TI Dispatch Archives:2001-2002

Happy Holidays from the NAGS Society and Grey Ghost Press! Daily Dispatches will go on hiatus until the First of the year.

Miniature World Maker has a large line of terrain in several scales—great for creating the perfect Lost World. And, to keep the denizens of that Lost World in check, Marcus Rowland will give you the Queen’s Own Aerial Hussars in the upcoming FF IX: It’s My Own Invention.

From the American Old West, we travel to west Africa and magic in the World of the Yoruba.

For TI campaigns set in the American Old West, the Desperado website provides numerous useful tidbits. (Beware of the musical accompaniment, though).

Compliments of the Space:1889 Yahoo Group comes this link to Lateral Science, the best site I have seen thus far concerning actual Victorian weird science.

The world holds many more secret organizations than the NAGS Society. This site discusses some of the better known groups that Society members might encounter.

Gary Williams at Microtactix has a new cardstock creation: Mad Lab, the perfect villainous laboratory for a pulp era fiend.

In a very nice move, the folks at Key20 Games are giving away the 12 Games of Christmas, a new free goody each day until Christmas. The first might interest TI fans: Tombs of Terror! by Paul Elliot, an adventure playset for the Against the Reich! supplement for OctaNe (whew!). Tombs of Terror! (20 page pdf) contains brief descriptions of popular pulp artifacts (Holy Grail, Ark of the Covenant, &c.), appropriate environments and their trappings (jungle, desert), and two skeletal adventures which just need a little GM customization. All in all, it’s an idea mine for TI GMs. By the way, OctaNe is an amusing post apocalyptic (sort of) indie game from Jared Sorensen, while Against the Reich! uses the OctaNe rules in a Nazi infested 1930’s pulp setting. AtR! (37 page pdf, $5) provides yet another playset: Invasion Hollow Earth!

Shaun O’Boyle’s photographs of modern ruins can provide inspiration for interesting locations for your TI adventures.

For those who use miniatures for their Victorian era TI games, have a look at this line from Brigade Games — the Brigade Games GASLIGHT figures. The figures support an alternate American Civil War scenario and are thoroughly customizable. Victoria Hawkes, for example, includes 1 open right hand(empty), 1 open left hand (empty), 1 telescope, 1 open book, 1 ray gun rifle, 1 sword, 1 rifle, 1 raygun, 1 umbrella, and1 luger with rifle stock. They also sell a steam boiler, levers and gauges for vehicles, as well as tractor wheels and turrets for creating your own vehicles.

According to the site itself, “The Invisible Library is a collection of books that only appear in other books. Within the library’s catalog you will find imaginary books, pseudobiblia, artifictions, fabled tomes, libris phantastica, and all manner of books unwritten, unread, unpublished, and unfound.”

Due to an ice storm of nigh-Pleistocenic proportions, the North Carolina campus has been without telephone and electricity (and, therefore, heat and water) for the past four days. We will begin transmitting normally once the utilities come back online.

Here are a few relevant links for those pulp adventurers out there: Pulp-Adventures.com is an online pulp RPG based upon Pulp Heroes d20 published in Dungeon/Polyhedron #90. Paul Lesack’s Gear Krieg page features a pulp adventure entitled The Flower of Al-Kiar (6 pages, 1.2 MB pdf—there’s a lot of maps!).

The December edition of the Fudge Factor ezine is up. Articles include an adaptation ofthe RPG Over the Edge to Fudge, swashbucking combat rules, and interesting magic system (that would fit well into the scientific world of Terra Incognita) and musings on pacing combat.

N.B.: The NAGS Society Virtual Campus will be embroiled in secret investigations through December 2. Dispatches will resume on December 3.

Here’s a site devoted to some Ancient Mysteries. It’s all there: ancient technological mysteries, ancient structures, human origins more than a million years ago, &c.

Following up on Thursday’s absurd inventions, I give you a few more practical items from the Encyclopedia Smithsonian.

