Kriegshacker II

(I know.)

This is part two of a modification of Gregor Vuga's excellent sort-of-WFRP Kriegsmesser. You will need a copy of Kriegsmesser.

Part one covered general rules. Part two is all about Sorcery!

---

Sorcery!

Sorcery! -- yes, the exclamation point is essential -- is a special skill that does anything the player wants it to do. It can open doors, cause blindness, hit orcs with bolts of energy, cause the dead to speak. It is general purpose and very powerful. Sorcerers are however distrusted at best and hunted and exterminated at worst. Also, sorcery! can go wrong.

Sorcery! rolls are made as normal Kriegsmesser skill rolls. LUCK and Corruption dice can be added as normal. If any dice results match, whether the roll succeeds or not, then a Chaotic Manifestation occurs!

If there is a double it is a Minor Manifestation, if it is a triple it is a Major Manifestation, and if it is a quadruple -- or worse! -- it is a Catastrophic Manifestation. The sorcerer takes a point of Corruption and then rolls on the relevant table, below.

Sorcerous Careers

Of the existing Kriegsmesser careers, Alchemist, Initiate, and Witch may have a point of Sorcery! in place of one of their normal skills.

But let's also add an Apprentice Wizard. This can be an extra career, perhaps one that can only be entered by choice rather than a random roll, or you could replace one of the random Kriegsmesser careers; I suggest replacing one of the double results, as that's a nice thematic tie in with the Chaotic Manifestation rules.

Apprentice Wizard
Skills

• Sorcery! 2
• Sense Sorcery! 2
• Read/Write 2
• Sleight of Hand 2
• Flee! 1
• Notice 1

Possessions

• Staff
• Pouch
• "Spellbook" (more a collection of scribbled formulas and notes, really.)
• Some minor prop for illusions. Cups and ball, a pack of cards, a set of rings, that sort of thing.

Chaotic Manifestation Tables!

(Most effect durations are given as real-world, rather than in-game, times because it feels like magic should break the "rules" somehow. Feel free to swap them for in-game times if you prefer.)

2d6	Minor Manifestation
2	You got away with it! Except for the Corruption point, obviously.
3	A flash of sorcerous energy shoots through your body, giving you a nasty shock and a Wound.
4	Food in the immediate area spoils, milk curdles, and so on.
5	You get a terrible nosebleed that just won't stop. At least for a real world hour.
6-8	A cold and mysterious wind blows through the local area.
9	Spectral voices whisper in everyone's ears.
10	All animals in the local area flee from you in terror. Characters with animal handling skills may be able to keep them at heel.
11	Your hair stands on end and crackles with magical energy. If you had no hair, you do now.
12	Roll on the Major Manifestation table!

2d6	Major Manifestation
2	You got lucky! Roll on the Minor Manifestation table.
3	You are burned by sorcerous flames! Take a Terrible Injury (see part one).
4	Your bones twist and pop. Take two Wounds (see part one).
5	Some sort of minor daemon pops into existence and tries to eat your face. You will probably have to fight it.
6	Your eyes turn into little glowing balls of flame. You can still see as normal, but it looks very odd. They return to normal at dawn. Dawn in the real world.
7	You are drained of vitality and are left enfeebled! -1d to all rolls for the next real world hour.
8	Your tongue vanishes. After a real world hour it returns, but it doesn't just reappear. No, it grows back over a few icky moments.
9	Terrifying Chaotic visions assail you. You gain +1 Chaos Lore as a new skill.
10	You are shocked and numbed as the power travels through you. You are at -1d to all rolls for 24 real world hours.
11	You are possessed by a Chaotic spirit for the next five real world minutes. Your character is controlled by the Referee until then. I hope you bought them pizza!
12	Oh dear. Roll on the Catastrophic Manifestation table.

