Little Finger of Vecna: A Neutral Evil Rogue of Some Question

I can’t imagine that anyone is at all interested in my not-so-original D&D character creations, especially when they only exist in an ancient video game hardly anyone plays anymore, but I do enjoy writing about them, so there’s that. This time around my inspiration comes from Petyr Baelish, a character from HBO’s fantasy series Game

Happy Hobbit Day!

My sister and I put together a playlist of festive hobbity music for our celebrations that I just had to share with you because honestly I think it’s just perfect. Well, we worked long and hard on it so it better be! This year we wanted to combine the pagan celebration of the autumn equinox

The Rotting Horse on the Deadly Ground

As my fifty-first birthday approaches I’ve been waxing nostalgic and so, at the suggestion of my sister, have laboured long and hard putting together a retrospective metal playlist to serve as a soundtrack for the coming celebrations. I wanted it to sort of tell the story of how I became a headbanger thirty-six years ago

Easter With Excalibur

This post includes spoilers for the 1981 film Excalibur. Watching John Boorman’s epic 1981 fantasy film Excalibur has become an Easter tradition in my family, not just because at one point a priest praying for deliverance from the film’s main villain, Morgana, intones the words: “and on this Easter day, when Christ rose from the

Happy Tolkien Reading Day!

This post contains spoilers for both the book and film versions of The Lord of the Rings. March 25th is Tolkien Reading Day, because that’s the day J. R. R. Tolkien gave for the climactic event of his epic fantasy novel, The Lord of the Rings, when the One Ring went into the fire and the

Another Tolkien-themed Birthday!

This post contains spoilers for both the book and film versions of The Lord of the Rings. Some of you may recall that for my 50th birthday I decided to celebrate Hobbit-style, since Bilbo and Frodo were both fifty years old when they each set out on their respective adventures. Well, my sister’s birthday was on

Forbidden Memories

Forbidden memoriesHoarfrost of my soulEvoking melodiesThat rise up from a heart Which is not whole What is this emptinessWhy does it persistI see your silhouetteIt dances through the mistA frenzied pirouetteI clench my fist There is nothing left for meBut thisThe kiss of destinyYour kissForbidding memoryOf what will never beA heaven forever Witholding bliss Those

A Few of My Favourite Things, Part I

One of the things I love about blogging is that I get to tell perfect strangers all about the things I love. Imagine trying to do that during a long flight, or sitting in the waiting room of the doctor’s office. The difference is that I don’t have a captive audience. This blog is more

The Movies and Stories that Inspired Dave Arneson to Invent the Dungeon Crawl — DMDavid

Around 1971 Dave Arneson and his circle of Minneapolis gamers invented games where players controlled individual characters who grew with experience and who could try anything because dice and a referee determined the outcomes. The group tried this style of play in various settings, but Dave invented one that proved irresistible: the dungeon. Dave’s Blackmoor… The

That Time I Got So Skinny So Fast I Was Afraid I Had Cancer

For most of my adult life I’ve had sit-down jobs. In fact, for almost a decade I worked as a customer service representative in a call centre, which meant that I was basically tied to a desk for 90% of my work day, not counting the hour I spent sitting down to eat my lunch,