Including subtle details from the time period can really make you rpg campaign come alive. I recommend my current read, Daily Life on the 19th Century American Frontier by Mary Ellen Jones. You’ll have to supplement the information and illustrations with your own maps, but I’m finding it an excellent resource. On the other side of the pond, try Daily Life in Victorian England by Sally Mitchell. They do seem a bit dear to buy new, so I suggest trying the library first.

For those aspiring Gadeteers out there, TotallyAbsurd.com provides descriptions of some outré U.S. patents.

Here are a number of resources for campaigning in the American west. The Oregon Trail concerns the well-travelled path to the west. Of particular note is the Trail Archive of Period Books: A Prairie Traveler by Randolph Marcy is a wonderful guide to nineteenth century exploring. PBS maintains websites for several relevant TV specials: The Gold Rush and The West.

Adventure Inc. is a new UK-based television show in the pulp mode. Check the website for more information. TI GMs could certainly mine the episode guide for adventure ideas.

If you need a quick map on the building, city, or continental scale, try the online Instant Map Makers from Irony Games. The terrain and clearing maps are quite nice, and all maps can be downloaded and printed.

For a sampler of the web’s numerous Victorian Adventure sites, try the Victorian Adventure Gaming webring. (I’m afraid I don’t know what the little green and red thumbs up and down signs mean.)

Marcus Rowland has posted pictures of the Balaclava, a 25mm scale æronef he scratch-built from odds and ends. While intended for Victorian science fiction, such a craft could easily be the latest secret weapon from the NAGS Society.

Planning an expedition into the Dark Continent? Try the BBC site The Story of Africa for information about African culture, history, geography, religion, &c.

Bill and Michael Futreal maintain a wonderful collection of blogs concerning the Myterious Earth. This site is tailor-made for Terra Incognita game masters!

Here are a couple of spooky sites for inspiration: Devil’s Tramping Ground is a creative site with lots of flash animation scenes that remind me of a spooky version of the computer game Myst. The North Carolina Ghost Guide provides information about, pictures of, and directions to, the Devil’s Tramping Ground and other Tarheel Tales of Terror. Adapt them for use in your own TI campaign.

Here is an intersting website concerning the ill-fated Burke and Wills Expedition in Australia in 1860-61. The site has loads of information, including primary documents from the expedition in the achives. All of the information would be useful for planning an ill-fated expedition anywhere in Terra Incognita.

(Shamelessly pilfered from the SJG Daily Illuminator). The Urban Exploration Ring is a collection of websites describing and depicting elicit explorations of urban infrastructure such as sewers, steam pipes, tunnels, &c. Such exploits are right out of my suburban youth and thus undoubtedly went into my subconscious, later to emerge in Terra Incognita.

Continuing in the spirit of being late, I bring you several sites concerning the fascinating Mexican celebration el día de los muertos, the day of the dead, which has just passed. AzCentral.com has a nice site while this web essay from Iowa State by Ricardo Salvador has some nice photos. Finally, the MexicoConnect site has a full-blown photo essay.

Also, I missed the fact that yesterday marks the one-year anniversary of the debut of this splendid TI website!

I suddenly realized that I had never Dispatched the Society’s associates to this summer’s Forgotten Futures realease from Marcus Rowland: Forgotten Futures VIII: Fables and Frolics, Magical Adventures in the Worlds of Edith Nesbit’s Victorian and Edwardian Children’s Fantasy. As always, you can try it for free and register if you like it. Nesbitt’s books (which are included in the files) include wonderful characters and humorous and exciting adventures. While this one is not as TI-friendly as the Professor Challenger or Carnacki volumes, I found it to be inspirational.

Rob Beattie has several great Victorian science f iction and wargame pages. Tom Brown’s Africa Days concerns a popular fictional hero from the 1850’s: “I was thinking of why Flashman gets all the publicity. What ever happened to the hero of the book, Tom Brown, himself. He was such a goody-goody fellow, probably married, got a good job in London and lived happily ever after. Or maybe he had a proclivity for a more sporting life. Got into debt gambling, had to get a loan from some shady money lender (perhaps Professor Moriarity), then was caught embezzelling funds from his firm, and so fled to Africa.”

