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Robert Jackson Bennett has been one of my favorite authors for a while now. His fantasy worlds are realized in stunning detail, with rich characters and intricately woven plots. His latest book, The Tainted Cup, a fantasy murder mystery that kicks off his new Shadow of the Leviathan series, is no exception.

In which we semi-automate an annoying production task away with the powers of Python, curiousity, and ADHD hyperfocus.

After 14 years away, I’m back to living that OmniFocus lifestyle. Way back when, before I had received my formal diagnosis for ADHD, I bounced between so many task management systems with excitement as I struggled to get control over my life.

Today, I’d like to tell you about Yellowface by R.F. Kuang. I finished this one a few weeks ago, and I’ve found that the more I’ve marinated on it, my feelings about it have changed.

As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve recently come down with a case of the mind-virus that is Obsidian. I was infected by the dastardly Daniel Rodriguez, whose dark exploits are well known.

I try to post cool new arrivals from Kickstarters and pre-orders when they arrive, usually to my Mastodon account,1 but with the business at work and with the podcast it slipped past me.

I feel like “migrating to a different static site generator” is the new “installing a new Linux distro.” It’s something nerds do for almost no reason besides curiosity, boredom, and perhaps no small amount of masochism.

A few months ago, I came across this post by Simone Silvestroni explaining how they implemented a styled and human-readable RSS feed for their Jekyll-powered blog. I really liked the idea and wanted to implement it on my own site for browsers that don’t automatically offer to subscribe to a given feed.

If you haven’t been following the ongoing saga of incredible grift in the so-called web3 space, I highly recommend checking out the work being done by Molly White, whose site Web3 is going just great is a shocking timeline of the various scams and hacks occurring constantly within the broader “crypto” market.

Here’s the scenario: you’ve got an actual play TTRPG podcast, and you want to invite a guest onto your show for a special appearance. This is a great idea! It’s delightful to collaborate with other creators, and you can learn so much simply by working with new people.

I wrote recently about receiving my backer copy of Monster Care Squad, which is a Ghibli-inspired RPG about the people caring for the magical monsters that once protected their communities from a terrible illness.

A few GDPR rulings have recently been handed down that are going to be causing major shakeups across a number of sites and services. This year’s off to a wild start.

The truth is that I am just a very referential writer. And my problem is that I’ve got a very Catholic taste. There’s a hell of a lot of Bible stuff in there too.

So you’re getting ready to kick off a campaign for your gaming group? Before you even get started, ask yourself: are you looking to create a campaign that will simply be fun, or one that your players will be talking about for years to come?

It’s been a wild first six months for those of us at Explorers Wanted, and we’ve been humbled and astounded by our growing community of listeners. I love making our show, and talking with our fans has been a delight.

It isn’t news to anyone that I’m a big fan of Numenera. It is my favorite game to run and I will shamelessly hype for it to anyone who will listen.

When all the archetypes shamelessly burst in, we plumb Homeric depths. Two clichés are laughable. A hundred clichés are affecting–because we become obscurely aware that the clichés are talking to one another and holding a get-together.

I’ve posted a new short story in Ye Olde Fiction section. This one’s for anyone who’s felt alien, and trapped by the weight of their own feelings. It’s also a reminder that those feelings can have power, even if it manifests in unexpected ways.

Last Tuesday, I wrapped up a two-month introductory adventure for Invisible Sun. It was my first time running the game, and all my players were new to it as well. One other had also backed the original Kickstarter, but this was his first opportunity to play.

The NYT recently ran a wonderfully in-depth story covering the history of women in coding. The issue of note for the article is that in the beginning of computer science the gender balance among programmers was basically equal.