Skullsword's Tower

Monday, July 16, 2012

Sunday, July 8, 2012

Monday, July 2, 2012

Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Happy 40th Birthday Atari - R.I.P.

Monday, June 25, 2012

Miniatures Monday - Manchego!

Manchego and his gang rides again!

"There is two kinds of mens in de worlds. Those what is Manchego and those what is not Manchego. You hombre, is not Manchego."

Sunday, June 24, 2012

The (Ultima)te Adventure

I was feeling nostalgic today, so I hopped in the Wayback machine, set the controls for 1981 and went back to playing Ultima I.

I found myself in the magical land of Sosaria...

That castle sure looked promising, so I went to see the King.

Sadly, the castle was a bit underwhelming. Maybe he was King of the Hobos? The King gave me a rather vague quest, and I headed to town to equip myself.

The town was a little better than the castle, but that wasn't saying much. I decided to head off into the wilderness in search of a different town.

Along the way, I saw a giant squid.

Though beset by adversaries, I reached another town.

It wasn't much better.

So I figured I would try searching dungeons for treasure.

It was very dark.

There were skeletons...

...and Luchadores in dresses.

All in all it was a very enjoyable afternoon! :-)

Monday, June 18, 2012

Miniatures Monday

Mohag the Wanderer explores the Shrine of Skulls!

Monday, June 11, 2012

Miniatures Monday

A mighty berserker wields his deadly axe.

Thursday, June 7, 2012

Yet another of my favorite authors has died, and along with him a bit of my youth. Ray Bradbury was the eternal optimist. No grim, dark, gritty futures for him. His visions were of hope and possibility, and not just about the future, but about life in general. My favorite of his books, "Dandelion Wine", contains no trace of science fiction, and in fact no trace of the fantastical at all, unless you consider, as he did, life itself to be fantastic. It is a book that resonates with me many years after I first read it in those sunny days of my youth. I'm just old enough to remember those days before personal computers and video games, where long summer nights were spent sitting on the front porch with my grandparents chatting with people who just "stopped by". Old enough to remember hunting for ancient treasures in the basement of my great grandmother's house, or wandering the overgrown paths of "The Woods" behind my grandpartents' house. Those woods, much reduce today by the coming of a Wal-Mart, were in truth not that large even back then, but they seemed to me as grand as any eleven forest. As boundless and mysterious as Toklien's Mirkwood, and as fraught with peril too. I can remember waiting eagerly for the fair to come to town and how its sounds and smells and bright lights seemed to draw the whole town to it. The excitement bargain hunting at all of the long gone shops on Main Street during Sidewalk Sales. My youth while separated from his by fifty years, still seems to hold echoes of those long lost summers that he wrote about. Bradbury's works covered the broad spectrum of what has come to be known as speculative fiction, but the underlying theme of his work was always love. All summers must end, but we can keep alive the memories of their past warmth. Bradbury cannot be replaced, but I hope that future generations of writers will take up some part of his mantle and remember the importance of love and hope in their writing.

Monday, June 4, 2012

He wishes to discuss terms of our surrender...

On this day 30 years ago, the greatest of the Star Trek films was released. I can still remember seeing this in the theater and the shock I felt at the ending. Kirk's arrogance came back to bite him for the first time with real consequences. All he had to do was raise the shields. It's hard to believe that it's been so long.