2d6	Catastrophic Manifestation
2	You got really lucky. Roll on the Major Manifestation table, and thank your ancestors.
3	Your sorcery almost tears you apart! You are Maimed (see part one).
4	Your sorcery blows back and gives you a Terrible Injury (see part one).
5	Everyone in the immediate area, friends and foes, takes a Wound (see part one) as your magical energies burst out like a post-2005 Doctor Who regeneration.
6-8	You are utterly drained of all sorcerous power. Your Sorcery! drops to 0 -- and Corruption and LUCK cannot be used either -- but returns at one point per full real world day.
9	You receive a Mark of Chaos, which is quite visible, difficult to disguise, and impossible to remove. It also counts as a Terrible Injury. If you receive a certain number of Marks, a Chaos God comes to claim you as its Champion; make a Corruption test (Kriegsmesser p29) and if this is a "failure" you are claimed, probably to return as a villain later on. Slaanesh claims characters with six Marks, Nurgle claims those with seven, Khorne those with eight, and Tzeentch claims characters with nine. Characters with ten or more Marks go on to be generic non-denominational Chaos Warriors. If the Horned Rat existed, he would claim those with 13 Marks, but he doesn't so he doesn't.
10	Every time you close your eyes you see visions of the Realms of Chaos. Sleeping is difficult. +1 Dark Lore.
11	You are blasted by your own out-of-control powers and are knocked unconscious for an in-game hour. Mundane medicine cannot wake you but maybe magical healing can. Maybe.
12	With a sucking, popping sound, you are sucked into the Realm of Chaos, never to be seen again, probably.

---

I may expand this at some point to include the Colleges of Magic, dwarf, elf, and goblin magic, hedge wizards, and so on. This will do for now.

Kriegshacker I

(I know.)

This is a two-part modification of Gregor Vuga's excellent sort-of-WFRP Kriegsmesser. You will need a copy of Kriegsmesser.

Part one covers general rules. Part two will cover Sorcery!

(Also note: Kriegsmesser is itself a hack of Troika! but does also come with its own basic standalone system. Kriegshacker is a hack of this standalone system.)

---

Players Roll Everything

I think this is sort of implied by Kriegsmesser anyway, but let's state it for Kriegshacker: players make all rolls, even if a non-player-character or monster or other hazard is acting against them; in these cases the players will roll to "resist" the action.

Fighting

Players can use any appropriate skill in a combat situation. This need not be an actual fighting skill. A character could Flee! to escape the fight, Sneak to hide until the coast is clear, or even Provoke to cause infighting amongst the opponents. As long as it makes sense, it can be used. If no skill applies, then the player can use LUCK as normal.

All players involved in the fight roll dice. If anyone gets a success (4+) then the fight is avoided or won or otherwise resolved in the players' favour, although there may be complications. Anyone who fails (1-3) or succeeds with a complication (4-5) suffers those consequences, even if the fight is won.

If no player rolls higher than a 3 then the fight is not resolved, and may even continue, if the Referee decides.

Difficult Fights

The Referee may decide that some fights are more challenging, perhaps because of tougher opposition, an environmental effect, non-combatants getting in the way, and so on. In these cases all involved players have a -1 dice (-1d) or higher penalty.

Generous Referees may allow players to receive a +1d bonus for superior equipment, numbers, position, tactics, and so on. This seems very un-WFRPish, but it's your game.

Damage

Anyone who rolls 4-5 as their highest dice takes a Wound. Mark this on the character sheet in pencil so it can be erased later. For each wound, the player has a -1d penalty. If a player receives a third Wound, then they also take a Terrible Injury (see below).

Anyone who rolls 1-3 as their highest dice takes a Terrible Injury; they should roll on the tables on Kriegsmesser pp30-31. They also suffer a Wound. Terrible Injuries should be noted in ink as they are permanent. If a player takes a sixth Terrible Injury then they are Maimed and take a permanent -1d penalty. Write "Maimed!" on the character sheet, in big red letters if you can. If they are Maimed again, they take an additional -1d permanent penalty, and so on. I recommend adding an extra exclamation point for every Maimed result.

Healing

One wound is healed after a rest period, which should probably be at least a day. When a Wound is healed, the -1d penalty is removed.

Terrible Injuries and Maiming probably shouldn't be able to be healed, except perhaps by sorcery, and in that case I'd probably say that the injuries are hidden rather than healed. Seems more WFRPish.

---

Kriegsmesser is very robust and elegant as is, so these are just tweaks to make it more to my liking. Next: Sorcery!

