealthy or well-connected individuals, were brutally put down under his reign. He was eventually assassinated by an imperial agent of the Amethyst order for executing one of their journeymen wizards for the crime of "Non-Solkhan approved sorcery" after he refused to join the Academy of Medicine. He is now worshipped in Budella as a minor subordinate god to Solkhan called "The Son of the Sun" who Solkhanites pray to to intercede on their behalf with Solkhan and convince him not to punish them.

In the ensuing tribal conflicts Alma Envy, a Cathayan-educated noble, seized control of the country by rallying the significant non-Budullan and Budalland sick of this bullshit parts of the country against the Budullan's and their primitive tribal warfare. She and her husband, the rich commoner Altan Envy, ruthlessly seized control of the country, and quickly brought the country to ruin with her Envious Harmony philosophy which nationalized most industries and banned all religions. Fortunately for her and her coterie their reign coincide with a minor chaos invasion, a chaos dwarf slave raid, and several orc waaghs, and so the populace was far too busy fighting off the horrors of chaos and greenskins to fight her.

After her husband's death at the hands of the orc warboss faceflaya she finally totally succumbed to paranoia and had fortresses and bunkers constructed all over the city and surrounding countryside, almost entirely constructed by dissidents she had sentenced to hard labour. This insane expensive indepth defense proved worth it when Budalla crushed off a Chaos Dwarf raiding party. Their daemon engines are still rusting in the woods nearby the city because no one knows how to properly dispose of them.

Altan Envy died peacefully in her sleep, leaving Budalla a significantly poorer country, the country once again descended into civil war as all those Envy had oppressed and driven into exile rose up again. The country wasn't fully stable until it's conquest by

The tomb king Grand Pepi the third and his army of pygmies. His reign is fondly remembered as a golden age which lasted "seven wonderful years" until Settra sent him a one-word message commanding him to return and only a fool defies Settra the Imperishable. During his reign he rebuilt and reconsecrates all the temples, relegalized the study of "all wholesome and sane forms of magic", oversee the sale and restoration of "all properties unjustifiably stolen by my predecessors", and installed a constitutional monarchy based on his extensive readings of political thoughts and history.

The moment he left his government was disbanded and those pygmies who did not flee into the abandoned dwarfen city were put to death by the tyrant and tribal warlod Bell Luush. Bell Luush reign lasted three months until Agron Mamaqi, a clever mercenary captain, overthrew and slew him after building an uneasy alliance between the pygmies, the still-living dwarfs, the Solhkanites, a Shallayan medical order, various merchant and trading concerns, the Myrmadian Order of the Shield, the city watch, the local guilds, and multiple clans. Grand Peppi's reforms were put back into place and Agron now rules the city as "the Placeholder" who rules the city until the return of Bujar Mbret or Grand Peppi the third. ( The Son of the sun is not considered a contender because, as a god, he has his own responsibilities and duties).

Budalla in its modern state is, to quote Bart Simpson, "Las Vegas if it was run by Ned Flanders". It's a major trading hub lacking the brothels and gambling dens that usually mark such place thanks to Agron needing to appease the Solhkanites. There's a branch of Luigi and Salvatore, the famous department store and secret fencing front. They're mostly interested in dwarfen artifacts and goods from the lost hold beneath the city and anything that falls off the back of a wagon.

The Deserts of Nekhara is a pyramid-shaped inn and tavern built as the palace for Grand Peppi the 3rd during his rule. Peppi,, despite his many virtues, had terrible taste in architecture and interior decorating, seeming to believe "more is more" and covering every possible inch of space with knicknacks and art of the gods. On the plus size this means guests are unlikely to be assaulted by any unholy forces due to the sheer level of saintly and holy kitsch surrounding them. On the downside it's hard to sleep or make love when an icon of the Lady of the Lake, a life-sized statue of Sigmar carved from furniture scraps, clay figurines of the Nekharan pantheon, a wall scroll of The Twin Nipponese moon goddesses, and a snarling mask of Ulric are all watching you.

Agron Mamaqi isn't running a city so much as he is juggling lit torches. The Solkhanites hate everybody except for the charitable and saintly but are also a powerful and influential because of their fanatical defense of the city and their charitable work. "Lunch and a lecture" is common slang among the poor for Solkhanite charity.

Nelson Röövitud is the head of the cult of Solkhan the widower as well as a brutal murderous enemy of chaos and corruption. There are dozens of different stories of how this strangely accented handsome man came to lead the Solkhanites. Some say he was a Bretonnian grail knight who grew sick and tired of the corruption and weakness of Bretonnian society. Others claim he was a ruler in the Border Princes whose kingdom was destroyed by Chaos or an ork waagh or that he was the prince of a Tilean city overthrown in a coup. Whatever his true origins, and he does not speak of them, he wields the Hand of Kuali, a glove sacred to Solkan that gives him access to aqshy and extra strength.

