Item Seed: Winston Churchill’s Walking Cane.

winston-churchills-walking-cane-google-docs

 

Winston Churchill’s Walking Cane

 

This is the walking cane that Winston Churchill carried throughout World War II. As you might imagine, it can have a certain resonance, in the right hands. And if it ever ends up in the wrong ones, well, the pyrotechnics could be entertaining.  Also, messy.

Continue reading Item Seed: Winston Churchill’s Walking Cane.

Monotony Money [Unknown Armies]

monotony-money-unknown-armies-google-docs

 

Monotony Money [Unknown Armies]

 

It’s sometimes referred to as ‘Meta-Money’ by those members of the occult underground who know something about roleplaying games (a surprising number of them don’t).  It typically takes the form of a piece of fake $20 currency from a certain board game, suitably inscribed with an increasing number of sigils and mystic runes; the only rule for the writing seems to be that it also has to involve the number 20 somehow.  Nobody knows who started the first one; but you just know when a proffered piece of Monotony Money is the real deal.

Continue reading Monotony Money [Unknown Armies]

Ooh, Atlas Games is going to allow fan-published Unknown Armies material!

If they can get this retweeted 333 times, that is.

Between this and John Wick also opening up 7th Sea for commercial fan-based materials, this looks… promising. Unknown Armies and 7th Sea are both game lines that I am familiar with; it’s always easier when you don’t have to translate your game concepts into Specific Rule-set. Plus, I want to write stuff for these game lines anyway. Getting paid for it sounds pretty freaking sweet.

The Unknown Armies Bundle of Holding.

If you have not yet bought Atlas Games‘ excellent and insanely good urban magic occult underground game Unknown Armies yet, the current Bundle of Holding will give you a ridiculous amount of good gaming material in PDF form for about fourteen bucks. I already own all of these and I still picked it up, largely because it’s nice to have this stuff on the iPad and the price is very attractive (a little over two bucks a book).

It is my hope that this may presage them bringing back the game line. Which would be AWESOME.

Attention, Unknown Armies fans: new FREE supplement (Order of St. Cecil).

OK, real fast: Unknown Armies (from Atlas Games) is a roleplaying game for playing “postmodern magick” and street-level sorcery: it’s very Tim Powers-y, and if you need me to explain who he is then I can only suggest that you go read at least On Stranger Tides, Last Call, and Declare RIGHT NOW and thank God later that you did.  In the meantime, think ‘hedge magic in a modern urban setting, as practiced by people at high risk for OCD.’  It’s a fun game and a really fun game world.

Anyway… Chad Underkoffler (smart guy; good game designer) has written a FREE sourcebook for one of the groups mentioned in the game (The Order of St. Cecil: Vatican magick-busters with a distinct lack of body-hugging armor and vaguely blasphemous weaponry).  It’s technically unofficial, except that it’s showing up on Atlas Games’ website: I assume that it’s officially unofficial so that they can determine whether there are people out there are still willing to pick up new material for the game.  You can get a free download copy at Steve Jackson Game’s e23:  you can also pick up a PDF of the core rules and supplements there, and NOT for free.

You should do all of that.  If you game tabletop.

Emergency Gaming Book Recommendation!

I’ve written three posts so far and deleted them all for being nasty.  So let me stop and regroup: see this book?

It’s a great supplement for a great roleplaying game (Unknown Armies (2nd Edition)). You get to play postmodern magicians whose cover is working for a certain fast food restaurant chain (the largest hamburger fast food restaurant chain in the world, in fact). It’s a fun supplement, and not particularly political.

Plus, I know one of the guys (Chad Underkoffler) who wrote it. He’s all right.

Moe Lane

Alternatively, it could be your next campaign.

You could actually run a pretty good Conspiracy X one off of this basic concept. Or maybe even Unknown Armies. Admittedly, you’d have to run either one more lighthearted than the average GM would, but that’s not so bad.  If nothing else, it’d be novel.

Via @allahpundit.