Jeff Grubb's Blog, page 21

The Political Desk - And The Rest

 Now we're getting really down into the weeds - these are small offices, rarely well-paid or well-regarded, but vital to the functioning of the community at a local level. And the thing is, these are positions which probably have more direct impact on your immediate community and how your vote has more of an effect, since the voting pool is smaller.

First up, the School Board.

Kent School District No. 415, Director District No. 4 Awale Farah walks in with a good resume, a solid background in the community (yes, I'm going to recommend someone from the Kiwanis Club), and a strong endorsements. His opponent in a Q&A with the Kent Reporter is concerned that teachers are exposed to Critical Race Theory. Kent is the most diverse city in the state, so, yeah, let's not expose people to equality. Anyway, go with Awale Farah.

Kent School District No. 415, Director District No. 5. This one is a little easier on the soul. This blog has endorsed Tim Clark before for the position, and he gets good marks both as a former councilperson and a former teacher. I like putting teachers on the school board. Ms. Franklin has good chops as a representative of the communities they serve, but I have to give Mr. Clark the edge. The Q&A with the Kent Reporter is here.

Then there are the Special Purpose Districts- which involve water, sewers, and the local hospitals. I am usually grasping at straws at this point, relying on what reporting is available as well as the Voter's Guide. And what I have said in previous elections.

Soos Creek Water and Sewer District Commissioner Position No. 4 - Gail Anderson gave me nothing to work with for the Voters' Guide, so I'm going with incumbent Darold Stroud.

Soos Creek Water and Sewer District Commissioner Position No. 5 - I've recommended Logan K. Wallace before, since he's an engineer and I think that's good thing for the position. But in addition, I got a sponsored link to his campaign page on Facebook where he effectively is doing an AMA (Ask Me Anything). People came up with specific questions, and he delivered specific (sometime deeply wonky) answers. He also had the typical collection of  comments like "All Politicians are Bad" and "You showed the map in Blue! Don't you know that Blue is a communist color!" and responded like a grown-up. So. Logan K. Wallace.

Public Hospital District No. 1 Commissioner District No. 2 - Jim Griggs and Dustin Lambro are the candidates.. A while back, our local hospital, Valley Med, gave up local elected control to trustees from University of Washington Medicine, which is to say, the majority on the board are these trustees, with some elected officers. Every election we see candidates who are against this change. Dustin Lambro is against it, and says that if he cannot change it, he'll step down. I'm good with that promise. Also, lots of endorsements. So, Dustin Lambro.

Public Hospital District No. 1 Commissioner District No. 4 - Monique Taylor-Swan and Katie Bachand are the candidates. Both look good on paper, but I'm going with pro-union: Monique Taylor-Swan.

 And that's it for my ballot. Of course, there's stuff going on beyond my little patch of the Shire, so I'll mention that as well.  

More, of course, later. 

 

The Political Desk: City of Kent

The bad news is that the major Seattle papers don't really care about a suburb this far south. The GOOD news is that the Kent Reporter has done an admirable job interviewing the candidates and publishing the results. Go take a look at them and see what you like. Me? I tend to lean towards incumbents that have been doing the job well, unless I get impressed by the challenger. Elections at this level are very much a a job review, with a candidate waiting in the wings in case the job should suddenly open up. 

This year we have been deluged in mailers, all of them thankfully positive and supportive of their own candidate. The incumbents may have gotten a deal on printing, since all of them are the same size, while the challengers come in a variety of sizes. But let's get on with recommendation:

Mayor: Dana Ralph has shown she's got the chops, but I have to say I think Dawn Bennet would be a fine choice as well. Gods, I feel spoiled by competent candidates!

City of Kent Council Position Number 2: This blog does not endorse unopposed candidates as a matter of course. Satwinder Kaur is running unopposed. Pity, because if she had an opponent this blog would recommend her. 

City of Kent Council Position Number 4: Tina Trouter has done an admirable job, but Cliff Cawthon rolls in with a fistful of solid endorsements and the policy background that will help in the position.

