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Homebrew Worldbuilding with Sage
Ca-caw! It's Andy Law here to introduce our guest for today, the absolutely brilliant Sage, a wonderful person who many of you may already know as a player from my LAWhammer streams. Sage is joining us today to discuss Homebrew Worldbuilding - why your personal worldbuilding matters.Sage is the host of a charity stream called Why Your World Matters for Worldbuilding, and is also the co-creator of a new WFRP version of Nippon (along with me!) in the LAWhammer Actual Play series, so they have ...
Chaos Rising
I'm off to see the Chaos Rising premiere today, all thanks to Loremaster of Sotek.The event takes place in Duncarron Fort here in Scotland, and it's going to be awesome.If Warhammer fan films sound fun to you and you'd like to help the creators, please take a look at their marketing Kickstarter. Even a single £1 makes a difference for small projects like these. Please consider lending them a hand!Who do you want to win?
Tomorrow on Inside the Rookery: Adrian Tchaikovsky!
Ca-caw!Andy Leask here to introduce this week’s guest. This book nerd is feeling blessed, as we once again have a terrific writer of speculative fiction joining us Inside the Rookery to share some sneaky insights into their creative process. This week’s guest is an incredible, award-winning author of science fiction and fantasy: Adrian Tchaikovsky!We were meant to catch up with Adrian at Cymera 2023, but real life (COVID) got in the way. So we’re delighted Adrian’s joining us for his ver...
Inside the Rookery: The Art of Design
Hello, fellow Rooks! Andy Law here.After almost two months of hospital visits, pain-killers, and body-related horror that could bring even the most die-hard Cthulhu fan to their knees, I'm back online and able to sit at my chair again (the reasons why I couldn't are best left unsaid).So, I'm joining everyone else today. We figured we'd ask all of you for what topic we should discuss over on Discord. After some discussion, it seems that a good chat about design, layout, and organi...
The New Old-school with Kelsey Dionne
Ca-caw! You all know that us folks in the Rookery are oldskool by nature, so today's show certainly makes us happy! We're inviting Kelsey Dionne of The Arcane Library Inside the Rookery to discuss The New Old School, or how to build fresh and exciting RPGs using old-school themes.Why?Well, Bee runs So Below, a Pathfinder West Marches campaign, and are quite the expert on everything involved.If you’ve got questions about this sort of campaign — whether its how to build them, run them,...
Marching Westwards with Bee Scerri
Ca-caw! It's going to be a good one today, fellow Rooks! We're inviting Bee Scerri back Inside the Rookery (our original intro to them is here, and our brilliant vid with them from season 1 is here). Today we're Marching Westwards, talking about West Marches RPG campaigns (campaigns where players can drop in or out as required), something that's very close to Bee's heart.Why?Well, Bee runs So Below, a Pathfinder West Marches campaign, and are quite the expert on everything in...
Remembering Russ Nicholson VoD and Important Links
If you missed today's tribute to Russ Nicholson, catch it here:Remembering Russ Nicholson with Ian Livingston, Marc Gascoigne, James Wallis & Dave Morris (ITR S5) - YouTubeAlso, please check the following links for loads of great Russ goodies:If you want to see more of Russ's art, check his blog here:https://russnicholson.blogspot.com/If you'd like to know more about Ian Livingstone and Jonathan Green's new Art of Fighting Fantasy book, Magic Realms, click here:https://unbound.co...
Remembering Russ Nicholson with Ian Livingstone, Marc Gascoigne, James Wallis, and Dave Morris
Do join us at 7pm UK today when we celebrate the work of the extraordinary artist Russ Nicholson.https://www.twitch.tv/rookerypublicationshttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hgukZ7OZ32E
Ship of Fools: Developer's Diary 2
Hello, fellow Rooks!Andy Law here to welcome you to the second of our Developer Diaries for Ship of Fools. The first can be found here. I'm writing this a little later than expected due to yet more health complications. #NotFun I'm now on antibiotics and receiving a lot of sympathy from my family, which is lovely. Even if they are laughing at me as I wince my way through the house. I have to admit I do look rather amusing.Aaaaaanyway, let's put that aside!As mentioned in the last blo...
Inside the Rookery Special: Remembering Russ Nicholson
Russ Nicholson, who died last month, was one of the great figures of British fantasy illustration in the 1980s and 1990s. His distinctive style is immediately recognisable in some of the cornerstones of the field: the Fighting Fantasy series including the Warlock of Firetop Mountain; the Fiend Folio, the only UK-originated book published for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons; the Fabled Lands series by Dave Morris and Jamie Thomson; and work on Warhammer, Warhammer 40,000 and for many memorable White ...
