Search Results for: Dungeons and dragons

New Treasures: Dungeons & Dragons Into the Unknown: The Dungeon Survival Handbook

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I don’t get to play D&D as much as I’d like these days. Which means that my enjoyment of the latest supplements chiefly depends on how fun they are to read. By that measure, Into the Unknown: The Dungeon Survival Handbook is one of the best books to come from Wizards of the Coast in a while. What makes this one stand out? On the surface it’s pretty lightweight, described as A guide for players and Dungeon Masters who want to…

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The Greatest City in Fantasy: Lankhmar, City of Adventure by Bruce Nesmith, Doug Niles, and Ken Rolston

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Lankhmar, City of Adventure (TSR, 1985). Cover by the legend Keith Parkinson I would like to round out my posts on tabletop RPG city supplements with my personal favorite: Lankhmar, City of Adventure, which is the home of Fritz Lieber’s Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser. Published in 1985 by TSR for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, this book was written by Bruce Nesmith, Doug Niles, and Ken Rolston. The cover art is by the legend, Keith Parkinson, and the interior art…

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Revisiting Mordenkainen’s Fantastic Adventure by Rob Kuntz and Gary Gygax

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Mordenkainen’s Fantastic Adventure by Rob Kuntz and Gary Gygax (TSR, 1984) and Dungeon Magazine 112 (Paizo, July 2004). Covers by Clyde Caldwell, Wayne Reynolds As we approach the 50th anniversary of Dungeons & Dragons, I recalled and located Dungeon Magazine #112, published by Paizo, which was released for the 30th anniversary of D&D. This issue featured a retread of the classic AD&D World of Greyhawk adventure module, Mordenkainen’s Fantastic Adventure, by Rob Kuntz and Gary Gygax. It was updated by…

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Talking Tolkien: The Architects of Modern Fantasy, Tolkien and Norton – by Ruth de Jauregui

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Talking Tolkien is back for another installment and Ruth de Jauregui brings in another Fantasy giant, the great Andre Norton. Those DAW paperbacks are classics. Read on! The influences of J.R.R. Tolkien and Andre Norton fill the world of speculative fiction and, while the genre existed before and after both authors, their works have forever shaped new authors and the flow of the modern fantasy novel. Tolkien forged the modern rendition of the epic journey tale that has its roots…

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Ellsworth’s Cinema of Swords: Banditti!

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The Bandits of Corsica (USA, 1953) After the turkeys we covered in the previous Cinema of Swords article, it’s good to get back to something fun, in this case three films about bandits and brigands. We watch these, of course, because bandits are basically land pirates, and everybody loves a good pirate movie! Sword-swinging, wise-cracking outlaw heroes are always welcome, especially when played by Richard Greene, the 1950s Robin Hood, learning the outlaw ropes here in two films that preceded…

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Bob’s Books – Shelfie #4: Shared Universes – Thieves World, and Heroes in Hell

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I’ve done three shelfies posts. If you missed those (shame on you!), I’ve been posting shelfies, with comments on some of the books, over in a bookshelf subreddit. With over 2,000 physical books, I’ve got a lot of shelves. And to me, if you’re talking about a shared universe, you gotta start out with Thieves World. I own a (non-RPG/comics) almost complete library; including one few folks know about, let alone have. THIEVES WORLD The first Thieves World book came…

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Random Reviews: “The Great Hunt,” by Elaine Cunningham

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Elaine Cunningham’s “The Great Hunt” appeared in the April 1998 issue of Dragon, which ran one fantasy story in each issue of widely varying quality. The best of them were original tales, but many of them were clearly fictionalizations of the author’s role playing game. “The Great Hunt” falls between these two extremes, but it is clearly a story based on Dungeons and Dragons with its cast of Orcs, Half-Orcs, Elves, and humans. Set in Ed Greenwood’s Forgotten Realms, the…

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Ellsworth’s Cinema of Swords: Musashi and Kojiro

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I recently finished reading Eiji Yoshikawa’s long, 1,500-page novel, Musashi, originally serialized in Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun between 1935 and 1939. It tells a fictionalized story of the early life of Musashi Miyamoto, the celebrated author of The Book of Five Rings who is considered by many the finest exemplar of Bushido, the warrior code of the samurai. It was a good read, which was no surprise — the book has sold far more than 100 million copies, and its…

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Ellsworth’s Cinema of Swords: Alexandre/Alexander

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William Shatner in Alexander the Great (USA, 1968) To explain the title: this week we’re covering a lesser-known version of Alexandre Dumas’ Three Musketeers, plus a movie about Alexander the Great. If this seems like a weak pretext for a Cinema of Swords article theme, you’re right — mea culpa, it’s a fair cop, I’m busted. The fact is, I was desperate for an excuse to bring you a review of an obscure adventure film about Alexander the Great that…

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Ellsworth’s Cinema of Swords: Blood-Red and Blind – The Crimson Bat

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The Crimson Bat (Japan, 1969) Here’s a pretty decent samurai series even I wasn’t aware of until recently: the Crimson Bat, four films starring Yoko Matsuyama as the eponymous hero. Moreover, all four movies are now relatively easy to find, available on YouTube with good English subtitles. There aren’t enough chambara movies with female heroes, in my opinion, so I was pleased to discover these — and hopefully, you’ll be pleased as well.