First, this is a mighty handy resource: a list of not a few OSR AD&D (1e) modules you can get for free or close to it. Imagine you picked up the reprints of the original AD&D rulebooks that WoTC will be distributing in April, and you say to yourself, “well, what do I do with this crazy game?” Here. Also entries and winners of the One Page Dungeon ( Read more... )

bldgblog is always worth reading, but this latest post is dungeon delving gold:

No one knows how many underground cities lie beneath Cappadocia. Eight have been discovered, and many smaller villages, but there are doubtless more. The biggest, Derinkuyu, wasn’t discovered until 1965, when a resident cleaning the back wall of his cave house broke ( Read more... )

or; The Rats in the Walls.

So, the Indian National Library has just been found to house a sealed secret room, 1000 square feet in area? That nobody noticed before? I think it might have migrated from Cologne last year. They're wondering if there are skeletons or treasures inside. I'm betting it's filled with mysterious toxic gas, India's missing ( Read more... )

This is a fantastically interesting article about the Barnes gallery in Philadelphia, which is apparently being picked apart and its pedigreed works rehoused. I never visited it and I'm kicking myself now, because the gallery sounds like a really interesting gesamtwerk - an arrangement of artworks that was itself an artwork, and that has now been ( Read more... )

So even though this is short, it's spoilery. If you've been living under a rock.

Best things about the film: the weather and Lang's house, ostensibly on Martha's Harbor but actually in Usedom, on the German-Polish border.* This piece of mid-century brutalism throws us straight back to North By Northwest and continues the (at very least) 50 year old ( Read more... )

Oh My God.
With enormous and heartfelt thanks to cdk: Excerpts from Expert Judgment on Markers to Deter Inadvertent Human Intrusion into the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, Sandia National Laboratories report.

The place should not suggest shelter, protection or nurture...it should suggest that it is not a place for dwelling, nor for ( Read more... )

Red Hook Grain Terminal, a contribution to Concrete Atlantis. Also, Sayreville power plant, and one reason I'd like to get into all those water pumping stations.

Another film I won't be showing on the 18th: The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (scroll down for colour frenzy).

During its first several decades, the VOC carried a bunch of boats in kit form aboard ( Read more... )

Remember those awesome parkour bits in the last 2 Bond films? This is an action movie all about parkour. The stars are founders of parkour and professional martial artists, and they commit absolutely to showing off what they do. You'll probably like this. Also, Luc Besson wanted to do a film like The Killer. Liked that? You'll probably like this. ( Read more... )

...for things that suggest their own undoing. Specifically, why do cannon forts always look like they're in the process of blowing up?

I understand the theory behind them, but I can't help thinking that the engineers of 18th century Hamburg, Geneva etc just thought their cities would look cool on the map if they were covered with spikes.

While I'm ( Read more... )

We're back in the realm of morals in games again. I won't bore you with my current positions on that (which are changing every time I look at the question), but just note that this time the discussion went in the direction of "the goblin village." As in, "what do you think of heroes that sack the goblin village, women, children and all?" And the ( Read more... )