Reading

Entry tags:

Fanfic: Worm/The War of the Worlds - The Martian Part IX

Continuing my Worm / War of the Worlds crossover story.

The previous chapters are archived on these sites:
On Twisting the Hellmouth - https://www.tthfanfic.org/story.php?no=33872
On AO3 - https://archiveofourown.org/works/39112812
On Fanfiction.net - https://www.fanfiction.net/s/14083560/1/The-Martian
On Spacebattles Forum - https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/the-martian-worm-the-war-of-the-worlds-au.1034761/

See chapter I for disclaimers.

( IX - Blue Mars )

Now posted to archives.

Entry tags:

Two Traveller Bundles - Exploration and Ancients

This is an offer of two bundles for Mongoose Traveller - one is a repeat, the other new (though based on a fairly old adventure).

MONGOOSE TRAVELLER EXPLORATIONS (from Nov 2022)
https://bundleofholding.com/presents/2025Explorations

TRAVELLER ANCIENTS CAMPAIGN (new)
https://bundleofholding.com/presents/TravAncients

The last time Traveller Explorations was on offer I said "OK - Traveller is probably the best-loved SF system out there, and the Mongoose version is VERY popular. You're getting a ton of stuff for your money. Need I say more? Unless you really dislike SF or the setting, or already have everything here, I'd recommend buying them."

I'm less sure about the Ancients Campaign - I was never a huge fan of the original Secrets of the Ancients, the plot was a bit linear and the eventual secret really wasn't incredibly exciting, and while it looks like there are some more plot threads to keep players busy they are definitely still going to need some nudges to keep them on the right track. Not all players LIKE long campaigns, and although this is relatively cheap it might be a good idea to sound people out before buying.

Entry tags:

Another RPG Bundle - Magical Kitties

This is a new bundle of role-playing material for the introductory RPG / Story telling game Magical Kitties Save The Day from Atlas Games:

https://bundleofholding.com/presents/MagicalKitties

Atlas Games have published some very good introductory RPGs and story telling games - this one is very much in that genre, with some fun supplements for different settings and styles of play, from film noir to alien invasions. It's never been offered in these bundles before, it's cheap, and it's being run to promote a forthcoming kickstarter for a superhero rules supplement. Better buy it, or Streaky the super-cat will spit hair-balls at you at mach 5...

Entry tags:

Another RPG Bundle - Forged in the Dark Bundle 3

This is a new bundle of independently-produced material for the popular Forged in the Dark rules-set, also including Blades in the Dark, the game that originated the system. Blades... has been in several previous bundles, the others are new.

https://bundleofholding.com/presents/Forge3rd

The mood of these ranges from zany comic-book comedy to gritty crime realism, heroic and not so heroic fantasy, and far-futures cyberpunks and transhumans. If you like more than one of the genres it's worth buying the whole bundle, you'll save money.

File Permissions?

When I replaced my Windows box earlier this year I kept the hard drive from the old Windows 10 computer on the assumption that I might at some stage need to access some file or use some software that isn't on the new machine. Documents should have been OK because I did copy everything across. But yesterday this actually came up - I needed a document that I couldn't find, put the drive into an external holder, then discovered that I couldn't get into the documents on the hard drive because it's looking for permissions which are long gone. I'm guessing that if I booted from that drive on a suitable machine I'd be able to read it, but that's not likely to happen.

Fortunately I did eventually find the file on my current PC, I'd been looking in the wrong directory with a slightly wrong file name, but I'm now wondering if there is some way to fix this if it happens again and I really do need to open documents. Any suggestions?

Entry tags:

Another RPG Bundle - Worlds Without Number

This is a bundle of the RPG Worlds Without Number by Kevin Crawford from Sine Nomine publishing, a far-future sword-and-sorcery RPG:

https://bundleofholding.com/presents/WorldsWithoutNumber

While this is the first bundle devoted exclusively to this game, the full rules were previously in the Sine Nomine rulebooks bundle from 2023, and a free version with some parts omitted is available on line. This bundle does add the atlas and a campaign setting, and seems to be pretty good value - it isn't really my sort of thing but if you like far future fantasy it's probably worth a look.