Bunch of Jackasses, Standing in a Circle

Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy is weird. It's clear that these are the versions of the characters from the 2014 film, all snark and I AM GROOT and personal stereos with classic tunes, except... they aren't. They all look a bit different, they all have different backgrounds and histories, Star-Lord has very different taste in music -- but still isn't a murderous psychopath, boooo! -- and they are all Canadian. It's all a bit off-kilter and almost feels like you're playing an unlicensed knock-off.

(Although computer-Groot is more or less identical to film-Groot, and if he's Canadian, I can't tell.)




I know why it's like this and why they aren't the comic versions or even brand new computer game incarnations of the characters, but it does slap a big old identity crisis right into the middle of the game and while said crisis doesn't hurt the game, as such, it does make it feel, as I say, weird.

But weird as it is -- and it is weird, did I mention that? -- it is also good fun. It feels a bit like the film tie-in games of the olden days; I'm thinking of stuff like Ocean's Batman: The Movie or RoboCop 2, with a jumble of play styles in one game. Most of MGotG is a generic but solid action adventure, with a bit of running, a bit of jumping, and some light puzzling, now and then interrupted with set-piece fights -- of which more below -- but there are also a couple of short spaceship sections, and far too many -- prepare thyself -- quick time event sequences.

QTEs! Oh how I have not missed those cursed things. To see them popping up in a game from 2021, long after everyone had agreed they were a terrible idea, is an unwelcome surprise. They add nothing to the game, and are often plonked down at the exact distance from the most recent save to guarantee maximum annoyance. I turned them off after the second or third instance.

(And thank you to the developers for allowing us to turn off some of the more annoying gameplay elements. I was very pleased to see that there's a very comprehensive set of options for customising gameplay.)

I like the team based combat, which is a little bit standard action game and a little bit real-time strategy. You have direct control over Star-Lord, jumping, punching, and shooting while the rest of the Guardians run about doing their own thing, but you can issue orders for them to use their special abilities -- which change and improve as they earn experience, because of course there's an rpg-light experience system -- from a mostly-slick radial menu thingy, and you can also -- most of the time by accident if you're anything like me -- call them in for a team talk huddle that sets up a minigame in which you have to deliver the right sort of inspirational speech by picking words from a floating word cloud that only Star-Lord can see. This team huddle feature is a little strange and underdeveloped, and I switched it to automatic after the first couple of instances, but it leads to the Guardians all getting supercharged and, more important by far, the fight music changing to one of a selection of perhaps predictable but nonetheless uplifting 1980's pop hits.

(Beating up alien soldiers to Wham's "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go" is oh so silly, but oh so great, and it never gets old.)



It's a good system that works well most of the time, and makes combat -- of which there is a lot -- always compelling. It also helps distract from the part of battles that you control, which alas is quite loose and slippery, and never really feels like you're in full, well, control of Star-Lord. I do wonder if it would have been better to take direct input away from the player during fights and instead run the entire team, including Star-Lord, from the orders menu. This is more or less what I ended up doing in my playthroughs anyway, keeping Star-Lord out of the fight and issuing commands from the sideline like some sort of football manager. In space.

The writing, in general, is okaaaaaay. There are no real surprises in a tale of a scrappy sort-of-family pulling together in the face of certain doom, and while it lacks the emotional punches of the films -- no Nebula, and no (sob!) Yondu -- there is a decent stab at doing something with Star-Lord being forced into parent responsibilities despite deeming himself unsuitable because of his own upbringing, or lack of.

The only other major issue with the game is perhaps a case of it's-not-you-it's-me. There is a point in the story, which up until then has been linear, where it looks like the whole thing is going to open up and let you zip about space doing jobs to earn money to pay a Nova Corps fine, and then... the Guardians all decide no, they'll just go and do one big paying job instead, and off we go to the next level, all those other possibilities abandoned and ignored.

(Sad trombone sounds.)

In all fairness, the game never says it's going to go open world, but my gosh it suggests and teases it, and that it doesn't feels like a huge missed opportunity. Where the game goes from there is fine, it really is, but it could have leaned into the cosmic side of the Marvel Cinematic Computer Game Universe and -- literally -- explored the wider setting that, as it is, we only get hints of.

Still, even if Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy isn't as much fun as it could have been with just a couple of tweaks -- and okay, a massively expanded middle section -- it is still a lot of fun. Much better than a film tie-in should be, even if it's not really a film tie-in. Weird.