Steam Power Publishing has announced several forthcoming rpg products, including Dark Steam “The world is not how you remember it. History has been a lie. This is how life really was. This is the world of DarkSteam. Prepare for a revelation.” They have a newsletter (to receive it you must register) that apparently discusses the new game.

Following a lengthy hiatus, the Fudge-related ezine Fudge Factor has a new issue. If you have the urge to write up the notes regarding your last TI adventure, Fudge Factor is a great place to share them with discerning gamers.

It seems that some of the Society’s activities beneath Liverpool are finally gaining publicity.

For the Francophonic, have a look at GROG, the Guide du Roliste Galactique for gaming news, reviews, and brief biographies of all your favorite gaming professionals—all in French, of course.

Parroom Station careens further into alternate history and Victorian science fiction than your average TI campaign, but I find it inspiring.

If you’ve read the NAGS Society Worldbook, the still-free precursor to Terra Incognita, then you know I was a bit enamored of Star Trek when I wrote it. The text contains a number of Star Trek references, and the sample campaign on board the NAS Legend was rightly criticized as a Star Wars pastiche during the rewriting process. Well, now someone has finally done it right!

Beam over to Mark Toboll, Cory Gross, and Stephen Vossler’s Steam-Trek! “These are the voyages of Her Majesties Æther Ship Dauntless. Our mission, to explore romantic new worlds, seek out life, and expand civilization, to boldly go where no gentleman has gone before.” A combination of Space:1889, George Griffith’s Astronef stories, and, of course, Star Trek, the Steam-Trek website will combine PBEM role-playing and collaborative story-writing. I can’t wait for this one to take off.

I had heard of, but never seen, the old Tri-Tac Games chestnut Bureau 13: Stalking the Night Fantastic. Having checked out the website (the game and supplements are now available in pdf format on CD), I think we have a perfect example of convergent evolution. I would say that much of the Bureau 13 material would fit wonderfully into the World of Nags. The BlackPowder Years 1859-1889 looks fascinating.

The intrepid Warren Shultzaberger has posted some excellent advice for GMing a Fudge pulp game over on the Fudge Phoenyx list. Take some advice from a pulp veteran.

While this is not strictly TI-related, I thought I’d pass it along: November is National Novel Writing Month. The NaNoWriMo website challenges would-be authors to pen a 50,000 word novel in just the 30 days of November. You only need to churn out the words to win—no one will read it (unless you want to share).

Strange Science follows the rocky road to modern paleontology and biology, paying attention to those miscues scientists made along the way. Of particular interest to the TI GM is the Goof Gallery, a beastiary of fabulous scientific conjecture. But then again, who’s to say they were mistakes?

Looking for your Fudge fix? Try the Fudge Sightings webpage to locate the nearest retailer who stocks Fudge products. The database is worldwide, including stores in Australia, Europe, Canada, and the UK. If you’ve spotted Fudge somewhere that’s not yet listed, please add a listing.

The RPG Freelancers Guide will be a monthly, subscription ($20.00 US per annum) pdf newsletter aimed at freelance writers in the RPG market. The website is bare bones at this point, but it will be interesting to see how this develops.

The latest issue of Biblical Archaeology Review contains a fascinating article concerning the earliest written reference to one James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus, discovered in Jerusalem on a first century ossuary. Today’s Los Angeles Times features a lengthy story on the topic, including images of the burial box and its Aramaic inscription. (You have to register with the Times to read the story, a relatively painless process.)

