Tag: RPG

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Biweekly News Roundup 2024-01-14

Personal / Website News

2023 Accomplishments

Michele and I recapped a majority of our accomplishments and projects on the last episode of the H. P. Lovecast Podcast, however I’d like to do a personal breakdown here.

Publication Accomplishments

Honoured to appear in five physical publications this year:

Sincere appreciation to Rachel Carazo, Jonathan Maberry, Evan Jordan, Michael Duda, and William Sloan for letting me be part of their projects.

Podcast Accomplishments

Links to all podcast appearances can be found on the Podcast Index page. Sincere thanks to Bernie Gonzalez, Peter Charbonneau, Hercules Invictus, and Sherri Nunn for having me be a part of their programs.

Conference Accomplishments

Michele and I attended CoKoCon 2023 and ere on two panels. It was also our first time ever vending at a con. Thank you to Hal and Dee Astell for having us.

2024 Looking Forward

I am hoping that 2024 will be as successful as 2023 was. This year will see a decade of me writing (since the publication of my first essay in James Bond in Popular Culture).

On the podcast front, Michele and I already have the first half of 2024 planned for H. P. Lovecast. We’ve also already recorded a few episodes with the folks at Fan2Fan Podcast, so expect those episodes to drop throughout 2024.

My essay on peplum cats, currently titled “Hic Sunt Leones: Peplum Strongmen and the Nemean Lion Legacy” was accepted last year by editor Simon Bacon for his collection, Cats: A Companion. The manuscript was sent to the publisher in early December, so hopefully this book winds up being published later this year! Nice to have a publication already on the docket.

I still have a pile of reviews I want to get done that have been piling up. I also have a list of essay ideas I have approval on, I just need to write and get out the door. It’s been a while since I’ve submitted to Exotica Moderne, so hopefully I can get an essay or two to them this year.

The main project for 2024, however, is the Emmanuelle Legacy book. On my timeline I have submit a manuscript to the publisher in October, which will be here before I know it. I have an intro and an essay to write, along with editing other folks’ essays. I’m super excited to try and realize this project, so it’s going to be nose to the grindstone for this one.

Thank you to all the folks who support me and my endeavors. You are sincerely appreciated!

Horror Literature.. Review

The collection, Horror Literature from Gothic to Post-Modern: Critical Essays, that Michele and I edited has just gotten a new review from the Journal of Ecohumanism, and it is a very positive one!

The review (along with the rest of the journal) can be read in its entirety here.

New Episode of H. P. Lovecast Podcast

New episode to kick off 2024! We kick off the new year interviewing Pat Shand about his three issue comic book miniseries I Summoned Cthulhu to Fund my Kickstarter.

The episode can be streamed at the HP Lovecast Podcast Buzzsprout site, via the embedded player below, or through your podcast app of preference.

HPLCP Transmissions – Ep 28 – Pat Shand and I Summoned Cthulhu to Fund my Kickstarter – H. P. Lovecast Podcast

H. P. Lovecast on BlueSky

H. P. Lovecast is now on Blue Sky. If you’re using that social media please consider giving us a follow there! The username is: @hplovecast.bsky.social .

Emmanuelle Legacy CFP Re-opened + Bibliography

Since garnering publisher interest, I’ve re-opened the CFP for the Emmanuelle legacy book. The updated CFP can be found here.

I’ve also started annotating Emmanuelle scholarship and posting it here at my website so other scholars have a nice bibliographic resource. The bibliography and annotations can be found here and it’s a major WIP.

Miscellaneous Tidbits

The Neverending Streamer Substack

My friend, Travis Lakata, has started a Substack called The Neverending Streamer. Give him support and subscribe – check it out here: https://travislakata.substack.com.

Rest in Peplum Jennell Jaquays

Fantasy artist Jennell Jaquays passed away last week. She did lots of fantastic work. Her covert art for the Dragon Mountain boxset is probably one of the most iconic pieces of 90s 2nd Edition Dungeons and Dragons.

My copy of the box proper hasn’t survived the 30+ years, but the contents have! Here is book 1 of the module which sports the legendary red dragon.

Legends of the Lance Newsletter

While digging through my old Second Edition stuff I happened upon these five issues of the Legends of the Lance Dragonlance newsletter. Apparently these are extremely rare! I love how they look though and the art on them is aces.

Endless Armies Jeff Grubb Autograph

For this roundup of autographs, since I was going through my D&D stuff, figured I would show of my copy of Endless Enemies autographed by Jeff Grubb.

Way back in the 2000s my comic book store was Spy Comics in Federal Way. Apparently that was also Jeff Grubb’s comic book store to go to as well. The owner, Richard, arranged an in store event with Jeff Grubb who was on hand to autograph stuff he wrote. I got a few things signed by him, Endless Armies being one of them. Somewhere there is a photo of the event, I hope I can find it!

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News Roundup W/E 2021-10-10

Personal / Website News

H. P. Lovecast Podcast Episodes

For the month of October, we’ve had to flipflop out flagship episode with our Fragments episode. In this month’s Fragments episode we discuss Robert Eggers’ folk horror film, The Witch (2015).

Thumbnail by Michele Brittany

This episode can be streamed at the HP Lovecast Podcast Buzzsprout website or via your Podcast application of preference.

