Shrine of the Nephilim

A long time ago, dungeon crawls were multi-session, multi-day trips. If the dungeon was serious, it was a major undertaking. You would go in, push as far as you figured was safe, then retreat back to your camp or to civilization to recover before you went in again. And if the dungeon was a multiple level dungeon, with two or three or even four floors, it might take you weeks to get through it, if not months . It was almost never a one-and-done. This was one reason for henchmen / hirelings. You needed someone to look after the camp at the surface. They handled your horses, your supplies, your tents and food. You took a bit of ratio with you down into the dungeon, because you never know what might happen, but all your other stuff was kept on the surface, where it was (relatively) safe. What, you thought the paladin would be riding her horse down in the dungeon? The reason for this was simple: healing didn't come cheap. A cleric only has so many spells in a day, potions are hard to fi...

One thing we've wondered is why people are so reluctant to bring firearms into fantasy. Alright, we get it. A lot of D&D and fantasy gaming is inspired by things like Conan, and Elric, and Lord of the Rings, and they didn't have guns. This makes sense, since they're all in the ancient past or in another world that's completely different from Earth's. Sure. You've totally got a point there. But here's our counterpoint. Conan was set in the ancient past. Armour? Rare. Swords? Heavy. A lot of weapons you see in games like D&D didn't show up in Conan. Or in Elric. Or in Lord of the Rings. Because it was expected to be 'a long, long time ago'. In Conan, you rarely (if ever) saw crossbows. They were considered an incredibly rare, 'civilized' weapon compared to the more primitive weapons of the time. The Hyborian Age, which Conan's set in, was a blend of various historical periods, sure, but it generally leaned more into the Bronze a...

Let's start with a simple premise, shall we? You have a noble. You have her knight. You have the knight's squire. You have the noble's friend. Let's say a court magician. You have the magician's apprentice. They go out on an adventure! But are they the same level? Probably not. We mean, why would they be? You've a knight, trained in the sword, and lance, and horseback riding. You've a noble, who may have never had to train for anything, because she's third-or-fourth born. The noble's friend has studied magic, but not much of anything else, and then there's the squire and apprentice, who are absolutely green. Why should they be the same level? Want an example? Lord of the Rings. You can't tell us the hobbits were the same level as Legolas, Aragorn, and Gimli, and there was no hope in hell that any of them were up there with Gandalf. "But Gandalf was an NPC!" Was he? Why should he be? Why couldn't he be a PC along with everyone el...

So, we've seen a lot of push back against the 2024 Player's Handbook and Dungeon Master's Guide. Whether it's the art, or the inclusion of a 'consent' form, or certain text, there's a huge cry against "woke culture" and "politics in gaming". Yeah. There has been a change in gaming. And yeah, it falls under "woke" and "politics". There's another way to look at it, though. It's accepting that there's people beyond what's normally seen in fantasy, and that there's a diversity of cultures, beliefs, and people. It's stepping outside of the old stereotype of the 70s, 80s, and 90s, and accepting that the world is large and complicated, and that people are also complicated. And it's always been political. But we'll get to that in a minute. So. You're seeing orcs that aren't thuggish barbarians and shamans. That's good. Because societies can change, and it's a very tired stereot...

 D&D has definitely changed. For the better? For the worse? I can't say. I can say, however, that it is an entirely different beast than it was in the 80s. Someone had suggested, with the choices you now make in character creation, how you build the character you want to play, people are more invested in their characters. You have backstory, you have a feeling of who the character is - they're not disposable heroes. And thus, you don't want to see all that work go to waste by having them die. I don't believe this. I made characters with personality, backstory, a vessel for me to explore with, since the early days of gaming. Maybe not to the extent I do now, but it was there, with each hand-crafted six+ page character sheet. Death was always on the table. The first TPK I faced had my favourite character as one of the victims. That hit hard. I didn't like it. But I accept that it was a part of the game. If you don't want your character to die, you either plan ...

 Getting sick and tired of being called a 'groomer' or worse by the right, because we're pro-LGBT. Listen. It isn't about sex. Conservatives are the ones dragging sex into this. It was never about sex. It's about identity . A kid who's five years old decides they like girls. Is that about sex? No. It's about the idea that they like girls . That is all it is. When we were six? We had a crush on the Invisible Woman, Sue Storm. We saw her in a Spider-Man comic, and she seemed nice, and nurturing. She was shown to be a good and caring mother, and we decided at that point we "liked" her. We didn't have a fucking clue what sex was. Sex wasn't even in the picture. (By the by, before you start guessing our gender -- the answer is "yes". Our gender is "yes".) Being a lesbian doesn't have anything to do with sex when you're a kid. That isn't on the radar. It just means you "like" girls more than you "lik...