I spent most of this weekend working on Isaac's biography: - I interviewed Stephen Abbott, an old friend of Isaac's from Berkeley. - I sent out messages to a couple of other folks I want to want to interview, to (re-)establish a connection. - I wrote to Michael Lloyd, author of Bull of Heaven, to ask another…
Folks are coming for a ritual this evening. I have to mop the floor. The WetJet isn't working. I can't find my mop. There's nothing else to do but get on my hands and knees, and scrub with water and Pine-Sol. As I'm doing this, I'm humming: Of course, the title of this post has nothing to…
In my previous post, I mentioned that I was working on a talk about the history of Nevis. I presented that talk yesterday. I'd been worried about how the talk would be received. I focused more on the history of the Nevis estate and on the construction of the Nevis synchrocyclotron than the research we've done in…
I recently picked up Playing at the World by Jon Peterson. This book is a history of the game Dungeon & Dragons.
Since many of my readers are Wiccan, I’ll use an analogy that will make sense to them: Playing at the World does for D&D what Ronald Hutton’s Triumph of the Moon did for Wicca. It explores the different elements and influences that resulted in D&D, and follows the chain of influence forward as D&D affected the world around it. [1] [2]
In part 1 of this Argothald story, I talked about the game’s first players. In this part, I want to delve into how I designed part of the fictional world of Tala, the planet of the Argothald.
I want to tell a story about Argothald. It’s a geek story. It spans 35 years and two worlds, one real and one fictional. There’s no moral, no point, no great insight to be had. It’s merely a story I wish to share.
It’s also long enough that I want to split it into three parts.