Revisiting the Lost Worlds of ERB

Since the last post over a month ago, I have been reading and re-watching stuff to inspire my “Island in the Hidden Sea of Fire” project.

The Land That Time Forgot and At The Earth’s Core

I consider “The Land That Time Forgot” and “At The Earth’s Core” by Edgar Rice Burroughs as the essential foundation for any sort of “Lost World” setting.

I think you can’t go wrong with ERB as inspirational materials for any sort of “adventure setting.”

Next time, Post #150, in which I hope to have something more substantial to say.

May 2015 Update

In the last month I have been very busy doing clinical hours and studying for certification test. Only a couple more weeks to go!

I did update the Big Page O’RPG Blog Links to over 100 links.

I also followed up April’s “Post-Apoc Movie Week” by reading some 1980’s post-apoc fiction: Paul O, Williams’ “The Ends of the Circle” which is Book 2 of “The Pelbar Cycle.” Had read Book 1 “The Storming of Northwall” a few months earlier. This is a very interesting series with a lot of details of various cultures large and small that exist in its future world.

Then I read the first 3 books of Patrick Tilley’s “Amtrak Wars” series: “Cloud Warrior” (which I had never read before), “The First Family” and “Iron Master” (the latter two I have had since about 1990 or so, just never had the first book until now). This is not on the same level as The Pelbar Cycle by any means, but it too depicts several competing cultures in the post-apoc future, with a lot more emphasis on intrigues and some sort of “magic” (which may very well turn out to be some kind of psionic abilities in later books).

Have also gotten quite a number of old SF / fantasy books for future reading. I already have a collection ranging into several hundred books, but there were some things I was not able to get back in the day due to lack of money as a teenager, and by the time I had some money all my local bookstores kept going out of business (not to mention publishers gradually abandoning the idea of an keeping the backlist in print).

In a few weeks I will be done with schooling and then it’s on to the job search. Hopefully at some point after that I might actually get a chance to participate in some actual gaming!

Big Page ‘O RPG Blog Links

I have added a page with links to 50+ other RPG blogs that I don’t want to lose track of after the RPG Blog Alliance shuts down at the end of April 2015. Will be adding more links as I extract them from my personal bookmarks.

Feel free to use the links yourself 🙂

Big Page ‘O RPG Blog Site Links

February 2015 Update

Basically nothing RPG related to report this month. Have been watching more 1970’s and 1980s SF movies. Probably not going to be much except movies and some reading for the next few months while I finish my onsite clinical training.

Here’s a few pages of scans from my 1980s Holothom notebook to tide us over until next month. These are about spellcasting and religion. (I skipped over the several pages of custom spell lists I had made up for the campaign, but you can see the last bit of them on the first scan.)

Page 17

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Page 19

Page 20

From the Archives: KUNG-FU TOONS!

I have come across the writeup of a scenario for TOON by Steve Jackson Games I ran at ConnCon ’97. (The file is dated 1999, but that must be when I typed it up from my handwritten notes. I specifically remember it was 1997 as one day of the con was on April 1st that year 🙂

It’s only 4 pages long, but it ran for the whole 4-hour slot even though I only had 3 players at the table. TOON is good for having to improvise from brief notes; just make sure to watch a bunch of Looney Toons and Tom & Jerry before having to run a game.

Anyway, here it is:

Kung-Fu Toons

(I think I decided to dig up the file because I watched “Enter the Dragon” Thursday night for the first time in several years. The mind of a nerd works in strange ways.)