New Blood-gers: Symptoms of Radness

Hi and welcome to this week's New Blod-gers column on The Yaqqothl Grimoire! This Wednesday we are going to meet the Aberrant Mind behind a blog I find not only pretty cool, but also very underestimated: Symptoms of Radness. Hands up folks, and enjoy the interview!

1. Hi Buddy! Tell us where you are from, how old you are, when you started gaming, your secret weapon to fight pimples and so on:


I'm from Hawai'i, 28, and started running games about 3 years ago. I played in a handful of games before that, a couple times when I was a kid and a few times before I started running. Between that gap of time I fought pimples by letting it do it's thing, grinding(eating) good kine foods, and being in the sun a lot. Pimples are just toxins strengthening your skin. Let it ride, skin turns to steel.

2. What's your blog focus?

It's where I spill my brain shit for the world to see. I usually write off line, but I keep losing my stuff! Not much content at the moment, mostly ramblings and stuff I'm working on for my campaign.

3. Are you a player or a DM?

Mostly DM. I used to be the lone gamer, at least I couldn't find anyone willing to game up until a few years ago. Since then I've met a few long time gamers who either moved here, or I just never met until recently. Most of the people I game with are even newer to the hobby than I am as I was their first DM. Recently they've been getting behind the screen so now I can play more often.

4. How did you come to join the OSR? And why? Did someone inspire you? Or did you think if 'jamal can blog every fucking day about how to be even more Grognard than he is you could certainly do better?

I'm not in the OSR, I look at myself as unaffiliated, free to wander between groups within the collective gamer crowd. I'm a fucking weirdo like that though, never been comfortable with joining groups. In real life I cruise with nerds, hippies, mokes(look it up), punks, dorks, musicians, entertainers, etc. without needing to identify myself as any belonging to any one group. I don't know. I'm a fucking gamer, that's good enough I think! I do enjoy what the OSR community puts out there for whoever the hell wants to go looking for it. Myself, I just started blogging to organize my convoluted brain.

5. Tell us about the very best stuff we are going to find on your blog and why it's so fucking cool:

My best shit is my newest shit. At least I try to post better stuff every time, sometimes I feel successful at it, mostly I get lazy and spill my brain shit all over my blog. Trying to concentrate more on content I can share, but mostly my posts are just notes for my games.
I'm fucking cool cause I play DUNGEONS & DRAGONS!!!

6. Are you involved in a campaign? Are you planning one? Are you one of those people who never game but speaks a lot about gaming because they like to do so?

Currently I've been running a RPG mash up campaign setting, where I'm using a stack of modules as the foundation for my game world. It's about 7 sessions in since we started this past spring break, but it's really a continuation of the previous campaign which ran for 5 or 6 sessions I think but under a different rules set.
There are several campaigns going on within my group, but I don't go to most of the games as I am usually cleaning house, doing school work, or sleeping after taking care of the kids all day. Basically I've become a house husband at the beginning of the new year while my wife finishes school, my new job is something I can work from at home so I'm in a good space right now. It felt weird and shitty at first, but I get to spend a ton of time with my kids so it's turned into awesome!
I do spend more time talking about gaming then actually gaming though, but being a DM I think it's almost automatic.

7. Now you have three sentences to say whatever you want:

Never let others fuck with you. Positivity casts out the negativity. Traditions should be respected, but do not let it dictate your thoughts and actions.

8. Now tell all the fucking old-gaming-guys out there why they really should be following your blog, or ask a friend to do so:

In a way, my blog is the product of the blogging scene. I started out isolated from the mainland gaming community, interested in gaming, but with no one to game with. Got a bunch of non-tabletop gamer friends together after learning more about running games from blogs, and actually inspired others to run their own games in the process. So, if you all want to see what kind of monster/follower you all created/attracted you can read up on my Symptoms of Radness.

YOU'RE UNDER 35 AND WANT TO BE NEXT? SHOOT ME A MAIL AT MALSETTO-AT-GMAIL-DAWT-CALM OR LEAVE A COMMENT ON THE INTRODUCTION POST!