This suggestion for inspirational reading comes from Jonathan Wells on the TIrpg Yahoo Group: Connie Willis’ To Say Nothing of the Dog. Here’s what the publisher has to say:

On the surface, England in the summer of 1888 is possibly the most restful time in history - lazy afternoons boating on the Thames, tea parties, croquet on the lawn - and time traveler Ned Henry is badly in need of a rest. He’s been shuttling back and forth between the 21st century and the 1940s looking for a Victorian atrocity called the bishop's bird stump. It’s only the latest in a long string of assignments from Lady Schrapnell, the rich dowager who has invaded Oxford University. She’s promised to endow the university’s time-travel research project in return for their help in rebuilding the famed Coventry Cathedral, destroyed in a Nazi air raid over a hundred years before. But the bargain has turned into a nightmare. Lady Schrapnell’s motto is “God is in the details,” and as the 125th anniversary of the cathedral's destruction - and the deadline for its proposed completion - approaches, time-travel research has fallen by the wayside. Now Ned and his colleagues are frantically engaged in installing organ pipes, researching misericords, and generally risking life and limb. So when Ned gets the chance to escape to the Victorian era, he jumps at it. Unfortunately, he isn't really being sent there to recover from his time-lag symptoms, but to correct an incongruity a fellow historian, Verity Kindle, has inadvertently created by bringing something forward from the past. In theory, such an act is impossible. But now it has happened, and it’s up to Ned and Verity to correct the incongruity before it alters history or, worse, destroys the space-time continuum. And they have to do it while coping with eccentric Oxford dons, table-rapping spiritualists, a very spoiled young lady, and an even more spoiled cat. As Ned and Verity try frantically to hold things together and find out why the incongruity happened, the breach widens, time travel goes amok, and everything starts to fall apart - until the fate of the entire space-time continuum hangs on a seance, a butler, a b [Here it ends—I’m dying to know how that sentence ends!]

Felix’s Gaming Pages are a joy to behold. The emphasis is clearly on miniatures, as well as good resources for Space:1889 and a particularly good essay on roleplaying in the world of the Difference Engine. The site promises some 1930’s era rules called Tally Ho! (I’m not sure if they’re still in the offing or not) and some great pulpy miniatures photos. Great Stuff!

As the list of Daily Dispatches had scrolled ever onward, I thought it was time to do some housekeeping. I have distributed copies of the Dispatches into relevent categories on the Links and Library pages.

Though it’s still early in the process, I can’t resist reporting that I’m reading the Superb first draft of the next TI supplement: Australia: Land of the Rainbow Serpent by Ian Thomson. I’ll have more information soon when the book is ready for playtesting!

Heliograph hasn’t updated the webpage in awhile, but I’ve been keeping my eye on their upcoming (2003) release The Zeppelin Age. Here’s the blurb:

“The Zeppelin Age provides an excellent tool kit for designing role playing adventures set in the early 20th century, when Zeppelins roamed the skies. It will be available from Heliograph in 2003. While not following an alternate timeline, The Zeppelin Age will explore history’s lost possibilities, things that could have happened but didn’t. The Zeppelin Age will use Guardians of Order’s Tri-Stat system, giving you great tools to create everything you need for a pulp era game, from exciting characters to weird menaces to gizmos to zeppelins, with a heavily tested and well balanced point-based system. The mechanics of the game are fast and flexible, allowing you to concentrate on role playing adventure.”

Here’s a link suggested by Patrick Crusiau: Flash Face. Use it to create character illustrations, as a Nag Tech gadget to identify villains, or just to have fun.

If you’ve not had a look at Alison & Doug Anderson’s Septentrionalis: Roleplaying Adventures in 17th Century America in awhile, you’re in for a treat. Mr. Anderson has formatted the whole shebang into pdf files (200+ pages worth!). While Septentrionalis is set much earlier than the TI timeline, the breadth of its creativity makes it useful for the TI GM. For example, the chapter on Inventions features a variety of items that are ripe for conversion into Nag Tech.

Shades of Terror is a new, free adventure from Pinnacle, written for their new Savage Worlds rules. “A Dungeon crawl a la Lovecraft,” according to the author, the adventure is easily adaptable for Terra Incognita.

In addition, Patrick Crusiau wrote to say he had some new paper figures inspired by the adventure — investigators, ghosts, and knife-wielding cultists. (Click on the bald fellow.)

