Mirror Reaper

"Bell Witch partnered with Director Taylor Bednarz to create this feature-length music video to accompany the Mirror Reaper album. The film is a video collage comprised of dozens of archival films. Each of these clips are woven together with the album to build a patient, heavy, and haunting narrative. Listen to the full 83 minute album, Mirror Reaper, while being taken into the state of a lucid dream."

Check it out:

Interludes for 5e Dungeons and Dragons

Art by Max Gibson

Interludes

It isn’t unusual for the characters in heroic fiction to engage in dialog or acts of storytelling that reveals something important about their pasts or gives the reader further access to their personalities. The system below gives a mechanical incentive for scenes of revelatory characterization:

• During a period of natural downtime, a player may nominate themselves to roleplay an interlude scene.
• That player must draw a single card from a standard deck. The value and suit of the card drawn determines the essential content of the interlude, as per the Interlude Table.
• The player will then tell a story based on that theme in the voice of their character. The story should reveal something about the character’s backstory or give the other players a greater sense of who that character is, their motivations, their hopes and fears, etc.
• After a player completes an interlude scene, their character immediately gains inspiration.
• The next time an interlude scene is invoked, a different player must nominate themselves.

Interlude Table

	Clubs	Diamonds	Hearts	Spades
Ace	Realization	First day on the job	Blossoming romance	New insight
Two	Cunning plan	Patience rewarded	Dangerous attraction	False impression
Three	Skilled leadership	Teamwork leading to success	Celebration	Failure to express an idea
Four	Goal achieved	Victim of greed	Solitude	Recovery from injury
Five	Competition	Victim of theft	Tragic loss	Hollow victory
Six	Glorious victory	Spending a vast sum	Childhood nostalgia	Long journey
Seven	Last-ditch defense	Changing your path	Treasured daydream	Practiced deceit
Eight	Short journey	The devil in the details	Leaving someone behind	Feeling trapped
Nine	Prolonged battle	Self-reliance	Sexual satisfaction	Guilty nightmare
Ten	Burden of duty	Inheritance	Familial happiness	Martyrdom
Jack	Quick temper	Hard work	Falling in love	Fiery rebellion
Queen	Utter chaos	Maternal instinct	Emotional dependence	Sharp intellect
King	Artistry	Rags to riches	Wise diplomacy	Self-reflection

***

NOTE: This system is an adaptation of the interludes from Savage Worlds Deluxe, but I have significantly expanded the table found in those rules.

Gothic-Grotesque, Blackbeard, Klaus Nomi and King Diamond

Gothic-Grotesque of 'Haunted': Joyce Carol Oates's Abjections
- Susana Arujo, Atmostfear

Three Centuries After His Beheading, a Kinder, Gentler Blackbeard Emerges
- Andrew Lawler, Smithsonian

Sonic Seraphim: The Interstellar Voices of Klaus Nomi & King Diamond
- Heather Drain, Diabolique Magazine

The Worm Ouroboros

Episode 30: The Worm Ouroboros

The Worm Ouroboros by E.R. Eddison is considered to be a classic of the fantasy genre, rediscovered during the 1960s as the canon of modern fantasy was developed in a post-Tolkien world. Drawing its influences from classic epics of the Nordic, Celtic, and Greek cultures, the novel tracks the culture clash between the noble and straight-dealing denizens of Demonland and their treacherous enemies in Witchland. It also has characters with names like Goldry Bluzsco, La Fireez, Spitfire, and Cargo, so strap yourselves in for some real high fantasy nonsense.

What will Kate and Jack make of the numerous old timey ballads and poems within the book's pages? Which characters does it seem like the author wanted to make kisses on? Who in their right mind would publish a ravenously pro-war novel four years after the close of World War I? What do Electric Wizard, decadent literature, and McDonaldLand have to do with any of this? Listen to the latest episode of Bad Books for Bad People and find out the answers to these questions and more.

BBfBP theme song by True Creature 

Find us at BadBooksBadPeople.com, on Twitter @badbooksbadppl, Instagram @badbooksbadpeople and on Facebook. You can discover where to get all the books featured on Bad Books for Bad People on our About Page.

Two Good Tubes: Cartoonist Kayfabe and Global Overkill

There are a lot of ways to waste time on Youtube, but there are also a few channels that are really worth sitting down and paying attention to. Here are two I'd recommend if the subject matter appeals to you:

Cartoonist Kayfabe

Cartoonists Ed Piskor and Jim Rugg sit down with an old issue of Wizard Magazine, flip through the pages, and give their commentary. I'm not even all that interested in capes comics, the main focus of Wizard's end of the comics industry, but the enthusiasm and knowledge Piskor and Rugg bring to the table makes this a fascinating channel. They bring multiple perspectives to the analysis: they reminisce about being young comics fans during the era, bring the knowledge that comes with being artists themselves, and the insider knowledge of being professionals working in the industry. And they're not afraid to cut a promo on some knuckleheads when necessary. They've got big plans for the channel; look for them to diversify the portfolio with interviews and expanded content in the weeks to come.

Global Overkill

Global Overkill is a recurring segment of the Canadian heavy metal channel Banger TV. Global Overkill is a deep dive on niche metal scenes around the world. So far, the series has delved into Quebec Tech Death, Australian Prog Metal, Icelandic Black Metal, Finnish Doom Metal, Lebanese Extreme Metal, Russian Heavy Metal, French Avant Garde Black Metal, South African Slam & Brutal Metal, Chilean Blackened Death Metal, Japanese Metal Girl Groups, Indonesian Grindcore, Brazilian Death Metal, and Chinese Folk Metal. Unfortunately, Global Overkill is on hiatus right now, but those previous episodes will keep you busy for a long time if you're into searching out wild new sounds from every corner of the globe. 

Feast Your Eyes on This

Art that inspired me in January, 2019:

Anne Simon

Colleen Doran

Tom Parkinson-Morgan

Hyun Lee

Doug Mahnke

John Blanche

Djuna Barnes

Dan Mumford