PS: Mr. People Them With Monsters and Mr. Zero XP Adventures, I'm still waiting for your replies! Please deliver the mail on time for next week statement. Fight on!

Questions, Updates & Cool Stuff

First of all, let me say that I'm so excited to see the magical number "100" to show up in my Followers bar!

And now for some serious shit about the New Blood-gers column. I'm trying to get two very cool bloggers to participate in a little Round Table in the style of the one that appeared on Beyond the Black Gate quite a few days ago – I really hope they're going to answer the call! Still, I have two new unpublished interviews to post, and some others that should arrive sooner or later. My question is this, should I post them daily? Weekly? Monthly? I'm thinking that if I post'em weekly, I can have a "blog free" day once in a while, which is not a bad thing at all. Be sure to post your own opinion in comments.

And now for a very exciting, upcoming product, check out the announcement of the new Exquisite Corpses edition by Lamentations of the Flame Princess here and there! I can't help but say that between Zak, Geoffrey and Stefan, Mr. Raggi has truly found the way to make all my dirty dreams come true! Definitely can't wait for these.

And finally, for some (Hopefully) Cool Stuff! The bad news is that I have completely lost interest in posting the game recap of my birthday party, because it's too boring. Seriously. The good news is that instead I'm gonna give you my notes from the session! As long as Austrodavicus proofreads them for me (you don't wanna read my crappy english, I guess.) So stay tuned, the good stuff is on the way.

New Blood-gers: Terminal Space & Underworld Kingdom

Today, for the regular New Blood-gers column here on The Yaqqothl Grimoire we're going to meet one of the big ones in weird science fantasy gaming: Mr. Omlet! You probably already know this awesome guy because of his incredible Terminal Space Supplement for OD&D (and if you don't, go now!!) or for his brand new Bandits and Basilisks RPG! Check out his very cool blogs Terminal Space & Underworld Kingdom for more.

This is pure awesome!

1. Hi Buddy! Tell us where you come from, how old you are, when you started gaming, your secret weapon to fight pimples and so on:

I'm from Poland, I'm 27. I started gaming in 1997 with Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, but later we switched to no-rules fantasy sandbox game. Later I played over 30 different games, now I'm running Call of Cthulhu campaign (which I run interchangeabely with Dark Heresy campaign). I don't have any favourite game or genre, but more often I play sci-fi games than fantasy).

2. What's your blog focus?

My blog is an attempt to solve and classify the material that I have accumulated over last 12 years of gaming. This lead to creation of Science Fantasy / Sword & Planet campaign, which is a conglomerate of material created in different periods (heavily spiced with Cthulhu Mythos), but is now revised, corrected and standardized. Blog also contains additional rules (for OD&D), monsters and my beloved random tables :D Sometimes I post some artwork created by my friends :-)

3. Are you a player or a DM?

In 80% I'm DM.

4. How did you come to join the OSR? And why? Did someone inspire you? Or did you think that if 'jamal can blog every fucking day about how to be even more Grognard than he actually is you could certainly do better?

How? To be honest - I didn't even know about all this "retrogaming" stuff, still alive old school gaming rules and so on. As I mentioned before - In my early years in hobby we haven't used any rules, but general form of game was very similar to the "basic" (primordial? :D) form of RPGs. So I fell in love :-)

5. Tell us about the very best stuff we are going to find on your blog and why it's so fucking cool:

RANDOM TABLES. Why they are so cool? You tell me :-)

6. Are you involved in a campaign? Are you planning one? Are you one of those people who never game but speak a lot about gaming because you like to do so?

I'm currently running two campaigns (interchangeably) and playing in one. Soon we want to start playing and Underworld Kingdom, but first I must make some maps :D
I play two, sometimes three times per week.

7. Now you have three sentences to say whatever you want:

Emmm...

