Jeff, Hoi, and a rotating roster of special guests discuss the adventure, fantasy, horror, science fiction, and weird fiction that inspires our gaming
Matt King joins us to discuss Clark Ashton Smith’s “The End of the Story: The Collected Fantasies, Vol. 1”, Italian horror films, Nightshade Press, the Lin Carter anthologies, all the things CAS wants to have sex with, lamias, pulp magazines, cultivating a sense of dread, highways becoming footpaths, Gygax’s theoretical stance on CAS, Gary Con, and much more!
Cora Buhlert joins us to discuss Clark Ashton Smith’s “Xiccarph”, German science fiction, pulp magazines, morbid beauty, vampire flower women, Jirel of Joiry, the Dark Eye, foreshadowing, Gary Gygax’s exclusion of Clark Ashton Smith from the Appendix N, Alphonse Mucha, doomed protagonists, the 2022 World Science Fiction Convention, and much more!
Evey Lockhart joins us to discuss Clark Ashton Smith’s “Poseidonis”, dark + quirk, Northern California as Mythic Greece, pulp colonialism, circus folk, horny 15 year olds, Irony as a rollable stat, Troika’s resolution system, bug collecting magic, Pathfinder vs. Dungeon World, the joy of a well-designed wizard’s tower, and much more!
Hoi and Jeff discuss living dungeons, world building, and using evocative setting descriptions at the table in Clark Ashton Smith’s “Hyperborea” with special guest Jeffrey Talanian.
Hoi and Jeff discuss Clark Ashton Smith’s “Zothique” with special guest Andy Markham.
Full show notes to follow.
Appendix N Book Club 