Dan Sumption's Blog, page 2

Guest post: Journeying with The Smalls

The following article by Aitch Nicol first appeared in Krill Journal. This was one of several, very diverse submissions which Aitch sent me (many of which ended up in Krill), and it really grabbed my interest. I had previously heard the term “microanimism” on the Rune Soup podcast and it grabbed my attention. Aitch’s practical guide helped me go deeper, and has in a subsequent post I will talk about where I’ve taken this idea.

Journeying with The Smalls: my microanimistic adventures and how t...

Changing your pledge on Kickstarter

A while ago I wrote a post on how to back a Kickstarter campaign. The Kickstarter website is far from intuitive, and this stuff is confusing.

I’ve now discovered that it’s even harder to change your pledge, for example to include additional add-ons. And so here is a quick how-to for anyone wanting to do so.

Firstly, you will need to be logged in to to Kickstarter. If you go to the Kickstarter website and see the words “Log in” in the top right-hand corner of the screen, as in this example,...

Stats of the Cat

I love Patrick Stuart’s adaptation of Gawain and the Green Knight, a book which almost never saw the light of day, due to a failed Kickstarter campaign. I recall Patrick saying (though I can’t track down the source) that if he had included playable stats for the Green Knight then a lot more people would have backed the campaign: people like gameable content; far fewer people, apparently, like medieval poetry.

And I remember thinking “I’m having that!” As soon as as I began planning King Arthu...

Dan and Max Hit The Screen

I had a chat with King Arthur vs Devil Kitty illustrator Maximillian Hartley, about the book, about his background as an artist, about the novel he’s written about the Highland Clearances, and more. And then a thunderstorm started, and my internet connection got taken down by goat demons. Enjoy!

Start trying to make “King Arthur vs Devil Kitty” happen

The Kickstarter for King Arthur vs Devil Kitty is going moderately well, but could be going better – right now I think that we will hit our target by the project deadline on 21st September, but it’s likely to be nailbiting – and it seems unlikely that we’ll hit the stretch goal that I really want – to print the book using litho rather than digital technology.

And so anything which you can do to help us is more than welcome. I can’t stress enough that this doesn’t just include backing the camp...

“Just a flesh wound” – the inspiration behind Monty Python’s Black Knight?

This post contains spoilers for King Arthur vs Devil Kitty. And for Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

John Cleese’s Black Knight is surely the best remembered character from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. As Arthur lops his limbs off one-by-one, the knight is reduced to a torso who declares the battle “a draw”.

When I first read the 15th Century Prose Merlin and came across the story of “Arthur and the Devil Cat” (AKA the Cath Palug), I couldn’t believe how bizarre this story was, or how...

Bisch Basch Bosch

"The Office" by Hieronymous Bosch

Yesterday this image, "The Office" by Hieronymous Bosch, which I created using Midjourney, went viral. A lot of people asked for posters. Feels wrong to charge money for something which I knocked up in seconds (although having said that, check out my shop), so I'm offering it free-of-charge.

You can download the high-res image here - like I said, it's free, but if you'd like to buy me a coffee then I'd be very grateful.

I'd love to see what it looks like printed ou...

This is Who

Thank you to those who responded to the challenge in my last post.
Theo (whom I play with in noisms' Three Mile Tree campaign, and whose weird and wonderful updates on that campaign always bring a smile to my face) spoke in the comments of how the four characters are the personifications of anthropomorphized walled cities in some liminal Goetiaverse, competing in beflowered tournaments for the favor of the Lich Queen Callisto Meffit.
And Semiurge posted this fantastic story spanning four generatio...

Who Is This

 

Who are they?As anyone who follows this blog knows, I've been becoming increasingly obsessed with generating AI images with a certain style (black and white engravings). I've even started selling some of them on T-shirts.

The picture above fascinates me: who are they? If you can tell me something more about this person - potted biography, stats, what made them look so dead behind the eyes - then I would really like to know.

Here are three more members of their family:

They were also recently featu...

AI as DM

 

art by The MycoleumContinuing my experiments with AI, I have been trying to get a computer to act as Dungeon Master, running a roleplaying game in response to my prompts. The results have been interesting, but for all the wrong reasons.

In this post I will use the following conventions:

My messages to the AI appear indented, in italic text.

The AI's messages to me appear indented, in regular text.

"Playing a game" with ChatGPT is incredibly easy. It requires no technical skills. You just have to he...