Looking for a Doc Savage Fix? You’ll find one on The 86th Floor, an excellent site devoted to the Man of Bronze. You can customize the page’s look to reflect either the 1930’s or 1960’s vintage.

I’m off to North Carolina’s Graveyard of Ships for the weekend on Society business, so there will be no Dispatches until Monday!

Folklore is a rich vein to tap for adventure ideas. American folklore.net provides pithy recountings of numerous American folk tales.

RPG Post is a new website for role-playing resources. It’s understandably sparse at this point, but they do already have a section devoted to Fudge!

For those TI campaigns with a “Wild, Wild West” flavor, I have a few recommendations: Cybersoup’s Wild West Website looks right purdy and has loads of information. I particularly like This Day in History (in which I discovered that today in 1840 the first Hawaiian constitution was proclaimed while the Great Chicago Fire burned in 1871).

I also purchased Sidewinder from Citizen games, a d20 system old west rpg. The 192 book contains lots of historical information (all useful for wild west TI), interesting d20 character classes, descriptions and a map of Dodge City, two complete adventures, numerous adventure seeds, and various and sundry characters, both original and historical.

The David Rumsey Historical Map Collection is a great resource for cartographic images. From the website’s blurb: “The David Rumsey Historical Map Collection contains to date over 7,180 maps online and focuses on rare 18th and 19th century North and South America cartographic history materials. Historic maps of the World, Europe, Asia and Africa are also represented. The collection categories include old and antique atlas, globe, school geography, maritime chart, state, county, city, pocket, wall, children and manuscript maps.”

This may just be another version of the “1000 non-RPG sites list” I referenced awhile back, but this list of Tangential Sites Useful to Gamers on EnWorld has a bunch of great links.

Paper Dinosaurs, 1824-1969 is an online exhibition at the Linda Hall Library of a collection of the earliest drawings and scientific papers on dinosaurs. From the introduction:

“But in spite of the great popularity of dinosaurs, very few people have ever had the opportunity to see firsthand the original publications that revealed dinosaurs to the world. These papers are scattered through the proceedings of scientific societies, buried in government documents, or located in monographs that are not easily accessible, and it seems that institutions have seldom bothered to gather them together in one place for the public to survey. This is a pity, because many of these publications are glorious to behold. It is nice to be able to see a reproduction of Owen’s rendering of the first Archaeopteryx slab in a secondary work, where it has usually been reduced to a postcard-sized image; but it is quite a different experience to view this magnificent large lithograph, unfolded to its full extent, in the volume of the Philosophical Transactions where it first appeared in 1863.”

This week’s Pyramid features a wonderful article by Paul Cardwell on “Late Victorian Law Enforcement.” Mr. Cardwell discusses the development of the police profession, investigative techniques, determining time of death, &c.

If you need to know even more about Professor Challenger’s fantastic South American discovery, have a look at this Lost World website. The site’s author also maintains a page devoted to Steampunk that may be of interest.

This Sunday and Monday, October 6-7, A&E Network airs a new version of Conan Doyle’s Lost World. Check the A&E website for details.

This is probably further into the pulpy field than most TI GMs are willing to wade, but the EldritchDark website devoted to pulp/fantasy/Cthulhu Mythos author Clark Ashton Smith has posted a d20 treatment of Zothique: The Last Continent. (Check the page on Miscellaneous Clark Ashton Smith Material). Just below it is the classic D&D module Castle Amber, for which I profess a nostalgic soft-spot. Inventive GMs ought to be able to mine this one for something.

I’ve been conducting a little research concerning ancient scintific beliefs and discovered this primer on Greek, Indian, and Chinese Elements. The solids associated with the Greek elements of fire, earth, air, and water are particularly suggestive to veteran roleplayers.

If you’d like to get a sneak peek at Eden Studio’s Terra Primate, check out the free Terra Primate Demo.

By Jingo! is a first rate British colonial history and wargames page. You’ll find numerous links to historical resources, wargames rules (free and otherwise), information about Nineteenth century weapons, &c., &c. Have at it!

