Bundle of Holding: Shadowdark Compatible
Jan. 26th, 2026 02:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
james_davis_nicoll
Third-party tabletop fantasy roleplaying sourcebooks and adventures for The Arcane Library's old-school FRPG, Shadowdark.
Bundle of Holding: Shadowdark Compatible
Snowflake Challenge 02026 #13: Community
Jan. 25th, 2026 10:01 pmsilveradept![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
snowflake_challenge wants us to think about the places where we have come together in shared pursuit of our fandoms, or the same fandom, or many other ways of joining us together and showing us that we are not alone in our pursuits.Challenge #13
TALK ABOUT A COMMUNITY SPACE YOU LIKE. It doesn’t need to be your favorite, or the one where you spend the most time (although it certainly can be). Maybe it’s even one that you’ve barely visited. But talk about that space and how it helps support fannish community.
( In community, we join, and nowhere else is that more evident than at convention. )
Week in review: Week to 24 January
Jan. 26th, 2026 11:24 ampedanther. At the board game meet, I wasn't interested in the big game of the week, so I stayed on the casual table, where we played Cockroach Salad, The Mind, Ingenious, and Tacta. The person who suggested playing Ingenious was actually one of the people I'd played with a few weeks ago, who'd enjoyed it enough to want another go.
. I started a new game of XCOM 2 with the difficulty setting moved down a notch, and have been having a much better time in the sense that I've been zooming through it with no serious difficulties, but I'm not sure how much fun I'm having. It's allowing me to avoid the unpleasantness I was getting mired in when things went badly wrong, but I'm not feeling particularly elated when things go well; I'm not sure whether that's because it now feels insufficiently challenging for the victories to feel significant, or just because I've been having a down week in general.
. I still have a few chapters left to go on the Raffles book, and haven't decided whether it's worth pushing through for the sake of ticking off a reading challenge prompt. For now, I've put it aside to read other more enjoyable things, including Stephen Briggs' stage adaptation of Monstrous Regiment (I've been thinking about proposing one of his adaptations to the Rep Club, but if Monstrous Regiment is typical we're going to have trouble finding a big enough cast).
. The Traitors finale was suitably dramatic and I think the victory was well-earned.
. There was a screening of a documentary film about George Orwell and what he had to say that was relevant to the current state of the world. I was interested enough to get in the car and head to the cinema, but on the way I had second thoughts about whether I really wanted to spend my evening watching a documentary about the current state of the world, so I turned off a couple of blocks early and refueled the car and then went and did something else more fun.
.thedarlingone is doing a series of blog posts where they organise their digital music collection by going through the tracks in alphabetical order and post capsule reviews of each. My digital music collection could do with organising, too; I have not yet made up my mind whether I want to do the same thing, but I've got as far as opening an alphabetical listing, looking at it, and then going in search of an app to fix the metadata on a bunch of tracks.
. I started a new game of XCOM 2 with the difficulty setting moved down a notch, and have been having a much better time in the sense that I've been zooming through it with no serious difficulties, but I'm not sure how much fun I'm having. It's allowing me to avoid the unpleasantness I was getting mired in when things went badly wrong, but I'm not feeling particularly elated when things go well; I'm not sure whether that's because it now feels insufficiently challenging for the victories to feel significant, or just because I've been having a down week in general.
. I still have a few chapters left to go on the Raffles book, and haven't decided whether it's worth pushing through for the sake of ticking off a reading challenge prompt. For now, I've put it aside to read other more enjoyable things, including Stephen Briggs' stage adaptation of Monstrous Regiment (I've been thinking about proposing one of his adaptations to the Rep Club, but if Monstrous Regiment is typical we're going to have trouble finding a big enough cast).
. The Traitors finale was suitably dramatic and I think the victory was well-earned.
. There was a screening of a documentary film about George Orwell and what he had to say that was relevant to the current state of the world. I was interested enough to get in the car and head to the cinema, but on the way I had second thoughts about whether I really wanted to spend my evening watching a documentary about the current state of the world, so I turned off a couple of blocks early and refueled the car and then went and did something else more fun.
.
thedarlingone is doing a series of blog posts where they organise their digital music collection by going through the tracks in alphabetical order and post capsule reviews of each. My digital music collection could do with organising, too; I have not yet made up my mind whether I want to do the same thing, but I've got as far as opening an alphabetical listing, looking at it, and then going in search of an app to fix the metadata on a bunch of tracks.Bookmarks
Jan. 26th, 2026 11:02 ampedantherArchive of Our Own recently did a feature update that now makes it possible to sort one's collection of bookmarks (links to fics one is interested in revisiting) by the length of the fic in question.
