Recent content by Dioltach

It's the closest thing I've ever read to how my group plays D&D.

Somewhere in Scotland there was a grave marked "Little John". I can't remember exactly when it was - somewhere I might have photocopy of the research I did at university - but I think it was in the late Middle Ages when they opened the grave. The skeleton was of someone with dwarfism, but...

Maid Marian wasn't originally part of the Robin Hood stories. She comes from the tradition of French pastoral poetry about the shepherd Robin and the country lass Marian. When those works crossed over to England, "Robin" became confused with Robin from the Robin Hood legends, and so Robin Hood...

I like the AT-AT's crossing the mountain pass, but this trailer could easily be a collection of scenes from a new season of The Mandalorian. I'm still going to watch it, of course.

Do I go back to it again and again? Do I still enjoy it all those times, for reasons other than nostalgia and/or comfort reading/watching/playing? Books like LotR, Jeeves & Wooster and Earthsea, movies like The Good, the Bad & the Ugly, Casablanca and the LotR trilogy, games like Planescape...

I always thought the "Clone Wars" thing in the prequels was a huge miss. I'm pretty sure the mention in Ep. 4 was just a throw-away line: "You served my father during the Clone Wars." Sounds cool and mysterious, and in a few words implies a vast history. But here's the thing. The clones fought...

Here's something else that most people don't know about JRR Tolkien: the J stands for "Jive".

Have you listened to the audiobooks of LotR as read by Andy Serkis? He brings the dialogue to life.

I recently read one of the new Conan books, and was struck by something similar. Conan takes beating after beating, but in between each he miraculously heals. He starts each phase of the fight as fresh as a daisy. It annoyed me, because one thing I enjoy about sword & sorcery is the grittiness...

I bet the people on that overpass were glad it happened when it did, and not a few more metres along.

I'm pretty sure I saw him last time I was in Glasgow.

I have Roar on DVD. One day it will be worth money.

And you'd have a much harder time marketing "single-origin Guildford greenhouse".

I grew up with The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. I'm the youngest of four, and our dad would read to us every night all through autumn, winter and spring. So we had Tolkien, but also Earthsea, The Dark Is Rising and The Weirdstone of Brisingamen. And probably more that I can't remember right...

A positive recommendation: Nemesis. It's perhaps a little removed from the more traditional "RPG" boardgames, but it feels very narrative, very cinematic. It's essentially "Alien". My character died in round three, but I watched my friends play for another hour and a half and wasn't bored for a...