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This is Audio EXP for October 5th, and the episode title is “The dark season”
[The following is a transcript of Audio EXP: #256]
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Steve Hatherley won the RPG Publisher Spotlight this month. He doesn’t know yet as I’ve not told him, but I will soon.
The candidates for November are;
If you’re one of those awesome people who support Geek Native’s Patreon, thank you, and you can vote in the private poll on the platform.
I’m also waiting on Patreon to process emails for the free copies of Teenage Oddyssey before asking Canon Otter Studio to work their kind magic and generate freebie codes.
Okay, that’s what we’ve been waiting on and gearing up to; let’s see what’s happened this week and whether there’s been any podcast numbering mistakes.
I spent much of the day at an Oktoberfest party in a distillery in Leith Docks, so the chances of error are high. We have German listeners, so I must apologise and say that here in Scotland, we know our little Oktoberfest clones are nothing like the grand gatherings in Munich. We just take it as a chance to drink, chat, eat and give it all a German theme. It’s good fun but not authentic.
Here in Scotland, we do have a long and authentic tradition of taking every chance we have to eat, drink and chat.
I do seem to have come home with a Ravenloft-style cow witch model. Other than that, I think my Oktoberfest passed without much drama.
Today is Warhammer Day, and in the spirit of the oncoming ‘dark season’, much of the focus is around the grimdark future of Warhammer 40K.
Earlier this week, I reviewed DK’s Warhammer 40,000 – The Ultimate Guide and admitted I liked the book as an easy way to catch up on my lore ahead of whatever Henry Cavill gives us to watch.
I’ve a video of that up on Geek Native’s TikTok and Instagram; it’s way more popular on one platform than the other; can you guess which?
I was delighted and slightly surprised when Games Workshop also called out the book in their own Warhammer Day highlights post. I thought they’d have at least mentioned Secret Level from Amazon, which is due out later and will have a Space Marines episode.
The guide was full of amazing photography, and that’s my link to Bronwen’s review of the Photo Creator Retro Instant Camera. Okay, it’s not a snappy product title, but at least you know what this retro toy does. It comes with accessories and colouring pens, but I like the fact it lets you print black and white photos. I think they’re slightly creepy, and it’s a shame that the rest of the camera is so colourful.
Am I the only one who sees a lo-fi black-and-white photo and starts sinking into horror mode? I’d consider using black-painted versions of these cameras as an urban LARP, especially a Mind’s Eye Theatre one.
Speaking of which, Bronwen also blogged about the new Nosferatu movie. It has Bill Skarsgård as Count Orlok, so he can move on from The Crow.
Nosferatu won’t be out for Halloween and the end of the dark season. It will grab us during the mercenary shopping season and December 25th.
Bronwen also found a clever The Shining poster from Justin Hampton, which features the Grady Twins which glows in the dark to reveal their skeletal forms.
Bronwen’s supposed to be a poor art student. What’s this about trying to buy limited-edition horror posters?
Mind you, I can’t talk as I waxed lyrical about Tabletop Dominion’s Eyes of Chaos. These liquid core die have eyes inside, and there’s an 85mm model. That’s a huge dice. It’s a thing of freaky beauty, and there’s one left in the store and it costs about the same as The Shining poster.
However, Geek Native has signed on to Tabletop Dominion’s partner program so if you use the code GEEKNATIVE at checkout, you can get up to 10% off some of your order. I’m not sure all their big rare dice are included, but it’s worth trying.
Now, I’ve been known to get on a soap box in these podcasts, and I’ve been called out for not getting excited by the animal welfare organisation PETA, which is doing its own D&D subclasses.
Firstly, people make D&D subclasses all the time. Secondly, the story is in Routinely Itemised and a few years ago PETA complained about Warhammer characters wearing fur. I know that these are both PR stunts.
I’m utterly against animal cruelty. I have concerns about PETA. They do use kill shelters and don’t deny it. Those aren’t common at all here in Scotland. PETA has, although it’s not normally done, taken pets from people and put those pets into kill shelters. If a pet is in a loving home, then surely, even if you don’t believe in domesticating animals, that is better than moving the pet to a kill shelter. I’ve linked these claims to fact-checkers in the transcript.
Anyway, when I said the podcast’s title was ‘the dark season,’ I bet you thought I was gearing up for autumn and Halloween. You’re not wrong, but we have this too.
If you’re here for RPG news, we can do that too. Mongoose Publishing has bought the rights to 2300AD and Twilight: 2000.
You may think, wait, doesn’t Free League Publishing have the rights to Twilight: 2000. They do. The Swedish publisher has the rights to the current edition, and the British publisher is now in control of the old game.
Mongoose recently revealed they also had control of Traveller, and it looks like they’re morphing from a former d20 production mill to a trusted curator of old and classic RPGs.
Green Ronin have published a free-to-download quickstart for their new The Expanse Transport Union Edition TTRPG.
The official The Expanse roleplaying game will be backwards compatible with the old one and moves the timeline forward to the later books where there’s a lot to explore through The Gates.
Sticking with the darkness of space, there’s a competition to reveal. Geek Native has one copy of Red Dwarf: Discovering the TV Series volume 1 to giveaway to one British listener. Find the link in the show notes, enter using the widget and be picked at random.
Even our two bundle deal spots this week have a dark theme. The first, at the Bundle of Holding, is the medieval occult horror of Aquelarre. It’s a tabletop RPG based on BRP.
The second, at Humble, is a Warhammer Day deal with computer games and discounts. Lots of Warhammer 40K, but not exclusively so.
On that note, don’t go into the darkness, and see you next week.
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