Owl & Weasel Wednesdays: Owl & Weasel Index

Here is an index of all the Owl & Weasel reviews I did over the last year and some change.

O&W #1 April 1975
O&W #2 May 1975
O&W #3 April 1975
O&W #4 May 1975
O&W #5 June 1975
O&W #6 July 1975
O&W #7 August 1975
O&W #8 September 1975
O&W #9 October 1975
O&W #10 November 1975
O&W #11 December 1975
O&W #12 January 1976
O&W #13 February 1976
O&W #14 March 1976
O&W #15 April 1976
O&W #16 May 1976
O&W #17 June 1976
O&W #18 September 1976
O&W #19 October 1976
O&W #20 November 1976
O&W #21 December 1976
O&W #22 January 1977
O&W #23 February 1977
O&W #24 March 1977
O&W #25 April 1977

Here is the index for all the White Dwarf posts.

Bundle of Holding: Unisystem

Many  of you know about the Bundle of Holding.  Well the newest one features Unisystem powered games which are some of my favorites.

http://bundleofholding.com/index/current/name/Unisystem

Here are five games in the starter collection:

• Conspiracy X 2.0 (retail $17.50): UFO conspiracy in the post-9/11 world. As an agent of Aegis, you're our best hope against the alien threat.
• CJ Carella's WitchCraft (free): The magical Gifted have been persecuted for centuries. Now, join with your coven-mates to shape the modern world. WitchCraft was the first Unisystem game.
• Armageddon: The End Times (retail price $15): The Apocalypse has arisen, but not the way anyone predicted. Play as an angel, a demon, or a mortal brave enough to challenge a god.
• Ghosts of Albion (retail $5): Explore occult Victorian London in this complete RPG (widely regarded as the best version of the Cinematic Unisystem rules) inspired by the 2003 BBCi series co-created by Amber Benson.
• Terra Primate: Savage adventure in a world where Man is the missing link.

I have gone on and on about my love for these games. Admittedly I am biased.

WitchCraft might just be my most favorite game of all time. In my mind WitchCraft is the perfect game, it has everything I have ever needed in a game.

Armageddon is a "sequel" to WitchCraft. It extends the myths and expands the system to include some greater supernaturals and more metaphysics.  Armageddon isn't a "post apocalyptic" game, you are in the middle of the Apocalypse right now and you have a chance to send the world in a completely new direction.

Conspiracy X 2,.0 updates 90s paranoia to a post 9/11 world. Written by Dave Chapman (of Doctor Who fame) it uses the same system as WC/Arm but presents a very different sort of world.

Terra Primate also uses the same Classic Unisystem rules as WitchCraft, Armageddon, Con X and All Flesh Must Be Eaten.  In this game though all the characters are (or can be) intelligent apes.  Think Planet of the Apes.  Really great and  underrated game.

Ghosts of Albion.  What else can I say about this game?  It's my baby, my magnum opus.  I love that they mention that is is "widely regarded as the best version of the Cinematic Unisystem rules".  If WitchCraft is my favorite game Classic Unisystem game then this is my favorite Cinematic Unisystem game.  In fact I have often said that Ghosts of Albion is my love letter to WitchCraft.

The bonus books are really, really awesome.

• Conspiracy X Paranormal Sourcebook (retail $17.50): Alien vs. ghost -- who wins? With your luck, you'll be squaring off against them both.
• Conspiracy X Extraterrestrials Sourcebook (retail $17.50): Planning a close encounter with alien invaders? This is the Conspiracy X sourcebook you need.
• Mystery Codex (retail $11.50): New WitchCraft skills, powers, metaphysics, and, above all, vampires.
• Abomination Codex (retail $8): More skills, powers, metaphysics, secret organizations, voodoo magic, and -- because the vampires weren't enough -- were-creatures.

The Con X source books will work with the WitchCraft/Arm ones and visa versa. You just have to figure out how to get the myths of both worlds to interact.
Mystery Codex and Abomination codex are also long out of print, so getting these PDFs is the only way you can get the books now.

So if you don't have these books yet now is a great time to check them out.

I give ALL of them my highest recommendations.
Plus 10% of your contribution goes to the American Cancer Society.  So there is that.

http://bundleofholding.com/index/current/name/Unisystem

Listserv - Going, Gone

It was going to happen sooner or later, I have to admit it was much, much later than I ever would have thought.

I just got this email from Wizards of the Coast regarding the listserv emails.

Hello!

On February 15, 2015, Wizards of the Coast will terminate our LISTSERV
system that manages this (and other) mailing lists. We've watched the usage
of these mailing lists dwindle due to the rise of other communication
platforms, such as forums and social media. Given this decreased usage, we
have made the decision that it was time to turn them off.

Please take these two weeks to back up or archive any emails you wish to
keep. After February 15, 2015, they will no longer be available and these
lists will cease to function.

—Wizards of the Coast

So the communication tool that began with MPGN.com (remember that?) and once was the primary voice of TSR (and later WotC) on the internet is now slipping away to join other relics of the 90s tech like the TSR pages on AOL  and Compuserv.

Frankly I am surprised they were still active, though the MYSTARA-L list was pretty much active the entire time I have been on it. That dates back to the early 90s.

So I don't have a good song to toast the life and death of the Listserv, so the Dropkick Murphys will have to do.   Going out in style.



BTW. Anyone know who the girl is this video?  The one in the screen grab above.

Satanic Panic!

