Audio EXP Podcast: #209 – 20,000 posts and dark politics

Welcome home.

This is Audio EXP for the 9th of September, and the episode title is “20,000 posts and dark politics”

[The following is a transcript of Audio EXP: #209]

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Coyote and Crow is in the Spotlight this month, as voted for by Patreons.

I admit it. I don’t know where the week has gone. I’ve not yet emailed Coyote and Crow to arrange an interview. I need to get moving.

It’s not as if Bronwen and I have been terribly lazy. This week, Geek Native hit and pushed through 20,000 blog posts. If we did one each every day, it would take more than 27 years to do another 20,000.

To celebrate, Bronwen accepted the role of Creative Director, and I wrote up the little business called Zebra Eclipse to, which Geek Native is now part of. It changes nothing, well, hopefully, but the paperwork is scary.

There’s a few other anniversaries to note. It’s been 50 years since the launch of Star Trek: The Animated Series and to celebrate Star Trek dotcom are airing Very Short Treks as animated movies.

There’s also a weird sort of anniversary for Adamant Entertainment as their Far West tabletop RPG turns 12 and 0 at the same time.

The Wuxia-Western mashup is 12 years late as a Kickstarter project, but it’s here now. I’ve reviewed it, though it’s not a playtest review, as the friends who were initially interested got on with their lives. Fortunately, it’s a pretty good RPG, even if the wait was frustrating, and the publication feels like a miracle.

Then there’s the long-running One Piece, which is now mainstream as a Netflix series. In fact, it’s the first show to become number one in 84 countries on Netflix’s charts. Sorry, Stranger Things, you’ve been beaten.

YouLovePrint, commercial printers, even worked out how much it would cost and how many pages it would take to print out all of One Piece. It’s more than 20,000 pages.

However, One Piece only just makes the top 10 of longest manga, with Tokyo Beat Cops in second place and Golgo 13 in first with nearly 39,000 pages.

Now, I mentioned dark politics in the title, and you won’t get that from One Piece. Instead, that comes from Black Lantern, they of Soulmist RPG, who will be releasing a tabletop RPG called Mansters.

In Mansters, you play a folklore-style monster determined to take on the modern world’s new and genuinely evil monsters. Yes, that’s right, these people create fear and loathing and use both as yokes to hold humanity at bay. I imagine one of those true monsters is called Rupert.

Sticking with monsters for just a bit, Pelgrane Press has announced Trail of Cthulhu will get a second edition. That’s the GUMSHOE-powered tabletop game with a focus on investigation. GUMSHOE makes sure neither players nor characters get stuck if they run out of clues or answers to the clues they already have.

Also coming, and coming soon-ish, is Assassin’s Creed the tabletop RPG. You can pre-order that now from CMON or pop over to DriveThruRPG to grab the teaser.

We also know when and where Tabletop Scotland 2024, 2025 and 2026 are happening.

I got the chance to speak to the Convention Director, Dave Wright and tried to put tough questions about the Royal Highland Centre, the new venue, to him but encountered nothing but well-prepared answers. Typical of a successful Convention Director, I suspect!

I know it’s local news, but if you’re UK-based or could be in September, then Tabletop Scotland could become a significant and indie-ish focused convention. One that fills Comic Con levels of space without becoming a merch stall.

Or, with a more international feel, Charles Dunwoody took a look at Pirate Borg, an RPG of a Dark Caribbean from a publisher based in Sweden.

Lastly, and now combining monsters and dark politics, there’s an offer for Delta Green on the Bundle of Holding and a supporting asset pack.

Delta Green mixes conspiracy theories with shady government action or inaction with mythos-style horror.

And on that note, let’s gear up to return to the real world, for me to talk to Coyote and Crow and see you next week.