Episode 511: I Just Wanted to Say Astrosome
August 26th, 2022 | Robin
Foul sorcerers flee the Gaming Hut as beloved Patreon backer Jesse Lowe asks for the best Earth-based setting for swords and sorcery—the Hellenistic Era excepted, of course.
In Ken and/or Robin Talk To Someone Else, designer Gwen Marshall joins Ken to discuss the thinking behind such acclaimed projects as the ENnie-winning Ancestry & Culture and S5E: Superheroic Roleplaying.
The Monster Hut gets philosophical for a look at egregores in mythology and gaming.
Finally the Consulting Occultist lets love into his heart for a profile of songwriter, polemicist and free love priestess Edith Maida Lessing.
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Our Patreon-backed Letterboxd list of all films mentioned on the show is now up and running.
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Snag Ken and Robin merchandise at TeePublic.
Human problems are out of hand, so thank goodness, and Atlas Games, for Magical Kitties Save the Day, a fresh, fun roleplaying game for players of all ages, and for GMs from age 6 and up!
Track down foul sorcerers in a corrupt city, clamber through underground ruins and investigate the intrigues of your decadent rivals in Swords of the Serpentine, the GUMSHOE game of swords, sorcery and mystery, now available from Pelgrane Press.
The treasures of Askfageln can be found at DriveThruRPG. Get all issues of FENIX since 2013 available in special English editions. Score metric oodles of Ken Hite gaming goodness, along with equally stellar pieces by Graeme Davis and Pete Nash. Warning: in English, not in Swedish. In English, not Swedish. While you’re at it, grab DICE and Freeway Warrior!
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Delta Green Iconoclasts, a campaign of horrors modern and ancient, brings a team of Agents to a scene of horrors all too real: Mosul in 2016, held by the self-styled Islamic State in a reign of depraved brutality. From a small base at the Kirkuk airfield, the Agents must research the horrors to come and prepare for a harrowing infiltration. Terrors and new supplementary material await, now in PDF, hardback now in preorder.
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Rather than Gibbon, I’d recommend John Julius Norwich’s histories of the Byzantine (Eastern Roman) Empire. The three-volume history is excellent, but he has a very good one-volume version as well.
Another decent choice would be the the period of Swedish rule in Novgorod/Kiev: Viking successors as the plucky new civilizing element, the Byzantines to the south as the declining and decadent old empire, and a variety of Slavs and steppe nomads as the barbarians at the walls.