Inside the Rookery: Crafting Epic Space Operas with Tom Toner
Ca-caw!Andy Leask here with a little post to introduce this week’s guest: Sci-fi author Tom Toner!Tom’s a lover of far-future space opera, and a fellow lover of Iain Banks' Culture series. As I’ve mentioned at length - most recently when chatting to Gareth L Powell (About Writing with Gareth L Powell (ITR S5:E4) - YouTube) - I’m a huge fan of Banks’ post-scarcity utopia and so it’s bound to come up. Tom’s also written for Black Library, so the galaxy-spanning Imperium of Warham...
Inside the Rookery: Worlds Within Worlds with Anna James
Ca-caw, my feathered friends!Today going to be a good one! We're joined by author and journalist Anna James to discuss Worlds Within Worlds, using other IPs in your original creations.As always, if you have any questions you'd like to ask, either post them live during the show and Lindsay will bring them up for discussion, or dive into the Rookery Discord server and pre-submit your questions in the thread set up for it there.As always, we go live on Twitch, YouTube, and Facebook at 7pm U...
Introducing Anna James.
Ca-caw!Andy of the Leask variety here to introduce this week’s guest, the most excellent Anna James!Anna is, amongst many other things, a terrific author, best known for her Pages & Co series. Though suitable for (and aimed at) younger readers, they’re beloved by bookworms of all ages. Their central conceit is bookwandering, by which means characters can enter into the worlds of books, or bring characters forth into the real world. The first book features characters from Alice in Wonderland ...
Inside the Rookery: Wargaming Characters with Chris Handley
Ca-caw!Andy Leask here to introduce this week’s guest, though really, he needs no introduction! Chris Handley is a long-time friend of Inside The Rookery, having joined us in the past to talk about various things, including the increasingly topical topic of AI.Chris is a writer and podcaster, and has written for an array of different tabletop RPG settings, including Vampire: the Masquerade and Changeling: the Lost as well as Wrath and Glory, Soulbound, Iron Kingdoms, and Warhammer Fantasy Role...
Inside the Rookery: About Writing with Gareth L Powell
Ca-caw, my feathered friends!We're really looking forward to today's Inside the Rookery as best-selling, award-winning Gareth L Powell is just brilliant, brimful of sage advice for aspiring writers.As always, if you have any questions you'd like to ask, either post them live during the show and Lindsay will bring them up for discussion, or dive into the Rookery Discord server and pre-submit your questions in the thread set up for it there.As always, we go live on Twitch, YouTube, and...
INTRODUCING GARETH L POWELL
Ca-caw!Andy Leask here, with an exciting intro to this week’s Inside the Rookery guest: the great Gareth L Powell! Gareth is a bestselling writer and an active, positive presence on social media. An award-winning author, he has written 17 published books, and has become one of the most-shortlisted authors in the 50-year history of the British Science Fiction Association Awards. Two of his novels - Ack-Ack Macacaque (love that name!) and Embers of War - have won the coveted BSFA award. That las...
Streaming About Games with the Loremaster of Sotek
Andy Law here to introduce our brilliant guest this week: the Loremaster of Sotek. I recently appeared on his Lorebeards podcast and had an absolute ball. His joyful enthusiasm for the Warhammer world and everything it offered was infectious, and soon we were chatting away like old friends.If you haven't caught any of his VoDs on YouTube or his podcasts, I recommend them to all Warhammer fans, including those who follow Age of Sigmar. The Loremaster of Sotek has built a career online streami...
Ship of Fools Developer Diary 1
Hello, fellow Rooks!Andy Law here to welcome you to the first of our Developer Diaries for Ship of Fools. As many of you know, we here at Rookery Publications are working on finalising our first full adventure, Ship of Fools, and are also working on a complete RPG campaign to follow it, The Coiled Crown.In preparation for the release of Ship of Fools, we're going to be running a weekly series of developer diaries inviting you Inside the Rookery to discuss the realities of creating and finish...
Actual Play Starter Set with Markeia McCarty
Andy Law here to introduce our guest today, and I'm beyond excited for this one. For those of you who caught Andy, Lindsay, and me streaming part 1 of the Enemy Within past night, you'll soon understand why. Our guest, Markeia McCarty (she/they), has a lot of experience in this area.Markeia is the Community Director for Hunters Entertainment, a brilliant company I have had the privilege of mapping for in the past. You may know Hunters for their award-winning games covering everything fro...
Season 5 begins with 'Being Gareth Hanrahan!'
Ca-caw, my feathered friends!Let's start season 5 with a bang! And what better way to do that than by inviting the wonderful Gareth Hanrahan inside the Rookery to talk about the nigh-on uncountable number of TTRPG books he's written, his novels, and the links between them both!As always, if you have any questions you'd like to ask Gareth, either post them live during the show and Lindsay will bring them up for discussion, or dive into the Rookery Discord server and pre-submit your qu...
