Timothy S. Brannan
Stephanie Vale is 5'5" tall.Not short, but not exactly physically imposing either. Yet when Stephanie walks into a room, everyone notices. More importantly, they relax. She has the sort of presence that fills the room beyond her 5 feet 5 inches, and she makes people feel, "Ok, good, Stephanie is...
Timothy S. Brannan
Today's prompt is Discipline.The daily discipline of writing mirrors the witch’s discipline of spellcraft, where one missed word can turn a charm into a curse.I try to write every day. I often take the weekend off, but I still do a lot of writing. I honestly just can't stop. I see the same quality...
Timothy S. Brannan
I love public domain and open source characters.More specifically, I love characters that creators can pick up, reinterpret, remix, and send off in completely new directions.I have a particular fondness for the kind of character a creator can take in hand, put my own spin on, and send off down an...
Timothy S. Brannan
One of the central design ideas behind Advanced Witches & Warlocks is something that, in retrospect, seems obvious to me.The Witch is not a Magic-User in a black dress. She is also not a Cleric with better eyeliner.I have joked about that distinction before, but there is a real design issue...
Timothy S. Brannan
What's on the tabloid news racks at your local grocery store in August of 1985? Jackson, IL is not ready for this! This is gold for my Jackson, IL NIGHT SHIFT Night World and Weirdly World News introduced in the Night Companion. Article text. SATANIC LESBIAN WITCHES INVADE SALEM, ORE! Is...
Timothy S. Brannan
I am back from EGG Con this past weekend, and it was fantastic. I sold a lot of books and played a few games. Heidi Gygax Garland and Erik Garland did a hell of a good job with the Con. Reminds me of Gary Con in its early days. It is kind of small, but I hope it grows; it is really a great...
Timothy S. Brannan
The Satanic Panic and the Secret Appeal of Forbidden BooksI am currently reading Manly Wade Wellman for my Witches of Appendix N. He has a lot of occult investigators and talks a lot about dangerous occult texts. There is a strange magic to being told a book is dangerous.Not real magic. Not the...
Timothy S. Brannan
Last week, my brother shared a Facebook Marketplace find with me: some Joseph Campbell books, the Historical Atlas of World Mythology. I wnted to grab them but have been burned on Facebook Marketplace in the past. So I did what one does: I went to eBay. I saw several good candidates, but I didn't...
Timothy S. Brannan
Despite its smallish size, my old hometown had three high schools. There was the public school, Jacksonville High School (JHS), the Catholic school, Routt, and Westfair Christian Academy. But there was also a fourth one. Or more accurately, a first one. The Newton Bateman High School was the home...
Timothy S. Brannan
Larina Stephanie Nichols at 16 On Monday, I talked about Larina and her genesis in 1986 and before. On Friday, I am going to talk about the character's future. So today I thought, what about the present? What is Larina doing right now, and how does she affect my game design? So *who* is the Larina...
Timothy S. Brannan
The Witch Queen and the Girl in Homeroom: What I Learned from Forty Years of One Character I created Larina in July, 1986. That sentence feels simple enough, but it carries a lot of weight. It means she has been with me through six editions of D&D, most of high school, college games, new...
Timothy S. Brannan
At the start of the week, I posted about Horror Movie rules and the Final Girl. The topic of the Steven Jackson Games Magazine's Slasher Flick came up. I had never played that, but I did know about the RPG Slasher Flick: Director's Cut from Spectrum Games. I went back to Slasher Flick to see what...
Timothy S. Brannan
Candy and Denise, in trouble again.Jackson, IL is a place where 1980s horror rules apply.I just finished watching "In Search of Darkness" on Tubi, and it was wonderful. It is about 4 and a half hours long and covers movies from every year of the 1980s. There are some fantastic movies, wonderful...