Why is Solkhan so mean?

Solkan is the last survivor of the Chaos Gods of Law, or at least the last of them to be actively involved in the world, a weird set of deities from early edition Warhammer Fantasy. According to certain ancient gold tablets found un the swamps of ruin the Chaos Gods of Law were created by the Old Ones as a failsafe weapon against the Chaos gods. To fight a god you need a god and so they took the raw substance of chaos and shaped it into entities they controlled. This… failed. Miserably. Most of them were killed, insofar as a god can die, with the destruction of the Southernmeost continent under the collapsing Southern Warp gate and endless stream of daemons pouring out of it. The other survivors are more abstract or incomprehensible to mortals and no longer involve themselves with the mortal world. Or they're locked up and hidden where Solkan can't find them. Solkhan, or Solkan to use his more common name, is an angry god and even angrier because he's the last of his pantheon. He's a weapon without the safeguards. The nearest comparison would be if Ares was left standing after the rest of the Olympic pantheon was killed. Imagine the rage of a man who just lost his entire family and not just his nuclear family. Mom, dad, wife, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles all gone. Now make him already angry and emotionally unstable. Everything about the gods is magnified and so his rage is as well. His creators are either dead or have abandoned him, the other remaining gods are soft, weak, and indulgent, he's forbidden from actively interfering and so he can't burn down Naggiroth, Skavenblight, Zharr-Nugrand, the Chaos Wastes, the Ogre Kingdoms, the Maelstrom, the Great Maw, and Grand Cathay like he so desperately wants, the races he actually likes are either extinct or gone wrong, his followers are all weak and pliable humans who go insane, grow a third arm, and start worshipping it as soon as they see a chaos god, and all his friends, including his wife, are dead. Solkan isn't just angry; he's bitter and sad.

Now back to Budella

Budulla is built on the ruins of an ancient lost dwarfen hold. The dwarfs do not speak of what happened there, but there is a grudge fulfilled and already crossed off. The Skaven underempire isn't present here. Something in the depths frightened them off. In battle the Budellans are often accompanied by strange short figures in all-concealing armour.

The lost hold of Karak Fargastong lies below Budalla

A small and sickly population of elderly dwarfs stubbornly cling to Karak Fargastong. They are heavily mutated and so never remove their armour in the site of others. None have taken the slayer oath for to be a slayer means to remove your armour. Their equipment is old but well-maintained. Other dwarfs keep their distance and , if asked, will talk about them as as if they were dead. They only live on because Budalla would collapse completely into blood feuds if they weren't their to mediate grudges. That's right . Budallan's ancient code of honour is so bloodthirsty and ruthless that the dwarfs are the moderating influence.

Pretty badass 😎

I have a steady collection of games on the Bush War that my historian friends like to play. But are there any other notable games about other events on the dark continent?

Clickbait title.

Does anyone actually want to play tabletop games using a play by email service like vassal or cyberboard? Preferably something from avalon hill since only boomers know how to make good board games.

There's a huge selection of games adapted for cyberboard here for free and I'm sure there is something similar somewhere for vassal.

I realized no g*mer cares about adventuring in the fricking mortal realms in Age Of Sigmar and so have abandoned the fricking efforts along those lines because I am fickle and desire praise. But I realized people love Warhammer fantasy and the fricking old world, so I decided to make a fricking Tilean region since it's so ill-defined. I want to do one based on Pinocchio. The fricking original novel which is fricking amazing and horrible and features the fricking scammer city of Fool's Trap, crazed man-eating giants, talking dogs, gorilla judges, and other stranger things. But I can't do that until I know what's already there. There are fricking Da Vinci era flying men, Reman legionnaires, lots and lots of mercenaries, but what of the fricking other races. Are their fricking halflings in Tilea, b-word? Dwarfs, b-word? (In Warhammer Dwarves is fricking an elvish word and therefore not used by dwarfs.)

clearly everyone saw that and just decided traditional games was over

Even Redditors who usually defend him are saying it's a bad look:

https://old.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/1je746n/hans_is_not_doing_the_lie_detector_test_due_to/

He also posted this schizophrenic statement where he says "Chess Mafia" is trying to stop him from playing because he destroyed a hotel room:

https://old.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/1jefvcf/hans_niemann_addresses_to_stlcc_situation/

He basically says "Well, I already apologized and my rich daddy and momy paid the $5000 hotel room bill so fricking forget about it lready."

Aevann I will stop begging you for money, motherlover!

Mine was when the abusive girlfriend of one if my players made him quit the game because she decided he didn't want other things competing for his attention. This wouldn't be so bad except that his absence killed the group's chemistry and led to me ending the campaign.