City of Kent Council Position Number 6: I have done Brenda Fincher a disservice over the years. She has been there time after time, but has always gotten a "yeah, I guess" from this blog. Lemme give her a hearty recommendation this time. 

More later,

The Political Desk: Any Ports in a Storm

 So let's talk about the Port of Seattle. Their purview has been the airport and the docks, and so it is a pretty big deal. Over the years it has been a hotbed of minor political brushfires and scandal, and my go-to involving political shenanigans.

Not this year. Not only has the Port Authority kept its nose politically clean for a while, but  several of the challengers come across as strong candidates. In many cases, both sides have achievements they can point to, and are not political tyros. And both sides are relatively close together on matters of trade, employment, and the environment, and can point out specific instances of this. 

If anything, I would prefer to see more not on the airport, but on what they can be doing to help alleviate the global shipping crunch. One big reason - the port is too small for the mega-carries that have come online in the past decade - but even so we have ships on the water, waiting to dock. Is there a way to help take the load off LA?

I usually tend to lean towards the incumbents in cases like this. If they haven't been screwing up, they should keep their jobs. But that is a low bar, and I really am looking at their credentials, their statements, and their endorsements. For that reason, I'd recommend:

Port of Seattle Position 1 - Ryan Calkins - Incumbent, competent, capable, well-regarded.

Port of Seattle Position 3 - Both incumbent Stephanie Bowman and challenger Hamdi Mohamed look good, say the right things, and wave a fistful of impressive endorsements. Mohamed edges out with concern for the local communities. Hamdi Mohamed.

Port of Seattle Position 4 -  Amusing thing - the Seattle Times has been running a lot of pieces on how a citizen's initiative, run by Incumbent Peter Steinbrueck's father, saved the Pike Place Market from urban redevelopment. That's probably just because we're moving up on 50 years since that salvation, but it does a lot to put the Steinbrueck name out there. Toshiko Grace Hasagawa is pulling down the endorsements. Both are good, bu I think Toshiko Grace Hasagawa will be better. 

But I'm going to be honest, this is a situation where you the voters do not have a bad choice. Enjoy the feeling while it lasts.

More later,

The Political Desk: King County

There are some interesting things going on at the county level, but first we must do a little bookkeeping. King County has a Charter, and if we're going to mess with that charter we have to put things to a vote. Often this is minor, minor, stuff, but still, we put it to a vote. I'm not as indignant about this as I am about the advisory votes, since it does involve really checking with people. This is very much a be bear-with-me-we'll-get-to-the-juicy-stuff-soon sort of thing.

King County Charter Amendment No. 1 Preamble is correcting a typo. OK, quit laughing. In addition to "Change Insure to Ensure in All", it also puts forth Equity and Promotion of a Superior Quality of Life as goals. OK. Vote YES. 

King County Charter Amendment No. 2 Initiative, Referendum and Charter Amendment Timelines and Processes has to my mind its own typo (I believe in serial commas, thank you), but is to bring such things as initiatives, referendums, and charter amendments into line with the state. Sure, why not. Vote YES. 

And FINALLY, we get to the point of voting for living, breathing candidates. 

This one has some serious activity. A lot of it involves areas that I don't vote in, because of the quirky way we've divied up the county council.

King County has an executive and a council. The council is divided up into nine regions which elect people to the council. So while you may have have some say in your elected officials, you can't necessarily run the board. This year we are looking at the Executive and the odd-numbered districts. And while I can't vote in some of these, I will pass on the highlights for your enjoyment. 

King County Executive - Dow Constantine has done a good job over the years, and I am normally disposed towards people who do a good job over the years. However, at the start of the COVID crisis, he had set up a quarantine motel in Kent. That's cool. But he did it without conferring with the local Kent government. Surprise!. His challenger, Joe Nguyen, is full of promise, short on experience. Both men are intent on confronting homelessness, promoting safety. Both would fit under the "Progressive" banner. It is a tight choice, and at the moment, I'm going to say Joe Nguyen, but we are in the fortunate position of having a choice of a good and better. 

