Welcome home.
This is Audio EXP for the 28th of October, and the episode title is “Ultimate but limited Evil”
[The following is a transcript of Audio EXP: #216]
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Scoundrel Game Labs is in the Spotlight this month, as voted for by Patreons.
The interview with T. A. Gray of Scoundrel is live on the blog, and because of undeath I think and hope that the publisher will have a good Halloween. Scoundrel Game Labs is definitely best known for Grizedla’s Guide to Ghost Hunting, a 5e supplement that seems perfect for this and next weekend.
There’s a Savage Worlds version, too, with 50 Edges and Hindrances plus mechanics for seances, mediums and haunts.
On that Halloween note, Bronwen found some great spooky distractions for you this week.
I think my favourite of which is The Making of Poltergeist on YouTube, which are clips from a 1982 documentary.
It’s challenged by Marvel Halloween, which is a collection of the spookier footage from the MCU.
I feel that now we’ve talked about the evil of Poltergeist and the money machine of Marvel, we can segway back to Wizards of the Coast and Google.
The Google news is that Google Podcasts is going away, and if you use the platform to listen to Geek Native’s podcast, Audio EXP, this thing you’re listening to now, thank you. You can find it everywhere else instead, but not on YouTube.
Not yet. Yes, Geek Native has tested putting this audio content on YouTube and did so with TikTok, too, but the YouTube approach didn’t work. Google does plan to integrate podcasts better there, though. What we’re waiting on is the ability to point YouTube at Audio EXP’s RSS feed. That’s how every other podcast platform works and have the series update automatically there.
What the plans are for providing visual content for a podcast is, I don’t know, but I’m sure YouTube will work something out, and I won’t be surprised if it’s generative AI.
The Wizards of the Coast news is of an evil that’s selling out. They’ve made a limited edition Talisman of Ultimate Evil as part of the dark ritual to squeeze every cent from the brand. However, the collectable does look pretty good, and there are only 5,000 worldwide.
From the world of smaller RPGs, Geek Native has a wee sneak peek at a Kickstarter launching on Halloween called Astral Hunt.
We don’t have enough to call it a preview, but we’ve got images of a spider-like creature called the Skelgar that can come into being when characters misuse magic, some primer text and an image of the Limb Thief. The latter is a horror that transforms and grows and, as the name implies, gets its flesh from victims.
We also looked at The Flagellant & The Fool’s Smörgasbörg, but just a quick glance.
Smörgasbörg is a cannibal supplement for Mork Borg, and therefore, one of my favourite uses of the borg suffix. It’s $10 for 120 pages, including The Hunger Rules.
My surprise news of the week, though, is Fantasy: Realms of Imagination at the British Library.
That’s the British Library in London, although there are loads of online events as part of the hybrid series.
Is it surprising for an establishment as sophisticated as the British Library to be interested in fantasy? I mean, it has sketches and outlines from Meryvn Peake’s Gormenghast, which seems pretty highbrow, and Michael Palin’s notes for Monty Python And The Holy Grail. It also has props from The Lord of the Rings, The Dark Crystal and Wicked.
My surprise is that Fantasy: Realms of Imagination is co-sponsored by Wayland Games. That’s a European games shop.
Going to a large tabletop games convention, you’ll probably find a large Wayland Games booth selling the latest board games, perhaps some tabletop RPGs.
Sponsoring a fantasy exhibit at the British Library is such a cool thing for them to do. I also underestimated how much money they make or how much it costs to sponsor an event of this calibre.
Now, we’re talking about buying games; we’re also into the usual outro of bundles and competitions.
I want to start with Cubicle 7’s Rogue Trader deal on DriveThruRPG. It costs $50 to get well more than $200 worth of supplements. Cubicle 7 have just recently renewed their contract with Games Workshop for the Warhammer franchise, and I don’t recall Rogue Trader getting a mention, but it is kinda the odd one out.
After sorting the Rogue Trader collection on DriveThruRPG, at least they have one, I can see the latest supplement is the Rogue Trader: Tau Character Guide. However, that’s only at the top because it was last updated in October 2023. It was added to the DTRPG catalogue in 2014. There’s no Rogue Trader section on the Cubicle 7 website or shop, but there is for Victoriana and Uncharted Journeys.
It makes me wonder what the fate of this old Warhammer 40K RPG is.
In more traditional bundles, there’s a host at the Bundle of Holding, which is doing a tremendous spooky October.
There’s the Arkham Gazette, until the 1st, of Call of Cthulhu magazine content.
Palladium Apocalypse contains three core rules: Splicers, Systems Failure and Dead Reign, all horror games.
Humble has a bundle called Dungeons & Monsters, which is worth a grand worth of STL content.
A popular bundle on Geek Native this week has been the Doctor Who megabundle. That offer has a mix of content: the Doctor Who RPG, yeah, from Cubicle 7, audiobooks and digital comics.
Nearly at the end, there’s the Halloween Horror comics bundle from Fanatical. The top tier costs little more than £10 and is worth over £100. The centrepiece of that offer is probably, in my opinion, The Night of the Living Dead comic book series.
There’s one gotcha, though. Geek Native’s latest competition has two top prizes, and they’re both that Halloween Horror top tier. So you don’t need to spend that £10, you just need to enter the competition and win. There’s no wrong answer; there’s no tagging a friend, but you do have to do a thing.
On that note, keep safe, don’t step on a crack, and see you next week.
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