What’s Up?

After that nice foreword-posting vacation from blogging, I’m having some trouble getting back into the swing of things.  It doesn’t help that the Undisclosed Workplace is embroiled in beginning-of-semester scrambles, or that there’s a big storm due to hit tomorrow before, while, or after I go to work.

I finished my last exercise reading, Budge’s Amulets and Talismans, a few days ago, and finally picked up The Secret Lore of Magic by Idries Shah.  I’d dipped into it in the past to extract information about particular grimoires.  So far, it’s been a farrago of really interesting stuff, gross distortions, conflation of material from different historical materials, and unsupported assertions.  I know I have to cover it for any potential grimoire-related project I have coming up.

On the GURPS front, we’ve given over the superhero game for one set in feudal Japan.   Having learned my lesson by playing an unintelligent mute hulk, I’ve picked a character who’s intelligent and articulate.  She’s a mighty wizard/monk who dresses like a man so the nearsighted chauvinistic spirit of the mountain won’t take away her powers.  I spared the GM the indignity of having to interpret actual I Ching readings conducted during the game, however.

Our D&D game has been intermittent, and I’ve been running my own in the slots between.  I have to say I’m enjoying it – a shock to some of you who might think the game is the devil.  The characters are basically small-town heroes investigating the surrounding lands, which are modeled after medieval northern Europe if Mithraism had become the dominant faith and the elves were agnostic pagans.  I’ve tossed together bits of Greek and Roman Necromancy, legends of Faerie, the Brothers Grimm, M. Night Shyalaman’s The Village, Chinese Ghost Story 2, and lots of spiders to make what I hope is a small-scale, roleplay-heavy,  mystery-solving game.  I’ve promised to run the same group through Delta Green later, so we’ll see how long that lasts.

I’ve got at least three books I’d like to discuss, plus Testament stuff, plus a requested post, plus whatever else comes to mind.  I’ll be back tomorrow when I feel less tired.