Metropolitan King County, Council District No 5 - This is my district, and should be relatively quiet normally. Dave Upthegrove (still a great name) is challenged by Shukri Olow, and both candidates also come from the Progressive end of the scale. But a huggamugga emerged from when some traditional Upthegrove supporters switched their endorsements to Olow. Supposedly Upthegrove's campaign responded with threats of HIM no longer supporting those groups in legislation. The campaign denies they made those threats, but the information came from several formerly supporting groups. It is a mild political scrum of who-said-what. I'm going to with Shukri Olow on this one, but note that Upthegrove's mailer notes that he has a orange tabby named Dobby. So there's that.

Then there is some stuff for the Council that I can't vote on, but this year there has been more of that type of activity than usual than usual. In addition to the Upthegrove huggamugga, we've seen activity in other districts as well. 

District 1: Ron Dembowski is running with minimal challenge, so naturally he should get his own scandal - Verbal abuse against a chief of staff leading to that chief's resignation and subsequent lawsuit.  Dembowski has been admonished and owed up to his sins, which is easier to do when you don't have much of a challenge.

District 3: This should be a straight up fight between Centrist/Conservative Kathy Lambert and Centrist/Liberal Sarah Perry. Then the Lambert campaign released a mailer accusing Perry of being a puppet of Bernie Sanders, fellow councilmember Girmay Zahilay, Kshama Sawant, and Kamala Harris. Or, to put it in other terms - a jew, a black man, and two women of color. The cringe meter went to 11 on this, old reliables like the Seattle Times pulled their endorsement of Lambert and she stepped down from all her positions on the council. This is one incident, but didn't she have anyone on her campaign to double check this thing to see if it could go horribly, horribly, wrong? If you live in the District, go with Sarah Perry.

District 7: No one seems to have a major problem with incumbent Peter von Reichbauer. The Times likes him, the Stranger skips over this position entirely, and the Progressives over at Fuse declare there are "No Good Choices". But we'll mention this here since we're running the full list.

District 9 has been Reagan Dunn's since the middle of the last decade, with the borders moving eastward all the time to keep him viable. Once, long ago, he represented my district, so I keep tabs. In the Primary he has a weird self-own on his stand on the homelessness problem ("Its a problem, it's worse than it was, so re-elect me!") but has settled into a more law-and-order approach for the general. His opponent is Kim-Kahn Van, who is from the Renton City Council. Sounds like a good time to upgrade.

And that's it for King County - next up, the Port Authority!

More later, 

The Political Desk: Statewide

So, I'm back from Disney World (and it was a lot of fun, good food, masks in abundance, thanks for asking), and I expect you've all filled out your ballots already and we can get on with book reviews.

Eh? You haven't touched the ballots since I left? Fine. No, no, that's fine. No worries.  Let's just get this over with.

I mean, I understand. This is in many ways not an important election, but also is an important election because all elections are. When the Washington State Election Voters' Pamphlet showed up a couple weeks back, and it was a bit ... anemic, in the words of a friend. All the major statewide offices were up last year, and the only candidate for judge on my ballot (Court of Appeals, Div 11, Dist 1) is running unopposed (This outlet does not endorse in situations where there is only one candidate, but merely offer our congratulations). 

In addition to a sparsity of statewide measures, the ballot leads off with is the lamest of the lame. We have is a trio of dreaded advisory votes, the lasting political legacy of anti-tax grifter and accused chair thief Tim Eyman. You've heard me whinge about advisory votes before - badly worded questions that scare people about tax measures that don't necessarily affect them. Close a loophole? That's a tax measure. Continue a tax? That's a tax measure. Fix a previous measure? Oh yeah, that's a tax measure. 