The ABC television network has a midseason replacement show called Veritas in the works that is custom-made for TI fans— a cross between the X-Files and Indiana Jones. Here is the blurb from ABC as well as another tidbit from the Sci-Fi Channel. If only they’d called it Terra Incognita… (sigh).

I enthusiastically recommend my latest purchase: the Dictionary of Imaginary Places by Alberto Manguel and Gianni Guadalupi. “From Atlantis to Xanadu, this Baedecker of make-believe takes readers on a tour of more than 1,200 realms invented by storytellers from Homer’s day to our own,” according to the dust jacket. Detailed write-ups of all your favorite imaginary places, from Oz to Pellucidar to Kor (from Rider Haggard’s She) to Hogwarts. The authors are European, so there is a healthy representation of realms from non-English books. Best of all are the maps and illustrations — 220 of them — that are invaluable to a game master. Use a copy of Fudge in a Nutshell as a bookmark and you’ve got the motherlode of rpg sourcebooks.

A couple of upcoming releases from Eden Studios might be of use to the TI GM: Pulp Zombies, a two-fisted supplement for the zombie hunting game All Flesh Must Be Eaten and Terra Primate, a collection of settings that run the gamut from Congo to Planet of the Apes.

From the World-Mysteries website: “World-Mysteries.com is a non-profit organization. Explore with us lost civilizations, ancient ruins, sacred writings, unexplained artifacts, and science mysteries. Introduced are ‘alternative theories’, subject experts, books, and resources on the Internet.”

Those looking for a quick and easy magic system to spice up their Terra Incognita campaign might have a look at Magic and Mysticism, a Dime Heroes supplement from Deep 7. It’s a 17 page pdf for $2.50 (or $1.00 if you buy a 1PG at the same time).

Cliff Pickover’s Internet Encyclopedia of Hoaxes is an impressive clearinghouse of information and links concerning hoaxes, famous and obscure. Look them over for a glimpse of how the NAGS Society covers its tracks.

Patrick Crusiau sent word that he’s added some new Cardboard Fighters to his site. These are moderns, with an X-Files feel (click the guy showing the badge), and thus right out of the TI timeline, but I’m sure enterprising GMs can make use of them. Also, I hadn’t yet checked out the Red Swamp (the green fish guy) or the savage elves (with the bow) sets, either of which might find their way into Terra Incognita.

I’ve just discovered the online comic supersite Adventure Strips.com! While many of the comics I haven’t yet browsed look promising, a pulp strip called Red Kelso that debuted yesterday fits right into the Terra Incognita world.

The Unbound Book is a new, free webzine featuring Call of Cthulhu adventures set in the 1920’s. Inventive TI GMs can always adapt CoC adventures, and the price is right! (Note: the pdf file I downloaded seemed to be damaged, garbling the cover page, but the remainder of the text was o.k.)

Following up upon the televised excitement of last night come a number of pyramid-related sites (culled from a discussion on the Pulp_Games Yahoo Group, which included a nice compliment for TI by Pulp Avengers author Brian Misiaszek): The Uphaut Project by Rudolf Gantenbrink describes the current mysteries with numerous images; the Gantenbrink Door News Page has more news and images; and finally, this page by Kelley Ross outlines the kings of ancient Egypt along with maps of their tombs (along with the Hittites, Babylonians, Assyrians, Mitani, Israelites, &c.)

Same time period as TI but with a different sensibility, I heartily recommend Matt Snyder’s Dust Devils rpg from his Chimera Creative. Players must bring their own knowledge of the Old West and its folklore, cliches, and character types, as most of the game’s 36 digest-sized pages are devoted to describing an extremely innovative game mechanic using poker hands. To run a proper western game you might pair Dust Devils with Sidewinder, the Knuckleduster books. or best of all, GURPS Old West, written by Grey Ghost Press’s Ann Dupuis, et al.

In his Illustrated Treatise on Ammunition and Ordnance, Steve Johnson has assembled more than you’ll ever want to know about British fire power from 1880-1960. Looking further into his CyberHeritage International website, one might discover illustrated treatises on topics ranging from military matters to Plymouth history to women’s sufferage to Pink Floyd.