The shortest fics I've bookmarked that consist entirely of normal text are several drabbles; the sorting gives priority, apparently on the basis of age, torabidsamfan's Calvin and Hobbes drabble Introduction.
(Works that don't consist entirely of normal text, and thereby confuse the word counter, include embedded videos, comic strips and other works told entirely in images, andysobel's I am Groot (Groot's Story), where the bulk of the story is in the footnotes.)
My two largest bookmarks are both series: Motion Practice (by an author who has chosen to remain anonymous) and Don't Look Back by![[tumblr.com profile]](https://www.tumblr.com/favicon.ico)
this-acuteneurosis.
Motion Practice is a series that reimagines the Avengers (the American superheroes, not the English crimefighters) as a team of lawyers, with various other characters in associated roles including Loki as that one slimy defence lawyer you always get in legal dramas who will do anything to get his client off as long as his client has money; there are over forty works in the series, including seven entire novels.
Don't Look Back is a Star Wars story in which Princess Leia is sent back in time to before the Empire, and sets out to prevent the Empire being created -- which, unlike in many works with similar premises, doesn't just meaning assassinating the would-be Emperor but also dealing with the social and cultural forces that enabled his rise to power. I've seen the author say somewhere that when they started writing it, they expected it to be a single work under a hundred thousand words long; it's currently over 750,000 words and counting, and with luck may be finally completed some time next year.
The longest individual fic I have bookmarked is Sansûkh by determamfidd, in which the events of The Lord of the Rings are retold from the point of view of a group of dwarves (the late Thorin Oakenshield and his companions) watching from the afterlife and commentating on the action. I've been re-reading this one over the past few days, since I first did the experiment of seeing what the longest fic I had bookmarked was, and am about a quarter of the way through. I have mixed feelings about it, because some of the worldbuilding is interesting, but the fic uses the characterisations from the Peter Jackson movies, which means that sometimes the author's priorities and decisions have significant areas of non-overlap with mine, including when it comes to what the author has chosen to make one of the main emotional threads of the narrative. (If you know what the word "bagginshield" means, you likely have an idea of whether this is a story you're likely to be willing to spend 570,000 words with.)
The shortest fics I've bookmarked that consist entirely of normal text are several drabbles; the sorting gives priority, apparently on the basis of age, to
rabidsamfan's Calvin and Hobbes drabble Introduction.(Works that don't consist entirely of normal text, and thereby confuse the word counter, include embedded videos, comic strips and other works told entirely in images, and
ysobel's I am Groot (Groot's Story), where the bulk of the story is in the footnotes.)My two largest bookmarks are both series: Motion Practice (by an author who has chosen to remain anonymous) and Don't Look Back by
Motion Practice is a series that reimagines the Avengers (the American superheroes, not the English crimefighters) as a team of lawyers, with various other characters in associated roles including Loki as that one slimy defence lawyer you always get in legal dramas who will do anything to get his client off as long as his client has money; there are over forty works in the series, including seven entire novels.
Don't Look Back is a Star Wars story in which Princess Leia is sent back in time to before the Empire, and sets out to prevent the Empire being created -- which, unlike in many works with similar premises, doesn't just meaning assassinating the would-be Emperor but also dealing with the social and cultural forces that enabled his rise to power. I've seen the author say somewhere that when they started writing it, they expected it to be a single work under a hundred thousand words long; it's currently over 750,000 words and counting, and with luck may be finally completed some time next year.
The longest individual fic I have bookmarked is Sansûkh by determamfidd, in which the events of The Lord of the Rings are retold from the point of view of a group of dwarves (the late Thorin Oakenshield and his companions) watching from the afterlife and commentating on the action. I've been re-reading this one over the past few days, since I first did the experiment of seeing what the longest fic I had bookmarked was, and am about a quarter of the way through. I have mixed feelings about it, because some of the worldbuilding is interesting, but the fic uses the characterisations from the Peter Jackson movies, which means that sometimes the author's priorities and decisions have significant areas of non-overlap with mine, including when it comes to what the author has chosen to make one of the main emotional threads of the narrative. (If you know what the word "bagginshield" means, you likely have an idea of whether this is a story you're likely to be willing to spend 570,000 words with.)
The Memoirs of a Survivor by Doris Lessing
Jan. 25th, 2026 09:01 amjames_davis_nicoll
Fostering a teen is a challenge at the best of times. The end of civilization is not the best of times.
The Memoirs of a Survivor by Doris Lessing
This is interesting
Jan. 24th, 2026 12:19 pmjames_davis_nicollI got an email from Riotminds providing me with a free preview of their upcoming Wicked Dew - Victorian Horror RPG. What caught my eye is that it seems to be entirely online. I've asked if there's a downloadable rulebook I overlooked, but I can see why a company might adopt a purely online approach.
