Elysium Concept Art

Some nitty gritty cyber-wear for your down and dirty Sci-Fi or Cyperpunk game.

LINK for more

47 Ronin

As much as I hate when they put white actors into these things, and as much as I hate it even more when Keanu "acts", I have to admit that I am very much intrigued.

LEGO Linkin'

Leaked images from Series 11. 

LEGO SLIPPERS

Minimalist LEGO done right. 

GREAT SCOTT! Official back to the future LEGOs!

Yaoi911

Not too long ago I found Yaoi911, a website feature two pretty good comic series; Artifice, a sci-fi strip set in a Bladerunner-esque world of artificial humans and outer world colonies; and The Young Protectors, a pretty standard super-hero book. Both series happen to be gay-friendly.

The Young Protectors features a young hero who is afraid of coming out, and finds an unlikely shoulder to lean on (among other things) in the team's main super villain, who also happens to be gay. The relationship between the two is rather touching and the fact that it is written by a gay man tends to accentuate just how homoerotic most mainstream comics really are.

Artifice has a stronger gay story line and in the first bit, the the two main characters quickly become lovers with pre-and post coital scenes. I had to admit that this made me a bit uncomfortable at first, but then I realized something: if the plotline had featured a standard man/woman dynamic, or even two woman, I wouldn't have gotten uncomfortable, so I forced myself to keep reading. I don't happen to be gay and when I looked at those pictures in that context, it realized that there was nothing in them to make me uncomfortable. They are drawn to attract a certain kind of reader, just like a mainstream character like Psyclocke is drawn to attract another kind of reader. I don't happen to be part of that demographic, but that doesn't mean I can't enjoy a decent sci-fi comic book.

I don't really know where I am going with this. Mostly I just wanted to say that you should all check out the Yaoi911 comics, and that it is a good thing to challenge your boundaries every once and a while.

D&D KRE-O!?

Now imagine how cool this would be with a building block line that didn't suck!

Getting the most out of your Sharknado

Last night I watched in utter fascination as a Syfy movie called 'Sharknado' lit up my television screen. The movie is about a mega storm that floods L.A., complete with a giant waterspout that sucked up thousands of sharks and proceeded to spray they all at Ian Ziering, who is more formally known as 'that blonde guy from 90210'. Tara Reid also wanders in and out of the film without much to do ... and holy crap is she looking old!

See the awesome for yourself as the blonde guy from 90210 kills a flying shark with a chainsaw!

I'm a big proponent of adding sharks to pretty much anything. Tornadoes, birthday parties, weddings, office meetings, crappy TV networks that used to be about actual science ... you name it! Sharks just make things better! This goes doubly for any rpg campaign, I don't care if its in space (space sharks!), cyperpunk (cybersharks!) or a good, old fashioned dungeon crawl (tunnel sharks!, flying sharks!), a good GM will always find a way to add a shark.

But while I was watching the movie, I thought about all the other aquatic critters in the monster manual, who almost never see any action except for the rare occasions that the player-characters are on a boat or close to shore.

ixitxachitlnado!

Why not an adventure where an evil aquatic sorceress, who has some real or imagined grudge against some coastal kingdom, so she creates a giant waterspout to rain aquatic horrors of all description down upon the land, just as the player-characters happen to be passing through?

Sure, the monsters landing in the middle of the forest won't generallly survive long, but the elf ranger scouting the land from the top of the tallest oak in the forest isn't going to be prepared for an ixitxachitl suddenly hitting her square in the face now is she?

A Fustian News Flash!

Seventh Son

The film honestly looks a little generic, but it is a reunion of Jeff Bridges and Julianne Moore so I think The Dude would approve. 

Some direct RPG Linkage
io9 has some suggestions for your Summer Campaign.

it also has a list of good digital tools for your game.

Animal Armour

TOR.com is doing a reread of Appendix N. 

MORE MIDDLEMAN!

A new graphic novel is in the works with the kickstarter due to start fourth-quarter 2013. I normally HATE when they resurrect past hits

 but this is a graphic novel ... and gosh darn it all to heck, I'd be tickled pink to see this back on TV.

and speaking of painfully neglected awesomeness...

Link

The Myth of the Dragon

Not the normal one, but the long held myth that Komodo Dragons can kill with a bite because their mouths are so filthy that infection quickly sets in. Turns out the bite is deadly because its well, venomous.

So a ten foot, poisonous lizard that isn't too fussy about what it eats. Why is this thing not in more monster manuals? Still, there is no reason to let a little science mess with your fantasy. I can think of a lot of monsters that the 'dangerously filthy mouth' myth could add a level of fear to dungeon delvers. 

Goodbye Google Reader

It was with great sadness that I had to close out my Google Reader account today. It was a simple way to get all my news (geek related and not) in one place. Not to mention that it allowed me to read many webpages at work that would have otherwise been blocked by the webnanny.

 I have transferred over to Netvibes, which is okay, but I find a touch clunky.

HAPPY CANADA DAY

Minifig Bonanza

If you can't find some good character ideas from this FLICKA SITE, you have no soul.

Flicka Stream!