I am fascinated with with the Satanic Panic of the early 80s.  Partially because I lived through it but also as someone who isn't religious I found the whole "panic" to be very confusing.
Here is an article that covers part of it.  D&D makes brief cameo.

A Brief History Of "Satanic Panic" In The 1980s

To get an idea of how serious people took this stuff here are a few other posts I made with links to articles and videos.

http://timbrannan.blogspot.com/2014/04/a-to-z-of-witches-o.html,  Turmoil in the Toybox videos.
Here is a direct link to the D&D video (starting around 3:30)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWcH7Vd-N_0

http://timbrannan.blogspot.com/2014/03/friday-video-satanism-unmasked-dungeons.html
http://timbrannan.blogspot.com/2010/02/wait-is-it-1982-again-more-anti-d-crap.html

And a few other videos I have watched, but not otherwise shared.


I LOVE that he used my Mystery Science Theater 3000 version of the cover of Dark Dungeons track.  It is too bad that no more of this series was produced.  I also got a kick out some of the picture of old D&D stuff.  He had another series on his older account. https://www.youtube.com/user/Godlesspanther/videos
The first one is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jPMtVjg636E (the production values are a bit low).
There is a playlist by another user of all these videos, warning there is a lot of crazy here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jPMtVjg636E&list=PL641BF52EF9FA5963

I have to admit my own (at the time) anti-theism influenced my early D&D games.  So lots of undead, demons and (you guessed it) witches.  An immature reaction? Yeah. of course! But I was a teen at the time; by definition, immature.

It has though been fruitful in one respect, I have a ton of material that I wrote back then that I'd love to pull out sometime.

Zatannurday: Zatanna Bishoujo Statue

Once again, I have to give a shout out to my buddy Calvin up at the Cave of Cool for finding this for me.

It is not due out till late September of 2015.  But I am thinking pre-ordering is a good idea.

I noticed there was a Batwoman one as well.  But I can't justify getting two. I can barely justify getting one!  At least there is a good reason for Zatanna to be wearing high-heeled boots; she is a stage performer and this is a costume.  Batwoman should be wearing red combat boots.

Links
http://news.toyark.com/2015/01/15/dc-comics-ztanna-statue-fully-revealed-148340
http://calvinscanadiancaveofcool.blogspot.com/2015/01/kotobukiya-dc-comics-bishoujo-statue.html
http://www.amazon.com/Kotobukiya-DC-020-Zatanna-Comics-Bishoujo/dp/B00SCK4T8E/

Friday Night Videos: Werewolves

This is something I wanted to start the year off with, but for some reason didn't get it set up.

Maybe it is the age I started playing or the time, but there was a strange alchemy that has forever link D&D (and most RPGs) and music together for me.  When I was in Jr. High we would not start playing until we saw at least one Iron Maiden video on the then commercial free MTV.  And in High School it was through D&D that I was introduced to scores of new bands and music that I remain a fan of to this day.

So it is with that in mind that I introduce my newest weekly feature.
Friday Night Videos.  I'll post a couple of videos, maybe around a theme, and talk about how they tied into my games.  I won't just focus on the 80s, though there will be a lot of that, nor will my focus be purely D&D related.

For my first post I want to include a video that I first saw on the show "Friday Night Videos" on NBC back in the day.  Just like the original, I'll have this up on Friday nights at 11:30 PM Central time.

First up is Ozzy Osbourne with the title track from his 1983 album, Bark at the Moon.
Honestly to this day I can write about werewolves and NOT think about this video.  I put this album on repeat when I was working on the monster section of Ghosts of Albion.



My Jr. High DM introduced me to Ozzy and my High School DM introduced me to Rush.
Of course the song has more to do with paranoia (and Paranoia) and a police state, I took it more literally as an enemy within yourself.  From 1984's Grace Under Pressure, "The Enemy Within".



Finally. Really how can we talk about werewolves and not include Warren Zevon's classic.
Excitable Boy was one of those albums that my DM threw at me and told me I had to listen to it before I came back for our next game (we were doing the Slave Lords adventures then).  The album is fantastic and it is almost regrettable that people usually only know "Werewolves of London".  You do get people that know about "Lawyers, Guns and Money", but most don't know what album it is from.   "Lawyers, Guns and Money" of course I used in my Buffy/Angel games.

"Werewolves of London" is honored in my games a number of ways but the most obvious is my vampire run strip club Mayfairs.



So what songs remind you of gaming?  Put in your requests below and I might pick them up on next weeks Friday Night Videos!  (People posting on Friday nights get to move to the front of the request lines).

Return to Dolmvay

So on a whim (and to celebrate the fact I sold like 6 print copies of the Witch in December) I spent some of my hard earned freelancer money on +Pete Spahn's  hardcover of the Guidebook to the City of Dolmvay (Special Edition).

Sorry for the blur on the spine.  But I wanted to show that this is a thick book.

What I have said in my earlier review of the PDF version still applies here.
The font size is larger than I expected. This is both good and bad. Good for my Grognard eyes but a smaller book might have been nice too.  In the end, I think it is a good thing.

The book will look great on my "OSR" shelf.  It will help build up that shared world idea I have.

So what makes this the "Special Edition"? Well it includes the adventure "Oak Grove Whispers" adventure for 1st to 3rd level characters.  The pdf of this adventure lists at $4.95, so to including this in the special edition is a real treat.

The book really nice to be honest.  A nice hefty tome at 261 pages. If you want to see what it looks like, grab the PDF, it is Pay What You Want.

Still want to make a Witch Cover for it.  Now that I have the Oak Grove adventure I have some better ideas.