And it doesn't mean much, other than a push-poll to allow you to growl at Olympia for using your hard-earned dollars for the community good. It is electoral spam. It wants to know if you want to sell your house. It's been trying to get in touch with you about your car's warranty. It claims to be from the Social Security administration, and wants you to know that it will be dispatching officers to your house unless you buy it a gift card. At its most charitable, it is a way of taking the political body's temperature, but not a very good one.

It is so bad that both the Seattle Times and the Stranger agree that it is pretty miserable as a method of trying direct democracy. AND the local progressives have put a web site, stating a lot of what I've been saying for years - that this a waste of time and effort, is used badly, and you should vote Maintained anyway.  

OK, enough kvetching. Here is what they got. 

Advisory Vote No. 36 - Engrossed Second Substitute House Bill 1477 - A tax on telephone lines to help expand and fund behavioral crisis response and suicide prevention.  Yeah, Vote Maintained.

Advisory Vote No. 37 - Engrossed Substitute Senate Bill 5096 - A tax on Capital Gains over a quarter of a million bucks. You made over a quarter of a million bucks on Capital Gains? How nice. This is a pin-prick of a tax operating at that level, so naturally it must be stopped. Yeah, vote Maintained.

Advisory Vote No. 38 - Second Substitute Senate Bill 5315 - A tax on captive insurers. What is a captive insurer? It is when a company forms its own insurance company to offer insurance, effectively paying itself for health care without supervision and avoiding taxes that other insurance companies must pay. This closes a loophole in the existing laws, so, naturally, so it must be stopped. And of course, I say vote Maintained.

OK, That's it - more later

The Delayed Re-Opening of the Political Desk

 So, the ballots have shipped, the media recommendations are trickling in, and we are looking at another election. And you're going to have to wait a while for me to pontificate on it, because, well, I'm a little busy.

OK, fine, I'm going on vacation. But I will get back to it before election day, OK? If you want to go ahead, without me, here are a few resources:

The Seattle Times, which tends to promote centrist/conservative/pro-business candidates and policies (unless it doesn't), has been making recommendations here.

The Stranger, who in the years since they legalized pot have swung around to a more pro-density, anti-car agenda (but still snarky) can be found here.

Neither one of these reaches much further south than the main gate of T-Mobile Park, which is a pity. But for the hyper-localized news, the Kent Reporter has been doing an excellent series of interviews of the candidates, can be found here (with an apology that you're going to have to do some digging - the reporter responsible covers a lot of ground).

Seattle Transit Blog is here. I'll add others as they show up.

And here's the Voters' Guide for King County. Ballot measure here, and candidates here.

The great majority of positions are listed as non-partisan. The candidates, however, are not.  One of the things to look at when going through the guide is to check on endorsements. Who do your local pols support? Who gets the endorsement of the police, the unions, or the conservation groups? One regular red flag for me is usually candidates with the backing of the Chamber of Commerce, but after the drubbing they took last year trying to buy their way onto the city council, they've been quiet. But check out who is standing with the candidates. Also a good idea is to look at who is getting funding from whom.

This electionis one of those small but important one, particularly for your local offices. Nothing national, and the state-wide elections consist of those useless election-spam advisory votes and a judge running unopposed. And there is a lot of interesting stuff going on in various areas because I can't vote on. Seattle's got a strong mayoral race, but I'm not in Seattle. There are also some interesting races for King County Council, but I don't vote in all of those.

Be patient and do your research. I'll check back. 

More later,

Book: Back in the Saddle

 Between Two Kings by Alexandre Dumas, Translated and Edited by Lawrence Ellsworth, Pegasus Books, 2021

Provenance: Amazon. Birthday present from the Lovely Bride. 

Review: Everyone knows The Three Musketeers. Most people know The Man in the Iron Mask. But between these two posts were a slew of other tales, first those within Twenty Years Later (talked about here and here) and now those within Ten Years After, also known as the Vicomte of Bragalonne. This particular volume is the first 50 chapters of the latter book, which culminated in aforementioned The Man in the Iron Mask.

