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btravern.bsky.social
Tʀᴀᴠᴇʀɴ
@btravern.bsky.social
160 followers 91 following 1.5K posts
Mastodon rider, here due to FOMO. Holder of 5 unused invite codes. Posting #TTRPG sundries here and on dice.camp
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btravern.bsky.social
The real question is hard-candy vs. gummi dice.
A selection of multicolored d6 lollipops Orange-flavored/colored polyhedral gummi dice from Kohakutou Gummies
November 30, 2025 at 7:15 PM
btravern.bsky.social
Seems sus
Pull-quote from WIRED article (https://www.wired.com/story/poems-can-trick-ai-into-helping-you-make-a-nuclear-weapon/): “The study did not include any examples of the jailbreaking poetry, and the researchers tell WIRED that the verse is too dangerous to share with the public.”
November 30, 2025 at 4:48 PM
btravern.bsky.social
Sometimes I like to check who's blocking me to make sure I'm flying right. In this case, I see that not only is this account pre-blocked thanks to a helpful mod list, but also there's the tell of "Frequent AI Imagery" (@aimod.social is fantastically helpful).
Noxious account blocked by "Nazi's, Fascists, and Chuds. Oh my!" moderation list and tagged as a User of Frequent AI Imagery.
November 29, 2025 at 9:51 PM
btravern.bsky.social
R.I.P. Tom Stoppard (born Tomáš Sträussler)

www.theguardian.com/stage/2025/n...
Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead (1966) No, no, no... you've got it all wrong... you can't act death. The fact of it is nothing to do with seeing it happen — it's not gasps and blood and falling about — that isn't what makes it death. It's just a man failing to reappear, that's all — now you see him, now you don't, that's the only thing that's real: here one minute and gone the next and never coming back — an exit, unobtrusive and unannounced, a disappearance gathering weight as it goes on, until, finally, it is heavy with death.
November 29, 2025 at 6:44 PM
btravern.bsky.social
Would also accept:
Peter Mannion MP (Roger Allam) in The Thick of It: "I'm bored of this. I'm going for a Twix."
November 28, 2025 at 2:08 PM
btravern.bsky.social
"You can't get the wood, you know."
Kier Starmer at a podium with the US and UK flags behind him: "there's a famous slogan in the United Kingdom"
November 28, 2025 at 2:06 PM
btravern.bsky.social
Post something random or you'll have an awful December
The Thing? (“Mystery of the Desert”) Arizona roadside attraction
November 28, 2025 at 12:06 AM
btravern.bsky.social
Have you been purged of the Isometric Heresey?
Isometric graph paper
November 27, 2025 at 1:05 PM
btravern.bsky.social
Deus Ex (Ion Storm, 2000) NSF Terrorist Leader informs MIB-in-training JC Denton: “Number one: In 1945 corporations paid 50 percent of federal taxes. Now they pay about 5 percent. Number two: In 1900 90 percent of Americans were self-employed; now it's about two percent.”
November 26, 2025 at 5:20 PM
btravern.bsky.social

Less than 24 hours left on Bundle of Holding's great deal on the complete Ken Writes About Stuff!

#1 Hideous Creatures

Revisiting Lovecraft’s Mythos creations to find a new sense of surprise, the uncanny, and true horror.

https://bundleofholding.com/presents/KenWrites
Hideous Creatures: Byakhee, Dark Young, Deep Ones, Ghouls, the Great Race of Yith, the Hounds of Tindalos, Hunting Horrors, Mi-Go, Lloigor, Rat-Things, Serpent Folk, Shoggoths, Star-Vampires, Tcho-Tchp, Wendigo
November 26, 2025 at 9:03 AM
btravern.bsky.social
And its expansions, MAJESTIC Overwatch and Galileo Uplift
Majestic Overwatch expansion by Kenneth Hite (Pelgrane Press) "The Moon Dust Men are the tip of the spear. Majestic-12 aims it. You are the Men in the very deepest of Black, fighting – and perhaps even directing -- the shadow war against the aliens. "Shortly after the UFO crash at Roswell in 1947, U.S. Secretary of Defense James Forrestalandpresidentialscienceadviser Vannevar Bush convened an ad hoc group of twelve of the top intelligence, scientific, and military men available. Its code name: MAJESTIC. As the true scope of the alien presence in the universe – and more, of the alien incursions into terrestrial airspace – became clear, the group became less ad hoc. At first, the Majestic-12 committee tried to cover up all evidence of, and prevent all investigation into, the reality of the UFO threat. But as the threat grew, they realized they needed more resources than one committee could command. They needed a permanent presence in the U.S. military-intelligence-scientific bureaucracy, and they needed a dedicated team of trustworthy, confidential investigators." Galileo Uplift expansion by Kenneth Hite (Pelgrane Press) "To fight aliens, one must use the alien. Take it apart, reverse-engineer it, rebuild it, turn it into armor and sensors and weapons and aircraft good enough to win a war against an enemy from the stars. Tech and gear for your high-powered MOON DUST MEN game, powered by a new GUMSHOE “tech tree” subsystem for bootstrapping invention and development."
November 24, 2025 at 4:19 PM
btravern.bsky.social
Two days left on Bundle of Holding's great deal on the complete Ken Writes About Stuff!

