Cartography Woes

After no small amount of frustration and way more hours than I would have expected, the Torchlight campaign setting at last has a complete world map. Now we just need to find the time to play the actual campaign...

Torchlight Ignited

This month should see the release of some cool new Blade Runner-themed Lumibricks that will enhance my growing city of Vesper. I want the city to look and feel epic in scope before we start the campaign. I'm also not in any great hurry to begin because, well, the new edition of Cypher doesn't include cyberpunk info in the core rulebooks! MCG maintains a cyberpunk campaign setting, however, so I'm hopeful we'll see cyberpunk content in the upcoming player supplement that was part of the Backerkit campaign for the second edition. That book likely won't be in our hands until early in the new year. 

In the meantime, we'll test out Cypher 2 with a return to the Torchlight setting. Nathaniel and Amy will play in person, while Matthew will participate remotely and asynchronously from his distant outpost in Indiana. Torchlight was an easy call because I already have a campaign written for it -- something I drafted back in the days of Covid but never got around to using.

Common Tongue

One building at a time, I'll assembling quite an enormous Lumibricks city to serve as the physical representation of Vesper for our upcoming Cypher campaign. I finished up a corporate skyscraper last night and brought in Amy and Nathaniel to see it light up in the dark. Afterwards, Nathaniel got a cheeky look on his face and asked what language people in Vesper speak. When I replied that English would be the lingua franca, he quipped, "What, not Vesperanto?"

My Bad!

I shouldn't have doubted MCG. Nathaniel found a legacy site where the original Cypher character builder remains intact, with all of our first-edition characters. Huzzah!

Wipeout

I do love Monte Cook Games, but I have to say that I was a bit peeved to find that when the online character builder tool launched for the new edition of Cypher, it seems to have wiped out all the saved characters from the first edition. I wish I'd had a bit of notice so that I could download PDFs of all the characters we've made over the past year or so. We would, of course, need to rebuild them for Cypher 2 anyway, but still...

Lanterns

Lanterns premieres tonight on HBO. Seriously hoping that it exorcises the ghost of Ryan Reynolds...

GM's Guide

The digital version of the GM's Guide for Cypher 2 just dropped!!!

Team Snapshot

Now that the Bearcats have become the last team to win their first Creighton Cup, I thought I'd tally up the team-level awards. The First-Place Pennant goes to the team that finishes in first place in the regular season, and the Creighton Cup, of course, goes to the champion of the postseason tournament. Here are the all-time standings, along with the season in which each team joined the league...

Team	First Season	First-Place Pennants	Creighton Cups
Bearcats	7	1	1
Bulldogs	1	0	2
Comets	1	2	2
Millionaires	4	2	2
Thistles	1	1	1
Victorias	1	7	5

The End of a Legend

Legend of Wukong came to a sudden end after a final boss fight that seemed rather too easy. Right up until the credits rolled, I was expecting one last plot twist or a bit more action before the "real" conclusion. In any case, the game was an absolute blast, and a worthy addition to my Evercade Hall of Fame. What's more, Wukong inspired me to pick up Journey to the West, the early Chinese novel upon which the game is (loosely) based.

Spinner

As if I needed any more evidence that Lumibricks is running circles around Lego, here's the new Blade Runner 2049 spinner. And yes, I've ordered it!

Blockbuster (Trade, Not Video)

It's hot stove season for my historical hockey league, and a humdinger of a trade just went down. The increasingly desperate Victorias -- who have a league-best five Creighton Cups but haven't won one since Season 9 -- are continuing the rebuild they started midway through last season. They've shipped off reliable left winger Marty Walsh and right-wing prospect Babe Dye to the Millionaires in exchange for young left wing George Hay and veteran forward Frank Rankin (who will be undertaking his second tour of duty with the Vics). Hay is the young, speedy, left-shooting, two-way winger the Vics have long coveted, and Rankin gives them added depth and positional versatility. What's in it for the Millionaires? After coming up short in the Season 13 finals against the Bearcats, the Millies were looking to add a couple of shooters. Walsh gives them a sniper to play on a line with two-time scoring titlist Mickey MacKay and his slick-skating sidekick, Frank Foyston. The real prize, though, is Dye; he has the offensive instincts and scoring potential of a Newsy Lalonde or a Joe Malone, but his abysmal puck-possession stats made him a poor fit for the Vics, a team that strongly values players who don't turn the puck over. In the end, this trade really comes down to Hay and Dye; the Vics are betting on Hay's high floor, while the Millies are betting on Dye's high ceiling. It may well be a couple of seasons before we can determine who really won this trade!

Legend of Wukong

It's a busy summer of Scouting activities, brief trips, and lots and lots (and lots) of work, but I'm steadily making my way through a '90s Taiwanese JRPG called Legend of Wukong on my Evercade. (Interestingly enough, it's the second game I've played that's based on an early Chinese novel.) I am, of course, a sucker for full-party, turn-based RPGs, so naturally I'm enjoying this one. There's plenty of action mixed with  memorable characters and goofy humor, which reminds me quite a bit of the superior Brave Battle Saga. 

Happy B-Day

Happy 250th, America! Any chance we can all come together and celebrate as one people? No...?

Cypherize

I'm really digging the new Cypher edition. I can't wait to get my hands on all the books and other goodies, but the PDF of the player guide is certainly enough to get my mind racing about the possibilities. I'm not saying that I would or should do this, but after reading that PDF, I feel as though I could convert my last two campaign settings -- Shattered Realm and the venerable Druid Cycle -- from Fifth Edition D&D to Cypher. All campaigns and settings linked by a common ruleset? And all characters, locations, and other elements recorded in a single spreadsheet? It's a tantalizing prospect...

Blade Runner

For weeks now, Lumibricks fans have been seeing scuttlebutt online that the company was entering into its first licensing agreement. We saw images that some swore were real and others decried as AI. Well, today, the company teased on Facebook that their first partnership will be announced later this month. The image they shared all but confirmed the identity of the licensed property: Blade Runner. Oh yeah -- my growing city of Vesper is going to get some awesome new additions!

Supergirl Premiere

Supergirl premieres in theaters today! I'm excited to see it, but Scouting-related activities will probably force me to wait until it comes out on HBO Max.

The End...For Now!

We played the epic conclusion of our Vanguard Saga campaign this evening. The heroes foiled the Anchorites' plans and, in doing so, got a few teasers for the upcoming Vesper campaign. I absolutely loved the player characters in this storyline, so we'll definitely revisit them in the future. Their main NPC ally was taken captive in the closing moments of the adventure, so they have an obvious next mission to undertake...

Free RPG Day

Today is Free RPG Day 2026! Swing by your friendly local game shop for some swag!

Cypher 2

The universe gives, and takes away, and gives again. Hot on the heels of my Knicks winning the championship, my Golden Knights flamed out in the Stanley Cup Final. Mere moments after their fate was sealed, however, I got the email from Monte Cook Games about the arrival of the digital version of the new Cypher System -- now just "Cypher" -- player's handbook. Nathaniel and I are already poring over the character creation rules in the new edition and looking ahead to the upcoming campaign set in Vesper.

Let's Go, Knicks!

When I was in high school, I used to play as the Knicks in NBA Jam and dream of the real-life team bringing home a championship. As a fortysomething adult, now owning my very own NBA Jam cabinet, I've played as the Knicks and dreamed of the real-life team bringing home a championship. Tonight, they're bringing home a championship for real. For the first time in my lifetime, the New York Knicks are world champions!