So were this a simple trilogy, this would be the "saddle" book, the one between the declaration of the problem in the first book, and the resolution in the third. But these stories of the Three Musketeers were not built as such - they were written for publication in weekly journals starting in 1847, so they are a long as they need to be. The volumes of collected work are after-market sales. And it shows - it takes its time getting places, characters can be delayed or engage in chapter-long discussions, and the pacing rolls from action-packed to leisurely. It does pose a challenge for people collecting up the stories into something less than a single massive tome. Yet every chapter holds its own as a unit and encourages the reader to follow along. Translator Ellsworth captures the flavor, flair, and completeness of the original French manuscript.

This first volume concerns itself primarily with the Return of the King, in this case King Charles II of England. Yes, we're back in England, again. We presided over the death of Charles I in Blood Royal, as the heroes were unable to completely contravene history, and now Dumas plays a bit fast and loose with the facts, making his heroes key to restoration of the monarchy. D'Artagnan, still a lieutenant in the Musketeers, has had enough of the young French King, a particularly emo Louis XIV, and strikes out on his own with a scheme to restore Charles to the throne and make a tidy profit for himself. Athos, who was the recipient of Charles I's last words, encounters the son and pledges himself to help restore the young man to the throne, powered by the sense of noble duty. Porthos and Aramis are missing from this text, except for chapters where D'Artagnan goes looking for them and finds out they just left.  Even Athos' son, the Viscomte named in the original title, is mostly absent for the first fifty installments.

Athos, who was a bit of a wet mop in the previous volume, shines here through his own nobility, honesty, and generosity. The same attributes that worked against him in Blood Royal (trust, respect, duty) now prove to be indispensable. He is respected by his potential enemies and taken at his noble word continually. D'Artagnan is more comic than usual, still very much the farmer from Gascony after all these years, and talks himself into (and out of) various messes. Ultimately, each man has his own screwball plan, and together, the plans work. But this is really Athos' book,

The Royals in these tales are generally useless. Louis XIV is kept inert while his Prime Minister, Mazarin, backed up by Louis's mother, Queen Anne, pretty much run things. Charles of England is impoverished and depressed, lacking both cash and manpower to retake his throne. Anne herself, whose diamonds drove the plot of the first book, forgets old allies and servants with alarming precision. Henrietta of Stuart, Charles II's younger sister, was horribly impoverished in the previous book, but after restoration she becomes a coquettish tease. All the rest are pretty unsympathetic, courtiers just waiting for the chop a hundred years later. 

Of more interest to Dumas are the powers behind the throne - Cardinal Mazarin for Louis, and General Monck for Charles. They are the ones that our heroes mostly contend with. Mazarin is effective but venal and greedy. Monck is honorable, such that he takes Athos at his word, and throws in with Chalres when the young King impresses him. Throughout the books Dumas was a fan of Richleau and his ilk, not so much Louis XIII, and it reflects in his treatment of the true managers of state here.

What strikes me most as I move through this book is how in politics people switch sides with frightening regularity. Enemies from the Frondeur are now respected members of the court, and old alliances and services rendered are conveniently forgotten (yes, I'm looking at YOU, Queen Anne). It is very much a case that you need a scorecard to figure out who is currently plotting against who, which Ellsworth kindly provides in extensive footnotes and historical bios. 

This volume is just the first 50 chapters of a 268-chapter story, and while it tells a coherent story, it is all warm-up for the main acts to follow, wrapping up some of looser ends from the Twenty Years After and introducing some of the new cast going forward. It breaks at a correct moment, and sets us up for the what follows. And yeah, I'm here for the ride. 

More later,

Meanwhile: Twenty Years Later

 

More later,

Recent Acquisitions

 

So, games continue to arrive. Some are the result of Kickstarters that have come due, but some are outright purchases off the shelf.  I have read parts of some of these, and have played absolutely none of them, so these are hardly reviews and more akin to first encounters. Be advised.