#2 Moon Dust Men

UFO-hunting as the government's men in black, squaring off against Greys, Nommos, Nordics, Reptoids, cryptids, and the Soviet's Setka-AN and Setka-MO.
Moon Dust Men by Kenneth Hite (Pelgrane Press) "President Eisenhower established Project Moon Dust in 1953 to locate, contain, and coordinate everything known about the alien presence on Earth. The public-relations and open-source arm of Moon Dust was called Project Blue Book. Blue Book ended its work in 1970. It is 1978. Your work never ends." "In 1978, Project Moon Dust is staffed and concealed by the 7612th Air Intelligence Group. The cover mission of the 7612th is enemy aircraft assessment, security and investigation of classified crashed U.S. aircraft, the interrogation of captured enemy pilots, and interpretation of air-gathered intelligence. In the last decade, Moon Dust teams have carried out missions in the Sudan, Nepal, South Africa, Bolivia, Paraguay, and Panama. And those are just the ones that got into State Department records. You’re not encouraged to involve the State Department. "You might be a Green Beret who saw a “red sphere” bring down a B-52 over Laos in 1970, or a DARPA engineer with access to the Philadelphia Experiment files, or even a liaison from the British DI 55 “UFO Desk.”"
November 24, 2025 at 4:19 PM
btravern.bsky.social
I really hope Free League has a plan for this.
ALIEN RPG Evolved Edition Core Rulebook, licensed from 20th Century Studio/Walt Disney The One Ring RPG, licensed from Middle-earth Enterprises/Embracer Group Vaesen (RPG), based on the works of Johan Egerkrans The Walking Dead RPG, licensed from AMC Film Holdings LLC
November 24, 2025 at 2:35 PM
btravern.bsky.social
We all go a little mad sometimes, Charlie Brown
Cover mock-up for "We all go a little mad sometimes, Charlie Brown", with Charles M. Schulz's character staring blankly at the reader
November 24, 2025 at 2:40 AM
btravern.bsky.social
What’s your favorite comic book from the 80s? (continued.)
Miracleman by Alan Moore and Gary Leach; Mister X by Dean Motter and the Hernandez brothers; Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind by Hayao Miyazaki; Neat Stuff by Peter Bagge; Nemesis the Warlock by Pat Mills and Kevin O'Neill; Ronin by Frank Miller; Usagi Yojimbo by Stan Sakai; Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons; Why I Hate Saturn by Kyle Baker; Zenith by Grant Morrison, Brendan McCarthy, and Steve Yeowell; Zippy the Pinhead by Bill Griffith
November 23, 2025 at 9:06 PM
btravern.bsky.social
Three days left on Bundle of Holding's great deal on the complete Ken Writes About Stuff!

#3 The School of Night

Elizabethan intrigue with poets, spies, and occultists—John Dee, Christopher Marlowe, Sir Walter Raleigh, the "Wizard Earl" of Northumberland & co.

bundleofholding.com/presents/Ken...
The School of Night "“Black is the badge of Hell; the hue of dungeons and the School of Night.” Queen Elizabeth’s realm lies vulnerable, not just to the Spanish or the plague, but to occult forces perhaps more dangerous than either. You study those forces at the risk of torture — at the risk of your soul — but you must hold them at bay or see England destroyed. "Your School of Night campaign might resemble a 16th-century Night’s Black Agents investigation of a demonic conspiracy, a picaresque “weirdness and monster hunt” game a la Fringe, Supernatural, or The X-Files, Tudor ghost-breaking and exorcism played for psychological and proto-scientific chills, or feature straightup horror of the Cthulhoid or Gothic bent. It might feature “wolf in the fold” gaming as players betray Raleigh to the Tudor police state for their own masters, or play up the espionage element in true “wildernesse of mirrors” style. Or it might combine all of these elements but really feature the fun of carrying rapiers, casting Enochian spells, and playing the dozens with that new-fledged goose Shakespeare down at the Mermaid Tavern." Christopher Marlowe Faustian Playwright You were born in Canterbury in 1564, and graduate from Cambridge in 1584. Your Master of Arts is endangered by time spent studying at the (treasonous) English Seminary at Rheims, but is finally awarded in 1587 after intervention by the Privy Council. This is because you serve as an intelligencer in Sir Francis Walsingham’s spy network, for which you also tutor Lady Arabella Stuart in 1589 and infiltrate a forgery ring in Flanders in 1592. You may have entered the School of Night as an intelligencer for Walsingham!
November 23, 2025 at 7:48 PM
btravern.bsky.social
Four days left on Bundle of Holding's great deal on the complete Ken Writes About Stuff!

