Browsing all articles by Richard Marpole.
Age of Sigmar: Soulbound – Role-playing Game Review
Big, bold, bombastic, and brutal—Age of Sigmar: Soulbound has swaggered its way onto the RPG scene with well-earned confidence. Players take on the role of larger-than-life heroes (literally, in some cases) at the forefront of the battle between the forces of Order and the hordes of dead, damned and demented foes who oppose them. Immortal […]
Captain Moxley and the Embers of the Empire by Dan Hanks
Captain Moxley and the Embers of the Empire is a fantastical pulp novel set during the 1950s. Captain Samantha Moxley herself is a retired British pilot who fought against the Nazis both in the air and on land. After that, she was recruited by an arcane and ruthless arm of the US government to help […]
Black Void – Role-playing Game Review
Black Void describes itself as an esoteric RPG. That might set veteran roleplayers to thinking about Unknown Armies or Kult—games set in our world which explore occult symbolism and themes. A better comparison would be Call of Cthulhu by way of Conan the Barbarian and Stargate. Though even that description misses out the Arabian Nights […]
The Museum of Magical Miniatures: Gallery One
With museums and art galleries across the world closed to the public, now seems like a good time to introduce a little virtual museum created just for Fantasy-Faction. Presenting: The Museum of Magical Miniatures! A museum of the mythical, the weird, and the fantastical. In Gallery One we have three miniatures from three different continents. […]
The Last Page by Anthony Huso
I must admit I started reading The Last Page years ago and got distracted, eventually abandoning it to gather dust in a corner of my flat. Now, like many bookish people, I’ve found myself digging back through my shelves and TBR pile to find ways to pass time in lockdown. And I’m glad I did. […]
Wild, Dark Times by Austin Case
The Setup Elizabeth Megalos is an ordinary bank teller who expects to live an ordinary life. Her illusions are shattered when one of her friends gets possessed by an evil entity and tries to kill her. Elizabeth is rescued by Eddy, a powerful but pervy magician, and recruited into a band of modern mystics who […]
Three Flavours of Binge-Worthy SFF Podcasts
Stuck indoors? Trying to drown out those inner anxiety voices? Just want a new fix of audible SFF goodness? Let us serve you three flavours of podcast. Neapolitan style! Strange Suburban Fantasy Welcome to Night Vale A lone radio host reports the goings-on in a bizarre desert town somewhere in the USA. He really likes that […]
A Walk Among the Trees: A Look at Forests in Myth and Media
Forests have always been places of enchantment, haunted by outlaws, gods, angry ghosts and ferocious monsters. Walk a while with me. The wind sings through the leaves. Birds squabble in their nests and animals great and small slink through the underbrush. Trees older than cities slumber peacefully in hidden glades. Time moves to different rhythms […]
Monstress, Volume 1: Awakening by Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda
In a gorgeously painted world, humans and arcanics exist in an uneasy truce. The war between them isn’t over, merely on hold. And since the humans have a habit of harvesting the arcanics for parts, you can see why they don’t get along. One arcanic, Maika Half-Wolf, allows herself to be captured by human slavers […]
Spire – Role-playing Game Review Part Two: Expansions, Supplements and Adventures
All products created and owned by Rowan, Rook and Decard. This is the second half of my review of Spire and describes a number of supplements and adventure modules that can be used to expand the main game. For an explanation of the setting and rules of this RPG please check out Part One, which […]
Spire – Role-playing Game Review Part One: Core Rulebook
What is Spire? Created by Rowan, Rook and Decard, it’s a weird, dark fantasy RPG about waging a morally grey war of resistance against an oppressive and demented regime. It’s a game of espionage, horror and impossible choices. It’s a bubbling stew of fantasy, steampunk, pulp and sci-fi. Most importantly, it’s bold, bloody and beautiful. […]
The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern
Zachary Ezra Rawlins, the son of a fortune-teller, is studying for his Masters in Emerging Media (video games). His peaceful, semi-solitary, existence is thrown off course when he checks an old book out of the university library. The book clearly predates Zachary’s birth, but it describes an odd incident from his childhood—a time when he […]
