This Old Bunker

So, you want to take over the world? You've got your doomsday device. You've got your army of henchmen in matching boiler suits. Now, where to put them all. Sure, the housing market in the U.S. is firmly the realm of the buyer, but what evil genius wants to set up shop on a cul-de-sac in the suburbs? Especially with today's gas prices.

Why not try Merry Olde England? A quick perusal of A Guide to Avengerland: A Guide To The Locations Used During The Filming of Classic British Television Series will show just how ripe Great Britain is for nefarious conspiracies. After all, if it's good enough for Professor Schnipps, it's good enough for anyone. Subterranea Britannica is a collection of maps and photos of abandoned military and scientific posts

h/t www.livingdice.com

Trask, the Last Tyromancer writes:

Malcolm Craig, author of "Hot War," the pointed me towards a fascinating site from the UK with dozens of maps and images of old military installations.

Most of the locations have both original images that show them in their prime, maps and modern images that show the ravages of time. This is one of the best gaming resources I found recently. The maps and images would make great supplements to any modern or post-apocalyptic game.

If you want to see what is available, this link takes you directly to the "good stuff," but check out the entire site. It is chock full of gaming goodness.



Bunkers and Installations


Trask, The Last Tyromancer

Things To Read in London When The World Is Dead
h/t hannibalchew

After The Rain (1958) by John Bowen
The Death of Grass (1957) by John Christopher
The World In Winter (1962) by John Christopher
The Ragged Edge (1962) by John Christopher
The Burning World (1964) by JG Ballard
The Drowned World (1962) by JG Ballard
The Wind From Nowhere (1961) by JG Ballard
Implosion (1967) by DF Jones
Denver Is Missing (1971) by DF Jones
Fugue for a Darkening Island (1973) by Christopher Priest

What Hath Alex Toth?

Rubin Espinosa has assembled an impressive collection of Alex Toth drawings, some of which I've never seen before, at his Collecting Fool site. These Huns were from Birdman, but the site also has examples of his work from everything from Herculoids to Huckleberry Finn. When I look at Toth's stuff and compare it to the Ren & Stimpy clones that pass for cartoon "art" these days, I weep.

I Guess I Should've Bought Gold Instead of Pogs, Huh?

Okay, dear readers, it's definitely time for our viewers to crack each other's heads open and feast on the goo inside.

h/t Feral Jundi

US Mint suspends sale of 24 - karat gold coins

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Filed at 3:38 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. Mint is temporarily halting sales of its popular American Buffalo 24-karat gold coins because it can’t keep up with soaring demand as investors seek the safety of gold amid economic turbulence.

( Read more ... )

Evil Geniuses, KGB Agents, and Bikini Girls in the Victoria & Albert Museum This October 31st!

Evil Geniuses, KGB Agents, and Bikini Girls in the Victoria & Albert Museum This October 31st!



h/t the Copplestone Castings mailing list

Nick Lund and I are getting very arty and doing a demo of the Kiss Kiss Bang Bang game at London`s Victoria and Albert Museum on 31st October as part of the Cold War Modern Exhibition.

Before then there will be lots more KKBB miniatures and scenery – Evil Geniuses (including Robo-Fuhrer), KGB men, Rogue Agents, Bikini Girls, Guards in Hats, missile silo equipment and all the doorways (from blast doors to vaults) you could ever want - and new packs from Artizan too.

http://www.copplestonecastings.co.uk/range.php?range=KKB
http://www.artizandesigns.com/catalogue.asp?sub_range=25

At the V&A we’ll be playing two scenarios for our DIY boardgame:

MY MISSILE`S BIGGER THAN YOURS

A top secret US nuclear missile silo has been seized by the Evil Genius Obermass and his boiler-suited minions. Unless he is paid $1,000,000 he will use it to obliterate an idyllic small town somewhere in America. Whilst schoolchildren practise ducking and covering, a specially selected, racially de-segregated team of US agents has entered the base through a secret entrance known only to the Pentagon – they only have a short time to prevent the launch.

ICH BIN EIN BERLINER (or Carry On Under the Kurfurstendamm)

In a network of dirty and decaying bunkers underneath the Berlin Wall a group of British agents is attempting to smuggle a defecting Soviet general into the British Sector. The British team comprises our 3 top men plus several new recruits (bearing a strong resemblance to members of the Carry On team). Pursuing them is a gang of KGB heavies led by the deadly Kolonel Krepps. But all is not as it seems: the Soviet general is playing a double game. Or is he?

French Connection Friday Late - Cold War Modern

Friday 31 October 2008
18.30–22.00, Throughout the Museum - FREE

Celebrate the mind-expanding visions of the hi-tech sixties. French Connection Friday Late invites you to 'turn on, tune in and drop out' with an evening of music, film, talks, games and happenings devoted to the Cold War Modern exhibition.

http://www.vam.ac.uk/microsites/cold-war-modern/exhibition

Mark Copplestone

Sigue Sigue Sputnik - "Love Missle F-111"

D&D Stuff

A Tar-faux card, “Tyrant of Eyes,” designed by EotBeholder as part of Worth 1000's D&D Photoshop contest.

