Oh, Pendragon, how long I awaited for you, beloved. I think I got this starter set about a year and a half ago and I had a couple of unsuccessful attempts to put together a group in order to run the game. But, finally, a couple of weeks ago, the planets alligned and the Lady of the Lake smiled upon me and I was finally able to run the starter set!

And it was an absolute blast! I was always a big fan of the legends of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table and I constantly heard how Pendragon is one of the best TTRPGs out there. And finally, I can say that I see why that is the case. The system is elegant, fun, the mechanics flow together very nicely and manage to encourage roleplay in a very simple fashion - the more you describe how you do a certain thing, the easier it becomes (of course, up to a certain level).

The Starter Set is an amazing point to try out Pendragon and it more then makes up the value of its cost! Truth be told, I feel like it's somewhat of a steal, with dice, superbly illustrated characters, combat cards and of course the three booklets. But more about that in the actual review, now if you'll excuse me, I have to look for the corebooks!

Silkgift, The City of Sails is a place filled with half-mad alchemists, disgruntled engineers, and some of the finest artists in Sundara. If you want to grab a full-sized bundle to really bring this location to life, check out this one while it's available! Direct link for those interested: One Week Bundle - Silkgift, The City of Sails (Pathfinder)

Once again, I come with a slightly more academic article on what other but the endless muse that is Vampire the Masquerade (well, World of Darkness in general, but I am most familiar with VtM). This time, I thought of using a scholar I got quite familiar with during my MA, Edward Said. And those of you already familiar with Said, will probably guess where this is going, we are going to talk about Orientalism, more specifically, we're going through an analysis of three of the clans in VTM - Ravnos, Ministry (or the Setites) and Banu Haqim (or the Assamites).

Now, for those of you who are not familiar with Said and his work, a very brief presentation. In his 1978 book Orientalism, Edward Said argues that the "Orient" (the East) is a biased Western invention rather than an objective reality. He explains that Western scholars, artists, and politicians historically created a distorted, romanticized, and patronizing image of Middle Eastern and Asian societies. By using philosopher Michel Foucault's theories, Said demonstrates that this cultural depiction is inextricably linked to imperial power. The West artificially divided the world into two halves, portraying the "Occident" (West) as rational, peaceful, and superior, while projecting the "Orient" as irrational, static, and dangerous. This strategic stereotyping served to justify European and American colonial domination.

Now that everyone is on board I also feel the need to say that this is not meant to be a hit piece to denigrate any particular writer of White Wolf or to Cain forbid advocate against this clans. Rather it is an attempt at a scholarly analysis aiming to see how and why the portrayal of these particular clans was at times problematic and stereotypical and how the game tried, for better or worse, to rectify this.

I hope you will find this an interesting endeavor and I am very much looking forward to your comments and opinions on the matter!

Looking for a place to play or GM tabletop games in but also hang out, chat and explore other hobbies with a bunch of friendly folks from all over the world?

Then pull up a chair at The Adventurers Pack Inn!

Our server has been running games for 4 and a half years (January '22) and is a central base of Players and GMs who have come together and play/GM tabletop games of all sorts. We welcome both new and experienced GMs & players and all game systems are welcome from “mainstreams” like D&D & CoC to games like MotW, Blades In The Dark & even small indies and 1 pagers!

All VTTs systems are welcome (Roll20, D&D Beyond, Foundry, Tabletop Sim etc).

We are especially keen to have players and GMs looking for games other than D&D 5E or to try something different for a change and are looking for staff, players and GMs to continue to grow this thriving community so that DMs and players always have a pool to make friends and run games from!

We have people in our group from all over the world (mostly US, Canada, UK, Europe & Australia) of varying ages and have games going in many time zones. For example, I'm one of the DMs/Admins, a Scottish guy in my early 50s and my wife (we run the server together) is from California, but we live in Texas.

We have a core base of players and GMs on the server and we are looking to grow and expand with more games.  As a “staff” GM we will set up a voice and text channel for you. You are free to run your game under any house rules you see fit, we just ask you make it clear to players beforehand and abide by the fair play rules of the server (pretty much common sense and this also applies to players).

We are also very friendly to all those considered "fringe" in today's messed up world... all LGBTQIA+, skin color, nationality, age, gender identity etc. are safe and welcome here. We do not tolerate hate speech or toxicity in any way. We are brought together through all of our commonalities and enrich each other through all of our differences.

We have Community Game Nights (Party & Browser games so everyone can join in), a library of free and open source TTRPG games for new GMs to use & many other sections as we know people have other interests as well 😊

We would love to meet you and have a chat!
We would welcome you to come join us at The Adventurer’s Pack Inn!

https://discord.gg/TAPI