#4 Alchemy and Goetia (tie)

When your RPG needs authentic magic systems, whether for plumbing the secrets of matter or summoning demons to cast fireballs on your behalf.

bundleofholding.com/presents/Ken...
Alchemy "Alchemy takes its name from the Arabic al-khimiya, ultimately meaning the art or science or matter of Khem, i.e., Egypt. What it means is still very much a live controversy: after a century or so in which it just meant “wrong or primitive chemistry” Carl Jung and Mircea Eliade (among others) reinterpreted alchemy as a psychoanalytic or mystical tradition in which all the metals and alembics just camouflaged the spiritual seeking of the Great Work.[…] "There is no “default” or even “authentic” version of alchemy, even of early modern European alchemy. Between trade secrets, mystical bafflegab, the normal variation and drift of occult fashion, new chemical discoveries, and quite probable mercury poisoning, it’s almost impossible to find two alchemical treatises that agree in specific detail, although the broad outline of the Great Work remains recognizable throughout." Goëtia "Bifrons. Glasya-Labolas. Marchosias. Names to conjure with – literally! This GUMSHOE Zoom takes you inside the pentacle and introduces you to the hierarchy of Hell. Historical European demon-summoning magic just got easier and more realistic. "From the mid-13th century to the early 20th century, Western European magicians summoned, bound, and commanded demons using the Names of God, Jesus, and various angels. Some were black magicians seeking power and poison; others thought of themselves as white magicians investigating the laws of Nature and the deeds of Man."
November 22, 2025 at 7:46 PM
btravern.bsky.social
What’s your favorite comic book from the 80s?
Akira by Katsuhiro Otomo; American Flagg! by Howard Chaykin; The Ballad of Halo Jones by Alan Moore and Ian Gibson; Elric: The Dreaming City, by Michael Moorcock, Roy Thomas, and P. Craig Russell; The Good Times Are Killing Me by Lynda Barry; Grendel: Devil by the Deed by Matt Wagner; Hard-Boiled Defective Stories by Charles Burns; The Incal by Alejandro Jodorowsky and Mœbius (Jean Giraud); Lloyd Llewellyn by Daniel Clowes; Maus by Art Spiegelman
November 22, 2025 at 4:33 PM
btravern.bsky.social
Five days left on Bundle of Holding's great deal on the complete Ken Writes About Stuff!

Included is his monograph on Die Glocke, a.k.a the Nazi Bell, a.k.a. Projekt LATERNENTRÄGER ("Lantern-Bearer")—the "anti-Grail myth" of the 21st-century for any weird RPG.

bundleofholding.com/presents/Ken...
Die Glocke by Kenneth Hite (Pelgrane Press, 2013) "According to the legend, in 1944 the SS built a mysterious device deep in a Silesian mine shaft. Its bell-like shape gave it the nickname “die Glocke,” or “the Bell,” but the purpose of “Project Lantern-Bearer” remains a mystery to this day. Was it a time machine? A zero-point energy generator? A gateway to another world? Die Glocke cuts through the legend to the truth — and then piles on a bunch more legend. "The core of the Bell legend is this. In an abandoned coal mine in Poland, the Nazis built Something that violated the laws of orthodox physics. More than that – it blasphemed against them. That Something had the form of a large metal Bell (Glocke in German), and it could have won the War, but the Allies closed in. Those who built it were killed, and it was taken away to a hidden place where its power slowly poisons any mind that beholds it, even now. Where the Bell rested remains a desolate place, guarded by a concrete henge." Schematic for die Glocke, the bell-shaped container for the mysterious Xerum 525, "a mysterious glowing purple substance" that powered the legendary device. Map of the Nazi's construction sites for Project RIESE ("Giant"), the purported location of die Glocke.
November 21, 2025 at 8:46 PM
btravern.bsky.social
Why go to the bother of updating them when you could simply repackage them as Cassette Futurism? The future we really want is in the past!
Japanese computer museum of selected PCs from the 2000s
November 19, 2025 at 2:03 PM
btravern.bsky.social
Post your favorite "The Lord of The Rings" character. Wrong answers only.
The Nome King (Return to Oz, 1985): A mineralogical monarch who commands the rocks and all that the rocks contain.
November 18, 2025 at 3:18 AM
btravern.bsky.social
What stuff, you ask? This stuff!
Ken Writes About Stuff covers, e.g. Alchemy, Bast, Goetia, Las Vegas 1968, Moon Dust Men, The School of Night, Voodoo, Xeno-Archaeology, and more
November 12, 2025 at 9:16 PM
btravern.bsky.social
If you see this, post a #StarTrek
Mego Enterprise Action Playset, with dolls of Spock, Kirk, Uhura, Bones, and a Klingon on the spaceship's bridge
November 12, 2025 at 2:50 PM
btravern.bsky.social
Frank Herbert did not go far enough.
The Butlerian Jihad, depicted in the TV edit of the 1984 Dune movie. A group of robed anti-AI crusaders attack robots while two carry a crucifix.
November 12, 2025 at 2:44 PM
btravern.bsky.social
From Russia, With Love is one of my favorite Bond novels since it's clear by the end that Fleming, "fed up" with Bond's "tawdry tricks", sent his sybaritic secret agent into a classic honeypot trap with the intention of bumping him off.
From Russia, With Love by Ian Fleming (Jonathan Cape, 1957)
November 12, 2025 at 2:26 PM