[Update]
There will be a printed book.
[Update]
There will be a printed book.
Ice storm advice [meteo]
Jan. 23rd, 2026 11:11 pmsidereaFor those of you in the parts of the US for whom an ice storm is predicted and who have no idea of what that is except that it means it will be cold:
1) If you have an ice scraper to clean the ice off your car, have it inside with you, not in the car. Because at a sufficient level of ice coating, leaving your ice scraper in the car is like leaving your car keys in the car.
1a) Honestly, at a certain level of ice coating, it's more like having one's car coated in concrete, and you shouldn't waste your energy and body warmth whaling futilely at it. One of the failure modes is you succeed in getting the ice off but take the windshield with it.
2) You probably associate winter storms and coldness with grey-overcast skies and darkness. But once it is done coming down, often the arctic winds that drove the storm will blow the clouds away, the skies clear and the sun will come up. I cannot begin to describe how bright it gets when the sun is shining and the whole world is made of glass. If you packed your sunglasses away for the winter, go get them out. If you store them in your glove compartment of your car, again, maybe go get them and have them inside with you so you can see what you're doing when you are trying to get the ice off the car.
3) All that said, maybe just don't be worrying about leaving home. A fundamental clue is that an ice storm is not done when the storm is done raging. For as long as there's a thick glaze of ice on everything, the crisis is not over. Your life experience has given you an intuition of physics that says ice forms where water pools and is therefore mostly something flat. But in an ice storm, you get ice coating absolutely everything including sloped and vertical surfaces. YouTube is willing to show you endless videos of people attempting and failing to walk up quite gentle slopes covered with ice and cars slowly and majestically sliding down hills. Driving and walking can be unbelievably dangerous after an ice storm. Try to ride it out by sheltering in place and don't try to go out in it if you can at all avoid it. Remember, it's not about how good a driver you are, it's about how good a driver everybody else on the road isn't.
4) Snow and ice falling off buildings can kill you. Yes, I know snow looks fluffy, but it is made of water and can compact to be quite solid and if it attains free fall it can build up quite a bit of momentum. Icicles are basically spears. If you endeavor to try to knock snow or ice off from a roof or other high structure, be real careful how you position yourself relative to it.
5) Now and until this is over is absolutely not the time to do anything that entails any unnecessary risk. Any activity that is at all discretionary that has even a remote likelihood of occasioning an ER trip is to be avoided. Boredom, I know, makes people find their own fun. Resist the urge.
1) If you have an ice scraper to clean the ice off your car, have it inside with you, not in the car. Because at a sufficient level of ice coating, leaving your ice scraper in the car is like leaving your car keys in the car.
1a) Honestly, at a certain level of ice coating, it's more like having one's car coated in concrete, and you shouldn't waste your energy and body warmth whaling futilely at it. One of the failure modes is you succeed in getting the ice off but take the windshield with it.
2) You probably associate winter storms and coldness with grey-overcast skies and darkness. But once it is done coming down, often the arctic winds that drove the storm will blow the clouds away, the skies clear and the sun will come up. I cannot begin to describe how bright it gets when the sun is shining and the whole world is made of glass. If you packed your sunglasses away for the winter, go get them out. If you store them in your glove compartment of your car, again, maybe go get them and have them inside with you so you can see what you're doing when you are trying to get the ice off the car.
3) All that said, maybe just don't be worrying about leaving home. A fundamental clue is that an ice storm is not done when the storm is done raging. For as long as there's a thick glaze of ice on everything, the crisis is not over. Your life experience has given you an intuition of physics that says ice forms where water pools and is therefore mostly something flat. But in an ice storm, you get ice coating absolutely everything including sloped and vertical surfaces. YouTube is willing to show you endless videos of people attempting and failing to walk up quite gentle slopes covered with ice and cars slowly and majestically sliding down hills. Driving and walking can be unbelievably dangerous after an ice storm. Try to ride it out by sheltering in place and don't try to go out in it if you can at all avoid it. Remember, it's not about how good a driver you are, it's about how good a driver everybody else on the road isn't.
4) Snow and ice falling off buildings can kill you. Yes, I know snow looks fluffy, but it is made of water and can compact to be quite solid and if it attains free fall it can build up quite a bit of momentum. Icicles are basically spears. If you endeavor to try to knock snow or ice off from a roof or other high structure, be real careful how you position yourself relative to it.
