Browsing all articles by Richard Marpole.
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 […]
Scion RPG 2nd Edition Review – Part Two – Scion: Hero
Okay, round two of my review of Scion—the RPG from the good folks at Onyx Path that lets you play the children of mythological gods in a modern world. Check out part one of this review (Scion: Origin), for more context and a description of the core rules of Scion as a whole. (I’ll also […]
Scion RPG 2nd Edition Review – Part One – Scion: Origin
Scion is an urban fantasy roleplaying game (RPG) of a very particular sort and one that’s likely to appeal to fans of fantasy fiction. It’s not about secretive societies of seductive vampires and passionate werewolves lurking in the shadows. (Though you could use it for that, at a stretch.) It’s about the children of the […]
METAL WORLD – Role-playing Game Review
* First Disclaimer * I received a digital copy of the most recent version of this role-playing game (RPG) book in return for an honest review. * Second Disclaimer * While this RPG book is more or less finished it’s still awaiting most of its art and could still be subject to changes or revisions […]
A Ritual of Bone by Lee C. Conley
The land of Arnar is menaced by a vicious plague, a tribe of savage cannibals and a growing tide of the living dead summoned by a dark ritual. Warriors, hunters, nobles and ordinary folk will all have to become heroes if their home is to be saved from the cursed hordes. That’s A Ritual of […]
Uncanny Collateral by Brian McClellan
Alek Fitz is a collection agent. Not the most pleasant or glamorous of professions. Especially when your clients are corporations controlled by supernatural creatures who aren’t interested in repossessing cars or houses. Fairies and devils have desires that go beyond money. Though neither cruel nor heartless, Alek has little sympathy for his targets. The way […]
A Fantasy Geek’s Guide to YouTube: Vampires
Vampires. They’re better than zombies. I’ve demonstrated this conclusively in a previous article. From True Blood to Let the Right One In to V Wars, vampires are all over literature, films and TV and they show no sign off stopping. But let’s talk about vampires as they appear in that little corner of the world […]