Traveller: Deepnight Revelation (Martin J. Dougherty, Mongoose Publishing) This was a Kickstarter that grew like kudzu. Originally a boxed set for Mongoose's incarnation of Traveller, the campaign went so well that they just kept adding supplements, so there are six (!) hardback books attached to it by the time it arrived. The idea is that you take an exploratory starship on a 20-year(!) mission to the edges of known space and beyond in search of a potentially cataclysmic opponent. This would be a year's worth of a small company's production and several years worth of gaming and in addition to everything else the boxed set has extensive rules on running a long-term exploratory mission. However, it wrong-foots me at the start, in the fact that I can't figure out exactly how I know where the cataclysmic opponent is. It seems to just be assumed your players will have that information at hand at the start, and even the intro adventure presents the threat but does not make a hard link to the distant system to you are going to. even so, it is so otherwise complete I would strongly consider it if I chose to return to Traveller, or adapt it for a d6 Star Wars game.

Scarlet Citadel: A Dungeon of Secrets (Steve Winter, Kobold Publishing). This 208 page hardbound is a nice Kickstarter dungeon that was offered with a fully laid out map folio. I didn't get the folio, and if you intend to run this adventure, yes, spring for the map pack. In addition to having full-size playing maps for miniatures, the pack has overlays for how the dungeon changes as the players explore it. The dungeon itself has an attractive history (Sorcerer's Fortress), a reason for the creatures to be there, and, what I like most of all, is a dynamic creation, so things you do in one area affect other encounters (None of this "you hit three rooms and the fourth room is still waiting for you to come in"). Steve Winter is my regular 5E DM and I see parts of what we've been running through peeking out here and there.

The Red Book of Magic (Jeff Richard, Greg Stafford, Steve Perrin, Sandy Peterson and more, Chaosium). Hardcover, 126 pages. Runequest is my personal tsundoko - having more books than you ever are going to read, or in this case, games you are never going to use. I find Glorantha fascinating, ever since White Bear/Red Moon, and have followed Runequest through its many incarnations (including the AH version and HeroWars), yet never played the RPG. This volume is primarily a spellbook on spirit magic, gathered from many previous sources and brought up to date, and, like all of the modern Runequest material, looks impressive.

The Well (Peter Schaefer, Shoeless Pete Games) 120 pages squarebound. This Kickstarter was recommended to me by a friend (OK, Steve Winter, see above) who worked with the designer at Wizards of the Coast. The concept is compact and neat - You live in a city that is moving slowly down a great well. Below you is mystery, above you are the remains of your past. You go raiding into these past remains in traditional dungeon style, but your enemies are reassembled dead and cleanup crew. New mechanics looks good.  Once upon a time TSR was hot on the idea of a "reverse dungeon" - here you go. Yes, I want to play this.

Dune: Adventures in the Imperium  (Nathan Dowdell, Design Lead, Modiphius Entertainment) Hardcover, 330 pages. I still think the original Dune was a fantastic work of SF, and re-read it every so often. Like Lord of the Rings, its prose has the ability to suck me back in almost immediately.  But I will be honest, the series for me peaked with Children of Dune, and then sort of trailed off from there, and I never engaged with the canonical books after Frank Herbert's passing. This one was in my Friendly Comic Book store, and I was stalking it for several weeks before I made the plunge. The book itself is textually dense, first-class production, though can't yet speak to what the mechanics (a 2d20 system) are like. Impressive.

Seance and Sensibility (Finn Cresswell) 60 pages, saddle-stitched, self-covered. This one came with an apology (it was more than a year late, dating back to the PREVIOUS Zinequest) and  the designer included a slip apologizing for its lateness. No apology necessary. I consumed this simply-crafted booklet in one sitting, and emerged for the first time how the Powered by the Apocalypse Engine should work. Other PbtAE volumes should take note. The theme is Jane Austin fights cultists. Worth tracking down.