INTRODUCING GARATH HANRAHAN
Welcome to Season 5 of Inside the Rookery! James here to introduce you to our first guest: Gareth Hanrahan.Gareth is probably the most prolific games writer the UK has produced, with literally hundreds of titles for Mongoose Publishing, Pelgrane Press, Cubicle 7, Galileo Games and others, with important releases for 13th Age, Trail of Cthulhu, Night’s Black Agents, Paranoia, Conan, Traveller, Runequest and many others. Until Cubicle 7 moved to Dublin, Gareth pretty much was the Irish RPG indus...
Instructions for today's Masterclass.
Ca-caw, fellow Rooks!Here's how to join in with today's Critical Cartography Masterclass from Andy Law.Andy will stream live presenting 7 different points to consider when creating labels for your map locations. He'll also be taking questions as he goes.As with previous classes, we're using YouTube. You can view it at this link:https://youtube.com/live/xI50I34MBIgHead there from 7pm UK time onwards to watch Andy do his thing.All comments you post on YouTube will go to everyone li...
Critical Cartography 9: Locations!
It's Wednesday! For the last time before Season 5 of Inside the Rookery starts THIS SATURDAY, it's time for Andy to jump in with another mapping masterclass. Today at 7pm UK time, we're covering location markers and feature locations. How to mark them on your maps and how to keep them interesting.After today's class, we'll also be uploading all the files to Brazen Rooks+ so you can play with them yourselves at home.Our previous between-season mapping masterclasses have been g...
Instructions for Today's Masterclass
Ca-caw, fellow Rooks!It's that time again! Here's how to view today's Critical Cartography Masterclass from Andy Law.Andy will stream live presenting 7 different ways to tackle your coastlines. He will also take questions as he goes if you have any.As with previous classes, we're using YouTube. You can view it at this link:https://youtube.com/live/LEovmD4i9mcHead there from 7pm UK time onwards to watch Andy do his thing.All comments you post on YouTube will go to everyone live in...
Critical Cartography 8: Coastlines!
As Wednesday rolls around again, it's time for Andy to jump in with another mapping masterclass, and this time he'll be coasting, as he's mapped enough of these to draw them in his sleep. Yes, today it's coastlines!At 7pm our mapping maestro, Andy Law, goes live with another 7 different ways map, this time covering where land meets sea on your fantasy maps.Our previous masterclasses have been a blast. For those of you who missed them, Andy explains the step-by-step process for se...
Instructions for Today's Masterclass
Ca-caw, fellow Rooks!Time to explain how to view today's Critical Cartography Masterclass from Andy Law.Andy will stream live presenting 7 different ways to map forests. He will also take questions as he goes if you have any.As with previous classes, we're using YouTube. You can view it at this link:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQgDJczojiAHead there from 7pm UK time onwards to watch Andy do his thing.All comments you post on YouTube will go to everyone live in the stream. We'll po...
Critical Cartography 7: Forests!
It's Wednesday, so that means it's mapping masterclass time!Today at 7pm our cartographical champion, Andy Law, goes live with another seven different ways map, this time covering forests on your fantasy maps.Like last week's tutorial on mountains, this masterclass is aimed at beginners and old hands alike and is designed to be duplicatable by anyone, regardless of skill level. By the end of it, you will be single-handedly reversing climate change in your fantasy worlds as trees star...
Instructions For Today's Masterclass
Ca-caw, fellow Rooks!Time to explain how to view today's Critical Cartography Masterclass from Andy Law.Andy will stream live presenting 7 different ways to map mountains. He will also take questions as he goes if you have any. By the end of the stream, you should have everything you need to map your mountains.As with previous classes, we're using YouTube. You can view it at this link:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=914K9IvLgzYHead there from 7pm UK time onwards to watch Andy do his thin...
Critical Cartography 6: Mountains!
It's map time!Today at 7pm Andy Law goes live with seven (yes, SEVEN!) different ways to depict mountains on your fantasy maps.Aimed at beginners and old hands, this masterclass will be duplicatable by anyone, regardless of skill level. By the end of it, you will be mountaineering through your maps like a champ!The details for connecting to this masterclass go live on this blog at 6pm today. It's available to all Brazen Rooks+ patrons here on Inside the Rookery.Don't miss out!
MAPPING MASTERCLASSES GALORE!
Are you ready to map?Four weeks of Mapping Masterclasses are about to begin. Every Wednesday for the next month, mapping maestro Andy Law will guide you through all the core steps of building any fantasy map.His first masterclass, happening on the 29th March, will guide you through seven different ways to depict mountains on your maps. He will be showing how he created the different styles he used for mapping settings for Games Workshop, Critical Role, Chaosium, Fantasy Flight Games, Modiphius, ...