Arbitrary score: 2021 out of 2014.

Mission: The Enemy Within

Another untested and probably insanely unbalanced Stargrave scenario with which you can ruin friendships!

---

THE ENEMY WITHIN

Alien shapeshifters operate in this sector. Keep your eyes peeled, Mac, they could be disguised as anything.

Why are you looking at me like that, Mac?

Mac?

Mac?

SET-UP

Set up the table as normal. Place terrain, select board edges, and place loot tokens just as in a standard game. Select a Target Point as normal.

Everything is normal.

Except...

SPECIAL RULES

You've got to be flarkin' kidding! On an initiative roll of 8 or 2, the opponent picks one of your crew, who immediately changes into their true form of some nasty gribbly alien thing. Replace the crew figure with a suitable alien model, which will act as normal in the Creature Phase. Any model other than the Captain can be replaced. Any effects or injuries received prior to the change are discarded.

Treat the shapechanger as a Bounty Hunter (p143). In the Creature Phase the alien will act as normal, with one exception; if they were carrying a loot token before they changed, they will attempt to get off the table with it by the fastest and shortest route.

The actual crew member will be found after the game, tied up, gagged, and stuffed in a supply locker back on the ship, but otherwise alive and well. Any special gear they were carrying will be found with them; assume that the shapechanger's strange physiology mimicked any special abilities or gear.

Option 1 - Trust no one! There is more than one shapeshifter in each crew! One will reveal itself each time a 8 or 2 is rolled for initiative. You should probably limit it to only about three per crew, but I can imagine a wild game in which there are a lot more!

Option 2 - I knew this would happen... Each player selects the opponent's hidden alien before the game begins, and in secret. Writing it down on a piece of folded paper for a suitably dramatic reveal seems appropriate.

LOOT AND EXPERIENCE

Loot and experience are scored as normal, with the following additions:
+10xp to the controlling crew when one of its members changes.
+5xp for eliminating the shapechanger if it is was part of the opposing crew.
+25xp for eliminating the shapechanger if it is was part of your crew.

I Had the Power (Up)!

On Sunday, I went up to That London to go to the Power Up! exhibit at the Science Museum, prompted by reading about Orlygg's visit... except I didn't go until Monday for unimportant reasons I won't go into.

(I went and ate spicy paneer chapati wraps in the park instead.)

On a scorching day pushing past 35° Celsius, I did what I always used to do on hot summer days, and went into a dark room to play computer games!

This is only half of it!

It's debatable whether Power Up! is truly an exhibit at all, but I don't suppose it matters. For an old fart like me it was an exercise in nostalgia, playing games from my youth on the original hardware, and for youngsters -- of which there were not many, as it was a school day -- it's an opportunity to see where computer games came from, and that there is fun to be had with the older systems.

This was a pleasant surprise. A version of this -- I think the Mark 6 -- was my first console.

It was £12 for a day pass, which isn't terrible for a London museum and by my rough count I played around 27 games, so that's money well spent I reckon. Yes, I could emulate all of them, but it was good to play on the original hardware and I got the chance to handle some consoles I have never seen in the flesh before, like the 3DO, NeoGeo, or WiiU; there is something of a thrill to experience them for the first time, but perhaps I'm just a big saddo.

Aside from the N64 controllers almost all having that distinctive loose thumbstick, all the hardware was in excellent condition, and I wonder where it all came from. It's a brave collector who would donate their vintage console to be handled by thousands of grubby mitts, and I can't imagine the Science Museum itself has a stack of old SNESes in a back room. That said, the Amiga CD32 had its launch at the Museum, so it's possible that the machine there was indeed owned by them!

I have only a couple of minor criticisms. There were a few notable omissions, such as the PC Engine and any handhelds that weren't produced by Nintendo, and not all of the games were the best showcase of their machines; are we really saying Frogger is the Commodore 64's killer app?

(I would also have loved to see a Wondermega or "tower of power" in the flesh, but those are the nittiest of picks.)

Otherwise, Power Up! is an interesting if superficial look at the history of computer gaming, but also a great day out if you're a fan of computer games.

Arbitrary score: Blast Processing out of MOS6510.

Your humble correspondent, having completed Sonic 2, entirely legitimately, honest.
(And no, no idea what happened to my hair.)

