Grimoire
Cthulhu
Dracula
Abraham Lincoln
Ken
Grimoire

Episode 200: Lightning Round 2016

July 22nd, 2016 | Robin

Let the bells ring out and the banners fly! We can remember starting this occasionally humble podcast like it was yesterday, but here we are with our 200th episode. And you know what that means: lightning round questions. This time, served up primarily by our Patreon backers. Among the many topics: underused Lovecraft, why conversion rules will always break your heart, and where huts come from, dealing with rules lawyers, and limes versus lemons.

Support the KARTAS Patreon!


Get trapped in Lovecraft’s story “The Call of Cthulhu” in Atlas Games’ addictive new card game Lost in R’lyeh. Take a selfie with your purchased copy of the game at your brick and mortar game retailer and send it to Atlas to claim your special Ken and Robin promo card. Ken fans who did not partake of the Kickstarter can now sink their fangs into the general release of the Dracula Dossier from Pelgrane Press, consisting of the Director’s Handbook and Dracula Unredacted. You say that’s still not enough Ken for you? Very well, my friend. His brilliant pieces on parasitic gaming, alternate Newtons, Dacian werewolves and more now lurk among the sparkling bounty of The Best of FENIX Volumes 1-3, from returning sponsors Askfageln. Yes, it’s Sweden’s favorite RPG magazine, now beautifully collected. Warning: not in Swedish. Attention, operatives of Delta Green, the ultra-covert agency charged with battling the contemporary forces of the Cthulhu Mythos! Now everything you need to know to play Delta Green: The Roleplaying Game, perhaps extending your valiantly short field life, can be found in the Delta Green Agent’s Handbook.   

5 Responses to “Episode 200: Lightning Round 2016”

  1. Michael Daumen says:

    Did Ken say “Mary Ash’s Gentle” or “Mary Gentle’s Ash?”

    Regardless, he probably meant “Soviet Army” when he said “Red Army,” as US forces did fight the latter in the Russian Civil War.

    • KenH says:

      And Forbidden Planet is The Tempest not Lear. I’ve got to stop drinking in the mornings.

      • Phil Masters says:

        Which does raise an interesting alternate-Hollywood possibility, though. Say that, instead of making FP, the same team had come under pressure to do “a Flash Gordon kinda thing”, and had decided to raise the tone of their planetary romance by going back to a different classic, with King Morbius ranting on a blasted radioactive heath in the company of a not-very-funny comic relief robot, while his two older daughters’ armies fight raygun duels…

        Given the blatant influence of FP on Trek, this takes TV SF onto a more grandly romantic, Dune-style path in the ’60s, with Rodenberry promoting his democratic ideals by telling stories of a popular revolution against a decadent galactic Empire. Then, in the late ’70s, Lucas reacts against this by resurrecting the idea of space opera as pioneering Western in space…

  2. Mike S. says:

    Ken and Robin’s response to the rye whiskey question happens to highlight there being two different things called “rye whiskey”:

    1) Straight Rye Whiskey: under US law, this must be made with at least 51% rye (the rest is usually corn and malted barley, though a popular mash bill made by LDI distillery in Indiana and sold under many different labels is 95% rye). It’s aged in new charred oak barrels like bourbon, at no more than 125 proof.

    2) Canadian Rye Whisky: this is a blended whisky, the components of which can be aged in used barrels, which under Canadian law is not required to contain any actual rye as long as it “possess[es] the aroma, taste and character generally attributed to Canadian whisky”. (E.g., Canadian Club doesn’t advertise its composition, but is reportedly mostly corn mash and wheat, possible with a little rye spirit for flavoring.)

    This is sometimes simplified to “American rye” and “Canadian rye”, and that’s mostly true re production. (Though Canadian Club has recently released a 100% rye variant.) But I know that e.g., in New York when my dad was younger, “rye” if otherwise unspecified meant blended Canadian whisky, not straight rye.

    (The latter underwent a long decline until the last decade or so– if you were looking for it you might find a bottle of Old Overholt in the liquor store, but it wasn’t widely consumed or promoted.)

  3. Kalin Kadiev says:

    Yay, not only did my question got answered, but my name was once again butchered – two for the price of one! (I am joking of course – I am starting to learn to live with the fact that no native English speaker is going to pronounce my name right, unless I say it to them.)

    Not much to say, I guess, besides – congratulations on the 200 episodes! Let us hope we get another 200 in the future! (And hopefully one of my Ask Ken and Robin topics will be discussed in one of those future episodes, since I think it is for a worthy cause.)

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Film Cannister
Cartoon Rocket
d8
Flying Clock
Robin
Film Cannister