1) I'm very happy that you enjoy my work with Terminal Space and Underworld Kingdom - there is no better motivation than (cold beer) kind words :-)
2) Forgive me my crappy English (my grammar is even worse than I suspected)!
3) NICOLO - POST SOMETHING MORE ABOUT YAQQOTHL CAMPAIGN! :D

8. Now tell all the fucking old-gaming-guys out there why they should really be following your blog, or ask a friend to do so:

Why? Because I believe that even if my gaming experience is not as big as yours, even if my English sucks and even if I live in TOTAL HELLHOLE I still have something to share with you :-) So follow my fookin' blog and I will reward you with the best creative content which I'll be able to create.
Ia Shub-Niggurath!

YOU'RE UNDER 35 AND WANT TO BE NEXT? SHOOT ME A MAIL AT MALSETTO-AT-GMAIL-DAWT-CALM OR LEAVE A COMMENT ON THE INTRODUCTION POST!

New Blood-gers: Cimorra

Already time for the first New Blood-ger on The Yaqqothl Grimoire! For today we have Logan at Die Wilde Welt Von Cimorra: if you're a fan of weird wild gonzery, you're fucking going to love this guy!

Hot Chicks from Cimoria

1. Hi Buddy! Tell us about where you are from, how old you are, when you started gaming, your secret weapon to fight pimples and so on:

Hi! My name is Matthias and nickname is Logan. I'm comming from Germany and I'm 31 years old.
I think, I started gaming in the age of 12 with HeroQuest, which was the base for my very first RPG. Later I played the first editions of DSA (Das Schwarze Auge, engl. The Dark Eye), (A)D&D 1st & 2nd Edition and Call of Cthulhu. But mostly I played self-made RPGs, based on D&D or Call of Cthulhu rule sets.

your secret weapon to fight pimples
True fucking Metal!

Ehm...ok.
I like nearly every kind of the fantastic, especially Sword & Sorcery, Sword & Planet, Sci-Fi, Horror, Steampunk and so on.
I love fantastic movies (my fav is "Conan, the Barbarian"), fantastic books, especially from H.P.Lovecraft, R.E.Howard, C.A.Smith, C.T.Miéville, etc., metal, especially Bal-Sagoth, Dimmu Borgir, The Vision Bleak (Is from my hometown!), Behemoth, etc. and soundtracks from movies (Conan, V for Vendetta, The Ring,...) or games (Gears of War, God of War,...)

2. What's your blog focus?

My blog focus on my second RPG world: The Savage World of Cimorra, some other settings like my apokalyptic-fun-splatter Setting "Bloodgrind: New Angeles", my own WIP RPG rule set WARLOCK, some material for Dungeon Slayers, fantastic art, inspirational stuff and halfnaked girls...which are inspirational stuff. But the main focus is Cimorra, Sword & Sorcery, Sword & Planet, Weird Fiction, RPG philosophy and WARLOCK.
My first and still living RPG world Gaia is a little bit bigger than Cimorra, so she have her own homepage: www.gaia-rpg.de
The Savage World of Cimorra is like GAIA a melange of different genre-types like Sword & Sorcery, Sword & Planet, Weird Fiction, Post-Apocalypse and some more.
My main inspiration for the World are the works of Robert E. Howards "Conan", Lin Carters "Thongor", Edgar Rice Burroughs "John Carter of Mars", Michael Moorcooks "Micheal Kane", H.P.Lovecraft, C.A.Smith, C.T.Miéville, Flash Gordon, Star Trek, D&D, Logan's Run, Star Gate, Heavy Metal, different Sindbad- and Jules Verne-Movies, the pictures of Frank Frazetta, Boris Vallejo, Scott Herve Flament and many more.
It's an exotic, strange, wild and savage world. Young and ancient at the same time and ruled by dark magic, bizarre technology and gods from the darkest universe.

3. Are you a player or a DM?

I'm playing the DM. Mostly. 99%.

4. How did you come to join the OSR? And why? Did someone inspire you? Or you thought that if 'jamal can blog every fucking day about how to be even more Grognard than he actually is you could certainly do better?