Flute(owar)

Go on then. One more.

The inspiration should be obvious, but in case it's not. That said, I first saw the image in a different context.

#bards #KelvinDrawsThings

Hold On to Your Potatoes

This is your semi-regular reminder that Temple of Doom is the best one.

#TempleOfDoomIsTheBestOne

Drums (Little Bit of)

#bards #KelvinDrawsThings

Bagpipes (of DOOM)

Self-explanatory.

#bards #KelvinDrawsThings

I've been asked to put this on a t-shirt, so here you go: Redbubble or Threadless.

Triangle

An attempt to do a picture in the style of Amos Orion Sterns, who did all the class pictures in the LotFP rulebook. Partially successful. Ish.

#bards #KelvinDrawsThings

I Like Second-Stage-Randomness

There's probably a proper name for this family of mechanics but what I mean by second-stage-randomness is taking a base mechanic that is stable and knowable, and then spicing it up with a layer of random generation. Some examples:

Characters: Everyone knows what a Fighter is, how they work, and what sort of things they can do. But then we modify the Fighter by allowing some randomness in, so then two Fighters may look and act in different ways. Dragon Age and Shadowdark both do this with dice rolls to determine what abilities characters get, from class-specific tables, and I've tinkered with a similar idea myself.

Monsters: The room contains 1d12 orcish Morris dancers! But what if we can roll 1d8 to determine exactly what sort of orcish Morris dancers they are? 13th Age does something like this with its dragons, and there's a similar sort of idea here at I Cast Light! You don't want anything too complicated gumming up play at the table, just a simple modification to the standard monster to stop them becoming too predictable.

(If you're playing a Warhammer-style setting with true Chaos at work you could really lean into this with expanded tables for Chaotic creatures. Maybe even a d1000 table...)

Locations: I've been watching -- but not playing, I don't have the reflexes or time for that -- quite a bit of Nightreign the new Elden Ring spinoff. The game randomly generates some of its content, such as monster placement and type, so that while experienced players will get to know the general shape of the game, there is still some potential for surprises; you may know that it's one of six bosses over in that grove of trees, but which of the six you won't know until you get there. One other thing the game does is reshape the map with a special location that's randomly drawn from a pool; it could be a mysterious city, a snowy mountain, or a volcanic chasm. Players don't know which it will be -- if any; I think there's also a chance of none appearing and the map being "normal" -- until they arrive on the island.

It feels like there should be a way to do something similar in a tabletop role-playing game, although I haven't worked out how yet. You don't necessarily want randomly changing locations on your world map, unless you're using some sort of "chaos zone".

What I like about this sort of mechanic is that while randomly rolling everything can make a game feel arbitrary and meaningless, this gives a stable base but also accommodates an exciting layer of unpredictability. For me it's the best of both worlds, and you can even further adjust it by using bell curve probabilities to make things a bit more predictable.

But not too predictable, eh?

Recorder

Is the recorder the basic instrument taught in schools around the world, or is that just the UK?

#bards #KelvinDrawsThings

Cymbals

KTANG!

#bards #KelvinDrawsThings

Buy My Stuff! If You Want!

If you want to support my "creative" endeavours you can do so here!

ART AND WRITING COMMISSIONS | ROLE-PLAYING GAMES | MERCH

---

Art and Writing Commissions:

A full page piece of art like this will cost £50 (GBP):

Larger or more complicated pictures, or with extra processing such as colouring or lettering, will likely cost more. Smaller or simpler pieces will of course cost less. Contact me for details.

(I do sometimes offer the original art for sale. Again the price will vary depending on the status of the original piece, so contact me for specifics.)

You can see (many) more examples of my art here.

I also write (see below)! I don't have a specific page or word rate for writing, but I'm always happy to discuss projects and can give you a quote based on the scope of the work. Let me know!