5) Now and until this is over is absolutely not the time to do anything that entails any unnecessary risk. Any activity that is at all discretionary that has even a remote likelihood of occasioning an ER trip is to be avoided. Boredom, I know, makes people find their own fun. Resist the urge.
Snowflake Challenge 02026 #12: A Token of Our Appreciation
Jan. 23rd, 2026 05:19 pmsilveradeptsnowflake_challenge would like us to take a moment, for challenge #12, and appreciate the people who make life better for you in your fandoms.Challenge #12
Make an appreciation post to those who enhance your fandom life. Appreciate them in bullet points, prose, poetry, a moodboard, a song… whatever moves you!
( I am not a rock, but neither am I someone who is in a great amount of community. )
Finally, I say this almost every time I talk about it, not because I believe that she'll ever come across it, but if that moonshot ever does happen, I want her to know it with certainty: Caroline, if you're still out there, we love 9th Elsewhere. And while we hope that maybe you'll pick it back up and bring it to a close, what we really want you to know is that the journey that Eiji and Carmen have taken holds a special place in all of us, so thank you for what you've done. I hope that knowing you have people who are fans and who have found this particular journey meaningful helps you with your own life, wherever you may be, and whatever you might be doing right now. I would love the opportunity to discuss umbrella-related poses with you again at some point.
Winding down the travels
Jan. 23rd, 2026 07:43 pmhrjI left NYC on Tuesday and did the train-bus-rental-car thing to get up to Augusta ME, where I've been enjoying a couple days visiting with my brother and sister-in-law, getting the tour of their current livestock (goats and chickens and geese oh my!) and finally getting a chance to see the small theater-and-studio/shop complex that they bought and have been working on turning into a going concern. (Going slowly, but to interesting places.) This was accompanied by sitting in on a rehearsal for A Doll's House: Part 2 (someone's modern "15 years later" extension of Ibsen's play). I've interspersed that with a couple of "me days" getting writing done and recovering from all the peopleing I've been doing.
This morning I got a notice that the train leg of my trip back toward the airport was cancelled and it wasn't until this evening that I had the time to play phone tag with Amtrak to reschedule. (I was concerned that it was a weather cancellation, which would affect in which direction I rescheduled.) After all that, I'll be taking a slightly later train and still getting to the Newark airport at a reasonable hour Sunday evening. I have an airport hotel room that night for a scheduled flight out Monday morning. We'll see if the planes are flying Monday. If not, I have multiple options for what to do. Playing it by ear. Life is an adventure.
This morning I got a notice that the train leg of my trip back toward the airport was cancelled and it wasn't until this evening that I had the time to play phone tag with Amtrak to reschedule. (I was concerned that it was a weather cancellation, which would affect in which direction I rescheduled.) After all that, I'll be taking a slightly later train and still getting to the Newark airport at a reasonable hour Sunday evening. I have an airport hotel room that night for a scheduled flight out Monday morning. We'll see if the planes are flying Monday. If not, I have multiple options for what to do. Playing it by ear. Life is an adventure.
The Angsana Tree Mystery (Crown Colony, volume 8) By Ovidia Yu
Jan. 23rd, 2026 10:41 amjames_davis_nicoll
Su Lin dutifully accepts a social obligation, only to find herself embroiled in another murder and further colonial machinations.
The Angsana Tree Mystery (Crown Colony, volume 8) by Ovidia Yu
Interview With The Vampire community
Jan. 23rd, 2026 10:14 amgoodbyebird posting in ![[site community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/comm_staff.png){kind=small}
dw_community_promo
intw_amc is the community for all things Interview With The Vampire on AMC. Come share your squee, theories, recs, and fanworks!Tragic
Jan. 22nd, 2026 10:39 pmjames_davis_nicollCanada denied spot on the Bored of Peace.
This is roughly on par with being denied a lifetime supply of dogshit popsicles.
This is roughly on par with being denied a lifetime supply of dogshit popsicles.
The Iowa Baseball Confederacy by W. P. Kinsella
Jan. 22nd, 2026 08:49 amjames_davis_nicoll
An unhappily married man's quest for the truth leads into a past almost everyone has forgotten.
The Iowa Baseball Confederacy by W. P. Kinsella
Other people trying to do the right thing in grief need some help - please read. Thank you
Jan. 22nd, 2026 05:27 amelisem There's someone who is trying to raise funds for memorial services and to bury his brother who died of exposure last weekend. I'll just say what I said on bluesky:
https://www.gofundme.com/f/honoring-harold-lightfeather-benny-boy
Thank you.
And thank you also for sharing the info elsewhere as well if you can.
His family wants to do memorial services in Minneapolis and in Wisconsin where he was born and will be buried.