Tales of the Glass Gnomes (Noet Cloudfoundre) 26 pages, saddle-stitched cover. This is an entry from this year's Zinequest on Kickstarter, and is pretty charming, reminding us of the ultimate roots of such personal projects. It has straightforward production values and art that could fit into the original D&D wood-grain box. It presents a new culture for you gaming enjoyment that is not your standard gnomes. Worth looking at.

The Children of Fear (Lynne Hardy and Friends)  This 414 pages hardbound is the latest Call of Cthulhu hardbound, set in Tibet, Northern India, and the interior of China in the 1920's and involving the conflict between the mythical realms/cities/factions/entities of Shambhala and Agartha. While I admire the updating and reissuing of classic CoC material (Masks of Nyarlathotep, Horror on the Orient Express), it is really, really good to see new original material of this quality.  Picked up both this volume and The Red Book of Magic At Olympic Card and Comics down in Lacey. OCC (also know as Gabi's) has a lot of deep stock in RPGs and carries a bunch of indies and small press that might not otherwise see the light of day. Every three-to-five months or so, Stan! and I make a road trip down there, get lunch somewhere in Tacoma, and make a day of it. Products like this make the trip worthwhile.

Flott's Miscellany Vol. 2 ((Andrew Devenney and others, Superhero Necromancer Press) 36 pages, saddle-stitched cover, This is more of the same amusing material I had in Flott's Miscellany Vol 1, which in turn was based on the Rainy City. It has a lot of bits and bobs that can be slotted into a campaign, with a rather wry, Dying Earth (Drying Earth?) sort of vibe. I like it.

Grey Seas Are Dreaming of My Death (Derek Sotak and others). 108 pages digest, squarebound. This one missed the class picture last time, so I thought I would show it off here, in case you find a copy at the Local Game Story, or elsewhere. If you do, pick it up.

More later, 

Recent Acquitions

 

So, games continue to arrive. Some are the result of Kickstarters that have come due, but some are outright purchases off the shelf.  I have read parts of some of these, and have played absolutely none of them, so these are hardly reviews and more akin to first encounters. Be advised.

Traveller: Deepnight Revelation (Martin J. Dougherty, Mongoose Publishing) This was a Kickstarter that grew like kudzu. Originally a boxed set for Mongoose's incarnation of Traveller, the campaign went so well that they just kept adding supplements, so there are six (!) hardback books attached to it by the time it arrived. The idea is that you take an exploratory starship on a 20-year(!) mission to the edges of known space and beyond in search of a potentially cataclysmic opponent. This would be a year's worth of a small company's production and several years worth of gaming and in addition to everything else the boxed set has extensive rules on running a long-term exploratory mission. However, it wrong-foots me at the start, in the fact that I can't figure out exactly how I know where the cataclysmic opponent is. It seems to just be assumed your players will have that information at hand at the start, and even the intro adventure presents the threat but does not make a hard link to the distant system to you are going to. even so, it is so otherwise complete I would strongly consider it if I chose to return to Traveller, or adapt it for a d6 Star Wars game.

Scarlet Citadel: A Dungeon of Secrets (Steve Winter, Kobold Publishing). This 208 page hardbound is a nice Kickstarter dungeon that was offered with a fully laid out map folio. I didn't get the folio, and if you intend to run this adventure, yes, spring for the map pack. In addition to having full-size playing maps for miniatures, the pack has overlays for how the dungeon changes as the players explore it. The dungeon itself has an attractive history (Sorcerer's Fortress), a reason for the creatures to be there, and, what I like most of all, is a dynamic creation, so things you do in one area affect other encounters (None of this "you hit three rooms and the fourth room is still waiting for you to come in"). Steve Winter is my regular 5E DM and I see parts of what we've been running through peeking out here and there.