---

Role-Playing Games:

Adventure Anthology: Blood: I didn't write this compilation of classic Lamentations of the Flame Princess adventures, but I did draw over 250 new pictures for it! [pdf] [dead tree - Europe] [dead tree - North America]

BEE-WARE!: Non-hostile werewolves just want to be left alone to run their brewing business, except they are werebees. Possibly the highest/worst pun density of all of my books. For Lamentations of the Flame Princess and similar old-school role-playing games. [pdf] [dead tree - Europe] [dead tree - North America]

The Curious Conundrum of the Conflagrated Condottiero: My attempt to emulate a trashy 80's slasher film in the role-playing game format. For Lamentations of the Flame Princess and similar old-school role-playing games. [pdf] [dead tree - Europe] [dead tree - North America]

"This is good. At 20 pages, it strikes a solid balance between substance, procedure and atmosphere. It’s a simple premise, with sufficient elaboration to allow for multiple ways for the scenario to unfold and it does not outstay its welcome. [...] It is a real game, with gameplay, a reason to interact with the town, thought and charm being put into its limited cast of characters. I don’t think this will blow anyone’s mind but its a well-crafted, reasonably tight execution of a horror movie trope, with options for variation and permutation." - Age of Dusk.

The Expiration of Barrington Peake: A (sort of) one page (sort of) dungeon. Pay what you want! [pdf] [dead tree - Europe] [dead tree - North America]

Fish F**kers: Fish people and the awful humans that exploit them. Doing my bit to undo Lovecraft's icky legacy. For Lamentations of the Flame Princess and similar old-school role-playing games. [pdf] [dead tree - Europe] [dead tree - North America]

Green Messiah: The Colour Out of Space, except it's also Superman's origin, plus a bit of Swamp Thing and Invasion of the Body Snatchers. For Lamentations of the Flame Princess and similar old-school role-playing games. [pdf] [dead tree - Europe] [dead tree - North America]

"Well written, well presented, Green Messiah is one of the more engaging releases from Lamentations of the Flame Princess for quite some time. Not a little ridiculous, Green Messiah is an entertaining and fun scenario." - Reviews from R'lyeh.

Magic Eater: I tried to write an adventure about taking on a mundane gang of bandits, except I added a weird cult and a superpowered glutton. For Lamentations of the Flame Princess and similar old-school role-playing games. [pdf] [dead tree - Europe] [dead tree - North America]

"While I could (and will) kvetch that there is room for improvement in how the defenders are organized, this is at its core, a solid f*****g adventure, with a delightfully puerile Lotfp twist at the end. Open-ended, varied and challenging, that’s what we like to see." - Age of Dusk.

Midvinter: It's, um, mid winter in seventeenth century Sweden, and the players are invited to a special celebration. Vaguely inspired by the film Midsommar, but not a lot like it, because I hadn't seen it at the time. For Lamentations of the Flame Princess and similar old-school role-playing games. [pdf] [dead tree - Europe] [dead tree - North America]

More Than Meets the Eye: The players stumble into a conflict between rival factions of mimics. A very short adventure for Lamentations of the Flame Princess and similar old-school role-playing games. [pdf] [dead tree - Europe] [dead tree - North America]

The Seed: Psychic Doomsday Cultists Semi-Accidentally Summoned an Alien Machine That Is Eating the World and Shitting Out a New One! As "featured" in The New Yorker, my contribution to the Manifestus Omnivorous project. More or less systemless, but easy enough to run with the role-playing game of your choice. [pdf]

Strict Time Records Must Be Kept: The player-characters are poisoned and dropped into a house full of tricks and traps to try and find the antidote before they die a messy death. Zero attempt at realism, maximum effort at fun. For Lamentations of the Flame Princess and similar old-school role-playing games. [pdf] [dead tree - Europe] [dead tree - North America]

Strict Time Records Must Be Kept is quite good, exudes a sense of menacing fun, strikes a balance between spectacle and gameplay and contains ample handholds that render the whole easier to play. [...] If you are trying to be Not Your Grandfather’s DnD, you must illustrate what Not Your Grandfather’s DnD is about, and STRMBK does so with confidence, gusto, and charming malevolence." - Age of Dusk.

Terror in the Streets: You can't do murder mystery adventures in D&D, apparently! Well, no one told me. Children are going missing in Paris in 1630; can your players solve the mystery against a backdrop of political and religious unrest, and the machinations of Cardinal Richelieu? For Lamentations of the Flame Princess and similar old-school role-playing games. [pdf] [dead tree - Europe] [dead tree - North America]

"Let there be no doubt that Terror in the Streets is a work of profound genius and skill." - Reviews from R'lyeh.
"Terror in the Streets is a well written, well presented scenario that is probably a lot of fun to play. I can think of no better compliment." - Grognardia.