10 Awesome Things about D&D
Sean Kelly has started playing the original Dungeons & Dragons again (pen & paper version) and he recently sent out his list of 10 Awesome Things About D&D:

1 - Rolling a Natural Twenty when the fight is on the line
2 - Leveling up
3 - 0 hit points, unconscious, possibly dead
4 - The 10‘ pole
5 - The druid spell Shillelagh
6 - Being a 1st level Halfling mage with 1 hit point and a dart
7 - Drinking ale in the tavern
8 - The planar asymmetric synergy of polyhedrons and lead figures
9 - Scimitars
10 - Treasure Type Q, the best Treasure Type
h/t Laughing Squid

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, RPA Agent

There's only so many times one can listen to Queen's "I Want It All" or Iggy & The Stooges "Search & Destroy" while using the treadmilling machine down at the local gym ("Gime? What's a gime?"). Frequently, I like to listen to something nonmusical when I'm trying to work off that egg roll I had with the Kung Pao chicken I had for lunch. Sometimes I'll listen to Fox News or NBC or ABCBS, the three televisual options provided by the Young Men's Christian Association. Sometimes, I'll find me a bit of OTR ... Jungle Jim, Flash Gordon, or Terry & The Pirates. Lately, however, I've been on a podcast kick. My current favorite: The Sons of Kryos.

Last night, I listened to them run Cold City. I was first exposed to Cold City when I read Doug Pirko's excellent write-up of his own session. Listening to Jeff Lower and Judd Karima's adventure made me really get the hankering to run my own. For those unfamiliar with Cold City is a game set in postwar Berlin. The players take on the role of agents of the Reserve Police Agency, a multinational organization tasked with sweeping up the supernatural mess left behind after the fall of the Third Reich. Each hailing from a different nation, they must achieve the party goals as well as striving to fulfill their national and personal goals as well. Picture The Spy Who Came in From The Cold as written by Mike Mignola.

For a taste, check out the three parts of the Sons of Kryos Cold City session:

Download Part 1

Download Part 2

Download Part 3

Last night, I found Mwaantaangaand, a game that admittedly draws heavily on Cold City, but, in the words of game master Jonathan Walton, "runs on a largely 'structured freeform' system that has a bit of strategy and resource manipulation involved in the way corrupted spirits are fought."

Instead of playing multinational Cold-Warring strang-bedfellows, Mwaantaangaand PCs are a "coalition of soldiers from the various factions of the Angolan Civil War descending into the land of the dead to destroy the horrors created by Project Coast, South Africa’s biological weapons program." Walton's bent even won the praise of Malcolm Craig (Cold City's designer) himself.

It's certainly an interesting and worthwhile take on things. I've yet to fully finish re-reading it and fully digesting the entire thing, but so far I really like what i see.

Cheers
Malc

It was designed as part of The Sight and Sound Game Design Challenge

Funny Cartoons

Sunday Photodump ('Cuz All The Cool Bloggers Are Doin' It)

Big Bang '08

Joe-stalgia

Captain O'Rourke of When Johnny Comes Marching Home provides a narrative of his childhood that should be required reading for any A.T. collector.

G.I. Joe & the Talking Adventure Team Commander.

Above The Fruited Planescape

Well, I'm no longer a gamer. I no longer game. The play-by-post OD&D game I was in has gone gently into that good night. And, unfortunately, the only other play-by-post game that I've seen that looks halfway interesting was already filled up before I got the final word on the demise of the Wilderlands OD&D campaign. The game is the Yesteryear Planescape campaign, and, even though, I'm not playing, I'm lurking like hell. The game is that interesting.

Much like the Wilderland's OD&D game, Yesteryear is like a Who's Who of My Favorite Gaming Blogs:

The DM is noisms, who blogs Monsters and Manuals, and one of my favorite Yesteryear characters is Diego the Grim, Dark Wizard and Chain-Smoker Extraordinaire, a planar human mage who is played by Matthew Conway of The Dwarf and The Basilisk. Another of my favorites is Xiao Glorianthian Gogana, Prime Grey Elf Fighter, played by someone named Ben. Brian of Trollsmyth fame plays a prime human bard called "Sparrow. The prime human cleric Zavijah is played by Natalie (Odyssey). James (Stormspace) who plays Hume, a prime human mage, masterfully that one can take a bad stat roll and turn it into masterful roleplaying. The delightful Bairaiur named Hervis is played by David of The RPG Corner.

Links

Dark of the Day Planescape Forum Game

Unity of Rings comic at Wizards of The Coast

Mike and Cam of Godzilla Gaming Podcast talk Planescape with Monte Cook

Tony Diterlizzi's Blog

Yesteryear: High Adventure on the borders of Ysgard and Arborea

The Joe That Never Was

Generals Joes - A blog about the importance (or unimportance) of little plastic men is a site that focuses on those little 3 3/4" pieces of abominable mersh that passed for G.I. Joes back in the eighties (everyone knows Real G.I. Joes come in 1/6 scale). However, today he mentioned a piece of the Sigma 6 line that remained only in the prototype stage that, had it been produced, I would have surely bought: Adventure Team Joe Colton.



Joe Colton was the way that our good old friends from the Adventure Team fit into the mythos of the G.I. Joe Comic Book series.



His bio at the G.I. Joe Comics Home Page gives the following information:

In 1969, Joe grew tired of a soldier's life and took a well-deserved sabbatical. He began to travel the world and explored some of the most exotic and dangerous parts of the world, having a number of adventures. In 1970, he became a part of the civilian group known as the Adventure Team. Throughout the next decade, Joe and his team worked for private groups, serving as guides and rescuers to archaeologists and other scientists working in the field. The team even worked for various government agencies on occasion. The Adventure Team disbanded as the 70s came to a close.

Now that is the Joe I remember!