The idea of Cimorra was in my head since some month before I found the PLANET ALGOL-Blog in the Web - and I was totally flashed! This blog and the setting was so cool and inspirational. Then I found more great blogs like the great Weirdlands of Xhuul, Ix, Metal Earth, Playing D&D with Pornstars and the great Yaqqothl Grimoire, so I said to me: Fuck! Now it's the right time for Cimorra!
Than I started the blog, because of two points:

1. I don't want to make another homepage again like Gaia. It has taken nearly a six month of web design, writing and so on. I want do use a faster technology and simpler technologie for Cimorra. And so I found the blogging for myself.
2. I need a vacation from Gaia. The World exists since nearly 12 years. So I need something different. Something new. Getting my head free from ideas which are not fitting with Gaia anymore. So cimorra is the Weird Mirror of Gaia: Everything which does not fit into Gaia comes to Cimorra.

5. Tell us about the very best stuff we are going to find on your blog and why it's so fucking cool:

Good question. Well...The blog, the world and the rules are still WIP, but I think, thats the fucking coolness of the blog. When something is still WIP, it grows, it lives. So I could say: Cimorra is a living RPG-World. And I really try to make my own stuff. Ok, some beast like Shoggoth, Nagas or something else are known, but I try to find my own weird way. So, on cimorra there are no fucking elves, goldaddicted dwarfs or more tolkienish standard-fantasy-stuff. And this is really fucking cool! *twothumbsup*

6. Are you involved in a campaign? Are you planning one? Are you one of those people who never game but speaks a lot about gaming because they like to do so?

At the moment my girlfriend and I playing a campaign on Cimorra, using the rules of Barbarians of Lemuria.
It's a classic "John Carter"-style campaign. Her heroine is a ex-special forces "G.I. Jane"-like soldiergirl, which flown by an areoplane thru a dimensional gate in the Bermuda Triangle and crashed on Cimorra. The campaign started like "Lost", but than came the difference with dinosaures, half-naked girls and warriors, demons, witches, cyborgs, mad masterbrains, blue giant and many more stuff.
It's a really bloody and epic campaign. At the moment she's hunting a diabolic archmage, who threaten her friends with terror, slavery and death. It's really great and it makes a lot of fun.

7. Now you have three sentences to say whatever you want:

Really? Whatever I want? Ok...

1. I hope everyone can read this, because my english is not very good.
2. Inspiration is everything, so open your mind, take everything you can get and make your one, great fucking world.
3. The best in life is to crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of their women. And a some good dices and beer...
4. I really love the OSR-Blogs! They are so inspirating, so weird, so strange! So full of great ideas and passion. Thanks everyone!

Fuck! This were four sentences! Shut!

8. Now tell all the fucking old-gaming-guys out there why they should really be following your blog, or ask a friend to do so:

Ehm...Because Cimorra is a old-school, pulp world like in the good golden days of the fantastic. No elfcrap! Only badass barbarians, hot martian-style princesses and many more.
And you can play Cimorra with nearly every RPG-system in the world.
And...I have boobies every friday! :D

Greetings from Germany

Logan

YOU'RE UNDER 35 AND WANT TO BE NEXT? SHOOT ME A MAIL AT MALSETTO-AT-GMAIL-DAWT-CALM OR LEAVE A COMMENT ON THE INTRODUCTION POST!

New Blood

Look at these candies! YUM!

So Dr. Jeff made this post about looking for hidden treasures in Cyclopeatron's monthly OSR blogs rank. I do agree with Jeff a lot, and I also remember quite well what being an ignored blogger was like (in seven months of activity the Doomed Wastelands blog never reached more than 36 followers.) Still, I also have another interest in it. Most of you guys are from the old-guard: you know, you started playing with Holmes in early 80's when my mom was 18. 18, got it?! She didn't even care about marrying, let alone having children.

Therefore, I would like to promote a column where I talk about "Under 35 Bloggers", giving particular attention to the ones who have less than 30 followers. That's how it will work: if you have a blog about the OSR and you're Under 35 (let's say Your Age <= 35), post a comment here or shoot me an e-mail at malsetto-at-gmail-dawt-calm and I will dedicate an interview-post on The Yaqqothl Grimoire to you, so that you get (even) more visibility! Also, I don't care if you don't blog in english – people out there have Google Translator! The only thing is that the interview will be in english (even if you're italian, I'm not translating the interview for you.)

I can't wait to hear about you and your blog!