BIG Terror in the Streets: As above, but in a big cardboard box with a map, handouts, paper miniatures, a special d6, and a supplementary book of adventures, Huguenauts and Other Distractions. For Lamentations of the Flame Princess and similar old-school role-playing games. [pdf - Huguenauts] [box - Europe] [box - North America]

Winnie-the-Shit: A blatant cash-in on the source material's entry into the public domain, mashed up with Animal Farm -- not that one -- and The Island of Doctor Moreau for a mini wilderness crawl. For Lamentations of the Flame Princess and similar old-school role-playing games. [pdf] [dead tree - Europe] [dead tree - North America]

---

Merch:

I have a selection of clothes, stickers, and the like for sale at both RedBubble and Threadless. I think I get a tiny bit more of the proceeds from the Threadless stuff, but there is a wider variety of items at RedBubble. The choice is yours!

Trombone

Doot!

#bards #KelvinDrawsThings

Alphorn

I drew another bard!

I feel like I'm getting closer to what I see in my mind's eye with this one. Not quite, but getting there. #bards #KelvinDrawsThings

Lute

I drew a bard!

I'm still (re)finding my feet, and there are some old bad habits in there, but I'm enjoying drawing again. #bards #KelvinDrawsThings

4000ad

I've been looking through my 2000ad collection* and I thought I'd highlight this one: Prog 2000, released in December 1999 as a double celebration; a big end-of-year special, and a semi-surprised "Crikey!" that 2000ad lasted up to, well, 2000AD, when pretty much every other British comic -- aside from stuff like The Beano or Commando that will likely survive the heat death of the universe -- had folded years before.

This is more properly Prog 1173.5 -- the "real" Prog 2000 would come in 2016 -- but given the date of publication, I can understand why they would jump the gun. This started** a tradition of big end-of-year specials that were numbered by year until 2016 when they switched to the weekly numbering, so there were also two 2001s, two 2002s, and so on.

Still with me?

I don't get many of the weekly issues these days but I always pick up the big end-of-year specials, and I think this first one is one of the best. As a look back at the glory days of the comic, they managed to bring back some big name artists who had long before departed for the US comics industry. There's a cover from Brian Bolland -- who apparently "enthusiastically agreed" -- Dave Gibbons coming back to draw a Rogue Trooper -- sort of -- story, Kevin O'Neill returning for the final episode of the batshit insane Nemesis the Warlock, and Mike McMahon and Cam Kennedy on the two Judge Dredd stories.

Aside from the "old" superstars, you've got incredible detailed black and white art from Kev Walker on ABC Warriors, the underrated Simon Fraser on Nikolai Dante, the genius Carlos Ezquerra on Strontium Dog, glorious painting from Greg Staples on Sláine and Simon Davis on Sinister Dexter, and Mark Harrison's impossible*** paint/digital hybrid art on Glimmer Rats.

Not every story is good, as such, but it all looks amazing, and is probably the most consistently good-looking of the specials.

Here, have a look:

Mike McMahon:

Dave Gibbons:

Kev Walker. Good gosh, look at it:

Simon Fraser. Most of this story is a sex scene, and I try to keep this blog relatively family friendly, so you get crying in the rain instead:

Carlos Ezquerra, experimenting with some slightly dodgy 1999 computer effects:

Greg Staples. This is a weekly comic, remember:

Simon Davis, ditto:

Kevin O'Neill, the only person to have his entire art style banned by DC Comics. Their loss:

Mark Harrison, the same one who drew "The Travellers" in White Dwarf, engaging in some sort of sorcery:

Cam Kennedy:

Not bad for £3.95 Earth money!

*(It's not much of a collection; a few issues from when I was reading the weekly comic, and every end-of-year special since 2000.)

**(There had been the traditional British Christmas annuals -- different to US comic annuals -- but those stopped in the 1990s... except they did an annual in 2025, in addition to the special, just to confuse matters.)

***(I can't work out how he did it in 1999, anyway.)

Most Wanted

If anyone out there has unwanted copies of any of these books, I am willing to pay a fair -- as in, not absurdly inflated collector numbers -- price for them. Let me know!