If you've felt grief, if you've comforted people in grief, please help these folks.
(My own mother died this morning.
If you were gonna bring me a hot dish,
please give here instead.)
https://www.gofundme.com/f/honoring-harold-lightfeather-benny-boy
Thank you.
And thank you also for sharing the info elsewhere as well if you can.
in the midst: another passage
Jan. 21st, 2026 03:23 pmelisem After some trouble getting ahold of me, my sister has let me know that our mother died this morning.
(So maybe don't assume I remember anything I'm supposed to remember this week?)
My sister and her husband continue to be awesome in these matters. As does Juan.
OK. Gonna go have food and meds now.
(So maybe don't assume I remember anything I'm supposed to remember this week?)
My sister and her husband continue to be awesome in these matters. As does Juan.
OK. Gonna go have food and meds now.
Bundle of Holding: Dead Air: Seasons
Jan. 21st, 2026 03:00 pmjames_davis_nicoll
This all-new Dead Air Bundle presents English-language ebooks for Dead Air: Seasons, the post-apocalyptic tabletop roleplaying game from Italian publisher The World Anvil Publishing about a Blighted world forever changed.
Bundle of Holding: Dead Air: Seasons
National Weather Service sez
Jan. 21st, 2026 01:31 pmelisem ...EXTREME COLD WARNING IN EFFECT FROM 9 PM THURSDAY TO 11 AM CST
FRIDAY...
...EXTREME COLD WATCH NOW IN EFFECT FROM FRIDAY MORNING THROUGH
SATURDAY MORNING...
* WHAT...For the Extreme Cold Warning, dangerously cold wind chills
of 35 to 45 below expected. For the Extreme Cold Watch, dangerously
cold wind chills as low as 35 below possible.
* WHERE...Portions of central, east central, south central,
southeast, southwest, and west central Minnesota and northwest and
west central Wisconsin.
* WHEN...For the Extreme Cold Warning, from 9 PM Thursday to 11 AM
CST Friday. For the Extreme Cold Watch, from Friday morning through
Saturday morning.
* IMPACTS...The dangerously cold wind chills as low as 45 below zero
could cause frostbite on exposed skin in as little as 10 minutes.
And where is this for?
And what do we do?
Which mostly means "Keep yer ass indoors! You, and your little dog too!"
And also means "Look after each other. We keep us safe." OK? OK then.
Now if you'll excuse me, I need to finish the bag for the supply depot and start on one for Pow Wow Grounds.
What's the weather going to be doing where you are? And how are the people in your neighborhood?
And where is this for?
URGENT - WEATHER MESSAGE
National Weather Service Twin Cities/Chanhassen MN
1202 PM CST Wed Jan 21 2026
MNZ051>070-073>078-082>085-091>093-WIZ014>016-023>028-220615-
/O.NEW.KMPX.EC.W.0001.260123T0300Z-260123T1700Z/
/O.EXT.KMPX.EC.A.0001.260123T1700Z-260124T1800Z/
Sherburne-Isanti-Chisago-Lac Qui Parle-Swift-Chippewa-Kandiyohi-
Meeker-Wright-Hennepin-Anoka-Ramsey-Washington-Yellow Medicine-
Renville-McLeod-Sibley-Carver-Scott-Dakota-Redwood-Brown-Nicollet-
Le Sueur-Rice-Goodhue-Watonwan-Blue Earth-Waseca-Steele-Martin-
Faribault-Freeborn-Polk-Barron-Rusk-St. Croix-Pierce-Dunn-Pepin-
Chippewa-Eau Claire-
Including the cities of Chippewa Falls, St Peter, Mankato,
Stillwater, Victoria, Hudson, Fairmont, Blue Earth, Hutchinson,
Olivia, Faribault, Gaylord, Waseca, Owatonna, Benson, Madison, Elk
River, Redwood Falls, New Ulm, Cambridge, River Falls, St Paul,
Minneapolis, Menomonie, Shakopee, Red Wing, Durand, Blaine,
Chanhassen, St James, Center City, Litchfield, Monticello, Osceola,
Montevideo, Granite Falls, Albert Lea, Willmar, Hastings, Rice Lake,
Eau Claire, Ladysmith, Le Sueur, and Chaska
And what do we do?
PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS...
Dress in layers including a hat, face mask, and gloves if you must go
outside.
Keep pets indoors as much as possible.
Which mostly means "Keep yer ass indoors! You, and your little dog too!"
And also means "Look after each other. We keep us safe." OK? OK then.
Now if you'll excuse me, I need to finish the bag for the supply depot and start on one for Pow Wow Grounds.
What's the weather going to be doing where you are? And how are the people in your neighborhood?