I’m at the crunch time/blind panic stage of writing my latest con game. I know very little else at the moment, but there is one thing I’m damned certain of: MY NEXT GAME WILL HAVE NONE OF THIS SHIT. No real world politics, no forcing me to keep up with deeply depressing news or trying to make good guys out of people whose almost every utterance I find violently anhorrent. This current game’s been something of a departure for me (Which is a good thing as far as I’m concerned), but it should teach me to watch my mouth and when I have an idea like this, KEEP IT TO MYSELF. Fortunately for you, dear readers, I’m already about to violate that policy, owing to the ideas that hit my brain last night when I should have been sleeping.

So, nothing of the real world. Instead, there will be THEWS, MIGHTY THEWS, MADE OF IRON, the buckling of swashes and weilding of absurdly large swords. Delving into the Earth for the treasures of forgotten kings, evil mustache twirling mages and MORE CLICHES than you can point an enormous axe at. The Good Guys will be dodgy fuckers mostly out for themselves but capable of doing the right thing when it comes to it and the Bad Guys will deserve an axe in their stupid evil faces. And that’s without forgetting a giant snake or ape! Oh, and nothing, absofuckinglutely nothing, that requires more research than watching B-movies and reading Robert E Howard.

Early PC ideas are as follows:

5 players but 6 pc’s, with 50/50 gender balance, because it’s about fucking time I did that in my games.And yes, I even have character portraits lined up, or at least what actor/film I’d be stealing them from.

NORTHERN BARBARIAN – (What’s her name from Vikings) Carries a sword almost as tall as she is. Wears practical armour. (Yes, that’s important)

SORCEROR/NOBLE – (Joel Edgerton – Exodus: Gods and Kings) More a dilettante than most Stygians, once was powerful but forced to flee into exile thanks to his rivals. Seeking power to return and crush them, but mostly drinking and whoring.

ARCHER/RANGER – Pictish, Shemite or Bossonian at the moment. Maybe Mads Mikkelsen from King Arthur. (Awful Arthurian film, but a cracking low magic D&D film.)

THIEF – Zamoran? Maybe knows a little magic? Would love to use Beth Reisgraf, but that’s more to her performance in Leverage than suitability for the role. If you’ve not seen the show, rectify that. IMMEDIATELY.

HOT LADY PIRATE – because why not? (Geena Davis from Cutthroat Island?)

PIT FIGHTER/GLADIATOR – Possibly from the Black Kingdoms, in which case he’d be played by Djimon Honsou in Gladiator. If female, she’d be Turanian and played by Aishwarya Rai from The Last Legion.

Where will it be set? What will happen? Well, the bloody thing’s not written yet and even if I had, spoilers. But rest assured, there will be darkness, danger and the chance of enough wealth to become a king! If you survive…

“I have known many gods. He who denies them is as blind as he who trusts them too deeply. I seek not beyond death. It may be the blackness averred by the Nemedian skeptics, or Crom’s realm of ice and cloud, or the snowy plains and vaulted halls of the Nordheimer’s Valhalla. I know not, nor do I care. Let me live deep while I live; let me know the rich juices of red meat and stinging wine on my palate, the hot embrace of white arms, the mad exultation of battle when the blue blades flame and crimson, and I am content. Let teachers and priests and philosophers brood over questions of reality and illusion. I know this: if life is illusion, then I am no less an illusion, and being thus, the illusion is real to me. I live, I burn with life, I love, I slay, and am content.”

Robert E Howard – Queen of the Black Coast