Der PigDog's PigBlog

I watched the trailer for 28 Years Later  a few months ago. There's a eerie sample playing in the background, somebody repeating some creepy phrases. Today I looked up the sample. It's from a poem by Rudyard Kipling, "Boots". Here's a fantastic reading. Be warned, it's also disturbing. I read a lot of Kipling as a child. He (and Tennyson) wrote poetry a child can love, and short stories too. But I threw him down in disgust at "White Man's Burden" and never picked him back up again. Even so many of his lines echoed through my mind, all my life. Nowadays a lot of his stuff comes off as stodgy, over-serious, outdated. I won't read "If" again if I can help it. I'm glad to see he wrote at least one good poem. Orwell wrote a pretty good essay on him.  It's Orwell, so there's still plenty of bullshit to disregard -- "I don't say that it's a true thought, merely that every intelligent man who hasn't deluded hims...

Blood Red Sands  is an a game by Ralph Mazza.  Here's the only play report of it on the internet.  It's an asymmetrical competitive gm-ful game with hidden information, shifting authorities, and formal conflict resolution. Probably nobody but the author has ever run it. Front cover of the pdf. No longer for sale anywhere BRS is grim and gritty swords and sorcery, psychedelic, as edgy as you can make it. The world is a wasteland dominated by witch kings who killed the gods and sucked up their power. You play the heroes attempting to destroy the witch kings. You also play the witch kings. You also play various third parties, who may or may not be sympathetic to the witch kings and to the heroes. You also play the storyteller recounting the legends of the heroes a thousand years in the future. This game is genuinely competitive, on every single level. It is jam-packed with layers of strategy. If it works at all, it is probably really good. Let's find out! The rest of this po...