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Showing posts with the label Dark Fantasy

Role-playing Rants: My favorite player character: Part Four

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Those of you with eyes of a hawk no doubt noticed that I used the singular term "character", in the title of this post. That's because it's going to be about a single hero - one that I've RP'ed almost 12 years ago. If you're reading my blog for some time now, you know that I'm not particulary fond of participating in roleplaying games as a player. I'm the forever GM-kind of guy. I like the creative control, the world building possibilites and, of course, the power of life and death over my players... Errrr... I mean, the chance to see them evolve and become the heroes that they were always destined to be! What I want to say is that I'm not too fond of playing RPGs. The last time that I was a regular player, was in 2017, back when I've participated in a Vampire: The Masquerade game as a Brujah DJ with a thing for baseball bats. Since then it was only a couple of one-shots, but nothing too serious. That said, back in 2008 when I've

Role-playing Rants: My favorite player characters: Part Three

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Gotta say, I really enjoy these trips down the memory lane. There is something incredibl pleasant about remembering the coolest, most interesting player characters that one had a chance to encounter, during his years as a game master. Today we continue our journey through time and space, visiting yet another batch of my favorite Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay heroes. This time we take a look at the original characters created by my Roll20 group, and how they've managed to leave a lasting impression in my mind. 1. Lukas Kohler, a hardcore survivalist from Talabecland (played by Andy) Lukas Kohler (artwork by Jason Brisken) If there ever was a "hero" who defied death time and time again, laughing in its ghastly face, it was Lukas Kohler. A syphilitic charcoal burner from the rural province of Talabecland, Lukas decided to leave his small hovel to pursue adventure and gather riches. What he found was death and danger at every corner. From rescuing a little girl fr

Role-playing Rants: My favorite player characters: Part Two

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My trip down the memory lane continues with even more, memorable WFRP characters! Let's take a look at a few of them, and enjoy the tales of their deeds. This time we're covering the heroes of my first playthroughs of "Terror in Talabheim" and "The Thousand Thrones", as well as the Polish-written campaign - "Lord of Winter". There are quite a lot of them, so I will describe the most interesting ones, the ones that I still think about to this very day. Let's take a trip down the memory lane, shall we? 1. Lukyan Aleksandrovitch Yakov, Kislevite spy master (played by Martin) To this day one of my favorite PC's of all time. A ruthless Kislevite Checkist (posing as a Imperial merchant) with low moral compass, and a low tolerance for fools, Lukyan survived 6 chapters of "The Thousand Thrones", one of the hardest WFRP campaign ever written. His task was to find the miraculous child and asses the threat that it posed to Kislev

Role-playing Rants: My favorite player characters: Part One

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Enough with the reviews, enough with the fillers. Let's talk buisness - Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay buisness! The analitics don't lie. Aside from various Asian porn sites which seem to really like my blog, and re-visit it all the time, the biggest ammount of hits that I generate, come from people who are all about WFRP. This little slice of internet was initially created as a way for me to rekindle my love for this system (which it managed to do), but over the years I also wanted to write about other stuff. World of Darkness, Warhammer 40,000, Delta Green and many other topics have been tackled by me with mixed results, but they never gained the ammount of enthusiasm and popularity, that my WFRP posts managed to achieve. I'm cool with that, to be honest. There was a time when I was quietly wishing for a more diverse group of followers, but that's in the past now. I am grateful for what I have, for what I was able to build over the years, and I wouldn't change

Xathrodox86 reviews: "Season of the Witch"

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Everyone loves Nic Cage. The man's an absolute legend and he automatically makes every film in which he stars 100 times better. He single-handedly saved the "Wicker Man" remake! When I saw the poster for "Season of the Witch", directed by Dominic Sena, I knew that I'm in for a ride. Nicolas Cage fighting witches, while having a budding romance with Ron Perlman? Count me in! The poster says it all. It has hellish flames, fantastic font and Nic Cage with long, greasy hair, holding a longsword. Seriously, you can't go wrong with stuff like that! And the names... Just look at them! Behmen von Bleibruck, Felson, Kay von Wollenbarth and Johann Eckhardt. These are some of the most 'Hammer names of all time. Oh yeah, "Season of the Witch" is one of my quintessential Warhammer movies, right there with "Solomon Kane" and "Black Death"! Just look at that poster. I must have it! Anyway, the movie is about two blokes - Behme

Various musings about current stuff: civilised edition

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Quite a lot of things is happening right now in our fandom. The 4th edition ofWarhammer Fantasy Roleplay is right around the corner, Zweihander will recieve yet another expansion and Titanicus is making everyone sweaty! I will try and cover it all in no particular order, but first we must talk about some very sad news. After many years online, the fantastic Strike to Stun forums will be closing down this year. It's all because of the European Union's privacy policies, potentialy aimed towards the social media giants like Facebook. In reality, as is often the case, the main victims of such a law are relatively small internet communities, like StS. It's very sad to see it go. For many years it was home to people who loved WFRP, as well as those who created various editions of this venerable game. There are alternatives, like the Ratchater's Guild Discord server and the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay reddit community, but Strike to Stun is one of a kind. It will be archived

Role-playing Rants: Bring out your inner beast!

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Those pesky Beastmen, they're so adorable, aren't they? Funny goat-men who sometimes try to ruin the adventurer's day by jumping out of the forest, screaming "oogah boogah boogah!" At least that is how they're usually portrayed: as a bunch of inbred dumbasses, who are only threatening to level 1 characters, and only on a very bad day. It doesn't matter if we are talking about official or fan-made publications - the Beastmen always get the shaft. What if I'd told you that it is possible to make them a formidable, scary and unique threat to your players? Is it even possible? Yes, yes it is. For that we'll have to reach out to our boy, H.P. Lovecraft himself and steal a bit of his ideas and, more importantly, the atmosphere of primeval horror, which he was able to include in his works with unparalleled skill. You see, the Beastmen are not men with hooves. They're not men with animal heads, wearing shit-stained loincloths and brandis

Xathrodox86 reviews: "Solomon Kane"

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On my blog I've reviewed games and books, but not any movies... until now. Let's take a look upon a quintessential Warhammer movie - "Solomon Kane". Based on the classic witch hunter character created by the legendary Robert E. Howard, author of the most famous barbarian in history, "Solomon Kane" is a perfect example of a dark fantasy movie done right. Even with its modest budget of $40 million, it manages to deliver a fantastic tale of dark fantasy-action adventure, with a great lead role and a wonderful visual style. I need this poster in my life! The film begins in North Africa, where Solomon Kane, a ruthless mercenary, leads his band of ne'er-do-wells against the Ottoman soldiers, occupying a fortress town. After killing all of them, Kane and his men plan to steal their sweet loot for themselves, but a bunch of mirror demons have other plans and decide to interfere. They butcher the pirates and Solomon only manages to escape, after jumpin