The Many Coloured House Blog Update

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I've had the time to return to my blog again after a fair hiatus. I've had to switch to the 'new blogger' which apparently means the RSS has changed slightly. If you were previously following it, you may not have seen the new posts.

On May 25th, I posted a big list of Ancient Near Eastern Fiction (and yes, even made a mention of @RichardAbbott !)
http://egunnu.blogspot.com/2020/05/what-books-can-i-read-to-inspire-my.html

On June 7th, I posted the first part of a report, immortalized in song in part by Vangelis, of the Mythic Babylon campaign run by John of Patmos back in the day. I mentioned @clash_bowley in this one. Hope to get to you all, one day. Part 2 "Apocalypse" is coming up this weekend.
http://egunnu.blogspot.com/2020/06/campaign-report-john-of-patmos-mythic.html

Comments

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    Yes, I've been meaning to say thanks for the mention, but it's another of those items which hadn't quite got to the top of the stack of things I'd like to do. Hence my reply here in the group. (I shall be mightily relieved when lockdown ends and the present treadmill-like round of jobs slackens).

    I would - in theory - like to write another novel set back in the Late Bronze / Iron Age transition, and have an idea based around the tin trade in Cornwall. However, I am thoroughly enjoying writing in the near-future science-fiction world of Far from the Spaceports, and with the aforementioned lack of time I'm struggling to make much progress with that. Ah well.

    BTW I also really enjoyed reading your account of the Mythic Babylon campaign :)
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    By the way, the first link doesn't work but I found it from the second.
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    That sounded like a truly epic campaign! I can see how a well-constructed sourcebook would make that kind of setting fairly easy to run, with lots of setting elements to draw on. A good read, thanks.

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    Someone at the Mitchester Arms complained that many published CoC scenarios had too much information in them, and Mike Mason defended this by saying that these are intended to be toolboxes and people can draw what they want from them and ignore the rest. And some people want all the detail, while others don’t. A detailed book can be used by both groups, but a sparse book only by one of them.

    Mythic Babylon is also a big toolbox book. The description of that campaign shows how you can take ‘story’ (in this case, a prophecy - the biblical Book of Revelations) and use the information in the toolbox to skin it into an adventure.
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    @Apocryphal said:
    Someone at the Mitchester Arms complained that many published CoC scenarios had too much information in them, and Mike Mason defended this by saying that these are intended to be toolboxes and people can draw what they want from them and ignore the rest. And some people want all the detail, while others don’t. A detailed book can be used by both groups, but a sparse book only by one of them.

    That's a good point, but some toolboxes are easier to read than others. I don't know if you've read New Fire yet, but I bounced off it. There's a lot of detail in there, but it's hard to tease out what's what. In contrast, the GoO Tékumel book gave a good introduction to an equally-different fantasy world.

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