Bram Stoker Campaigning

For the first time ever, I am going to throw my hat into the ring for the Bram Stoker Award process. I have an essay called “Cullzathro Fhtagn! Magnifying the Carnivalesque in Lovecraft Through the Comic Book Series Vinegar Teeth” that is eligible for the short non-fiction award. If you are a member of the Horror Writers Association that is recommending works and are curious about my essay, it can be read at Academia dot Edu.

AnnRadCon CFP

The CFP for the Ann Radcliffe Academic Conference is now complete. It will be put online on Monday and I’ll be posting it at this website as well.

General Neo-Peplum News

Follow Me Down Table Top RPG

Drowning Moon Studios has started a Kickstarter campaign of their TTRPG called Follow Me Down.

The RPG is based on the myth of Orpheus & Eurydice and the Kickstarter page describes it as such:

Follow Me Down is a tabletop roleplaying game for two players [and is] divided into eight sections, called Books of the Dead, where the characters journey through different parts of the underworld in search of one another. It is designed to be GMless, with each player portraying two roles during the course of the game. In each Book, one player takes on the role of The Fates (in what would normally be considered the GM role) while the other player portrays a character based on the archetype of Orpheus or Eurydice. The two players trade off, alternating who is playing their character and who is playing The Fates, until they reach The Gauntlet of Hope and Regret to determine how their story ends. There is a final scene between Orpheus and Eurydice, called the Denouement, which reflects upon the journey the characters have taken, and their relationship to one another at the end of the game.

Follow Me Down can be supported via Kickstarter.

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News

News Roundup W/E 2021-10-03

Personal / Website News

H. P. Lovecast Podcast Episodes

This past week we published not one, but two episodes of the H. P. Lovecast Podcast (due to timing: 4th Sunday and last day of the month).

Episode thumbnail by Michele Brittany

For the Fragments episode we took a look at the 1997 Guillermo del Toro’s film, Mimic. This episode can be heard on our Buzzsprout website or via your podcast application of preference.

Episode thumbnail by Michele Brittany

Next, our Transmissions episode also went up. This is our interview episode, and we talked to three folks, all three who are alumni of the Ann Radcliffe Academic Conference:

  • Farah Rose Smith on their short story collections Of One Pure Will
  • Rahel Sixta Schmitz on their debut non-fiction book The Supernatural Media Virus
  • Kevin Wetmore on their newest book, Eaters of the Dead: Myths and Realities of Cannibal Monsters

This episode can also be streamed at our Buzzsprout website or via your podcast app of preference.

Exotica Moderne Cover Reveal

Issue 13 of Exotica Moderne will be released soon! House of Tabu has done a cover reveal:

This issue will contain my review of the book Cuban Cocktails. The pre-order page for this issue can be found at the House of Tabu website.

Of note, my article for issue 14 is in the can! It will be an interview with pinup model Miss Corsair Debonair. The interview is done and sent in, just waiting on photos to go with the article. That issue will be released in early 2022.

Issue 15 I hope to finally do my write up on Caltiki: The Immortal Monster.

Academic CV

Updated the About Me page to include a link to the newest version of my academic CV.

General Neo-Peplum News

Aegean RPG

Stoo Goff has a Kickstarter going for an interesting neo-peplum table top RPG called Aegean RPG.

The Kickstarter description is as follows:

Aegean is a tabletop role-playing game about a group of mythic heroes building a new, free city on the shores of the Aegean Sea. There are neighbouring cities to trade or war with, monsters to kill, gods to appease, deceptions, negotiations and bloody skirmishes.

The world of Aegean is an ancient Greece that never existed – a mix of mythology and classical history. The gods visit the earth and converse with mortals, granting gifts of magic and life to some and fear and terror to others. Fearsome monsters roam the lands and seas making every journey an adventure. Strange creatures, some mortal, others half-divine, can be found in the wilderness. These centaurs, nymphs and tritons teach, harass or ignore humans as their whim takes them.

The polis—the city and its surrounding lands—is your home and where your loyalties lie. Your polis is a recently founded colony on the coasts of the Aegean Sea. The leader is called an arkhon, a democratically elected ruler after the Athenian fashion, rather than the hereditary king that many cities still use. The polis sits in a precarious position, between many similar neighbouring states who may wish to trade, ally or make war.

Your character fits somewhere in this world, between the capricious force of the gods, the wilderness and the structure of the polis and its ambitions.

Gladiator 2 Being Written

An article at IndieWire says that Gladiator 2 is current being written and will be ready to hit production after Ridley Scott’s Napoleon movie is made.

Afterlives Podcast

Egyptologist Kara Cooney has started a new podcast in September called Afterlives.

It can be streamed on Spotify or your podcast application of preference. Newest episode talks about being an academia, so extremely helpful!

Recent Aquisitions

Figure I would jazz up my news my showcasing any new neo-peplum texts I pluck up. While at a Zia’s Records last week I happened upon two metal releases: Warkings’ Revolution and Ex Deo’s The Thirteen Years of Nero.

I’m enjoying both, especially the adventure metal sound of Warkings. That album is interesting in that in a true neo-peplum fashion, it’s blending genres/histories together: Vikings, Spartans, Templars, etc.