The Red Book of Magic (Jeff Richard, Greg Stafford, Steve Perrin, Sandy Peterson and more, Chaosium). Hardcover, 126 pages. Runequest is my personal tsundoko - having more books than you ever are going to read, or in this case, games you are never going to use. I find Glorantha fascinating, ever since White Bear/Red Moon, and have followed Runequest through its many incarnations (including the AH version and HeroWars), yet never played the RPG. This volume is primarily a spellbook on spirit magic, gathered from many previous sources and brought up to date, and, like all of the modern Runequest material, looks impressive.

The Well (Peter Schaefer, Shoeless Pete Games) 120 pages squarebound. This Kickstarter was recommended to me by a friend (OK, Steve Winter, see above) who worked with the designer at Wizards of the Coast. The concept is compact and neat - You live in a city that is moving slowly down a great well. Below you is mystery, above you are the remains of your past. You go raiding into these past remains in traditional dungeon style, but your enemies are reassembled dead and cleanup crew. New mechanics looks good.  Once upon a time TSR was hot on the idea of a "reverse dungeon" - here you go. Yes, I want to play this.

Dune: Adventures in the Imperium  (Nathan Dowdell, Design Lead, Modiphius Entertainment) Hardcover, 330 pages. I still think the original Dune was a fantastic work of SF, and re-read it every so often. Like Lord of the Rings, its prose has the ability to suck me back in almost immediately.  But I will be honest, the series for me peaked with Children of Dune, and then sort of trailed off from there, and I never engaged with the canonical books after Frank Herbert's passing. This one was in my Friendly Comic Book store, and I was stalking it for several weeks before I made the plunge. The book itself is textually dense, first-class production, though can't yet speak to what the mechanics (a 2d20 system) are like. Impressive.

Seance and Sensibility (Finn Cresswell) 60 pages, saddle-stitched, self-covered. This one came with an apology (it was more than a year late, dating back to the PREVIOUS Zinequest) and  the designer included a slip apologizing for its lateness. No apology necessary. I consumed this simply-crafted booklet in one sitting, and emerged for the first time how the Powered by the Apocalypse Engine should work. Other PbtAE volumes should take note. The theme is Jane Austin fights cultists. Worth tracking down.

Tales of the Glass Gnomes (Noet Cloudfoundre) 26 pages, saddle-stitched cover. This is an entry from this year's Zinequest on Kickstarter, and is pretty charming, reminding us of the ultimate roots of such personal projects. It has straightforward production values and art that could fit into the original D&D wood-grain box. It presents a new culture for you gaming enjoyment that is not your standard gnomes. Worth looking at.

The Children of Fear (Lynne Hardy and Friends)  This 414 pages hardbound is the latest Call of Cthulhu hardbound, set in Tibet, Northern India, and the interior of China in the 1920's and involving the conflict between the mythical realms/cities/factions/entities of Shambhala and Agartha. While I admire the updating and reissuing of classic CoC material (Masks of Nyarlathotep, Horror on the Orient Express), it is really, really good to see new original material of this quality.  Picked up both this volume and The Red Book of Magic At Olympic Card and Comics down in Lacey. OCC (also know as Gabi's) has a lot of deep stock in RPGs and carries a bunch of indies and small press that might not otherwise see the light of day. Every three-to-five months or so, Stan! and I make a road trip down there, get lunch somewhere in Tacoma, and make a day of it. Products like this make the trip worthwhile.

Flott's Miscellany Vol. 2 ((Andrew Devenney and others, Superhero Necromancer Press) 36 pages, saddle-stitched cover, This is more of the same amusing material I had in Flott's Miscellany Vol 1, which in turn was based on the Rainy City. It has a lot of bits and bobs that can be slotted into a campaign, with a rather wry, Dying Earth (Drying Earth?) sort of vibe. I like it.

Grey Seas Are Dreaming of My Death (Derek Sotak and others). 108 pages digest, squarebound. This one missed the class picture last time, so I thought I would show it off here, in case you find a copy at the Local Game Story, or elsewhere. If you do, pick it up.

More later,