The Great Pyramid of Giza Research Association website is a clearinghouse of information about this wonder of the ancient world. And for those with television access to the American Fox network, tune in Monday, September 16 at 8 P.M. (Eastern Time) to see the “Opening of Gantenbrink’s Door” with a cool robotic gadget — the first time non-Nags have seen this part of the Pyramid!

The Shadowlands “has been dedicated to informing and enlightening visitors on such topics as Ghosts and hauntings, mysterious creatures such as Bigfoot and Sea Serpents, UFOs and Aliens, and many other unsolved mysteries,” according to the site. Some sections seems a bit thin, while the Ghosts and Hauntings section is worth a visit.

For those with a ghostly hankering, take a stroll down the Moonlit Road. You can read the spooky stories or hear them read aloud via Real Player! There are even a few Myst-like graphics adding to the ambiance.

A pair of online/downloadable ’zines have posted new numbers recently: Places to Go, People to Be features some rpg advocacy, Star Wars adventure advice useful for any game, a wonderful Russian myth, and a rant that won it’s author a copy of Terra Incognita. In the horror vein, Demonground 15 is devoted to Weird Science.

Michael Grost’s excellent Guide to Classic Mystery and Detection website provides thorough and informative articles about the long history of mystery writing (in English, for the most part). The site includes an overview, discussion of the major writers, analysis of mysteries, and links to ther sites. Mr. Grost has done similar sites for Classic Film and Television, Classic Comic Books (this one comes up blank for me), and a History of American Art.

They’re all modern (and thus out of the TI timeline) but I can’t resist plugging the latest release from Microtactix: Dirt Cheep Cityscapes Modern Vehicles. I’ve already given them my wish for more historical buildings, figures, and vehicles!

I recently discovered the SpaceStation42 free paper toys page — links to a plethora of card model boats, buildings, planes, &c. Many of the sites are non-English (resulting in a lot of question marks in my browser) but one can sort out how to build the models.

For TI campaigns set in the United Kingdom, the Mysterious Britain website discusses folklore. legends, the occult, &c. The articles I’ve sampled are meaty and useful.

For Fudge players who possess one of those newfangled Nag Tech handheld Babbage Engines (using the PalmOS), Digital Alchemy makes a Fudge dice rolling program. No more complaining that the local game store doesn’t carry them!

The Literary Gothic site has been spiffied up a bit since the last time I had a look. If your TI campaigns need a gothic touch, this is the place to look. You will find an extensive bibliography, links to other sites, discussion forums, &c.

Following the release of the second volume of the exploits of the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Jess Nevins has contributed his usual exhaustive annotation. Have a look at his notes for volume 2, numbers one and two.

“What’s Wrong with It?” is a brief Appendix Z article in today’s Pyramid magazine concerning those confounded problems that arise when using gadgets—enterprising GMs might find inspiration for Glitches.

Thrilling Adventures is a new website devoted to the d20 Pulp game Pulp Heroes published in Dungeon/Polyhedron #90. The site includes new Origins, Classes, NPCs, as well as a smattering of pulp links.

Conversations are beginning to develop on the TIrpg Yahoo Group — the more, the merrier!

Have a look at the Lost Continents website for more about this upcoming pulp-era online adventure game. This looks like it will be quite good.

In addition to the Fudge List on Phoenyx.com for general Fudge discussions, you can now talk about Terra Incognita with other players on the TIrpg Yahoo Group. Join today and let’s get the ball rolling!

If you’re still gaming at the kitchen table, then Daniel Davis (TI website and Fudge logo designer, Gyrmaster, and tile designer) is ready to take you to the next level. Daniel has posted a photo tour of his Ultimate Gaming Table, a custom designed gaming surface. Click through the tour to reveal a carpentry wonder. Daniel intends to sell the plans (though not the table itself); I expect someone will construct a fabulous Steampunk/NagTech version at some point.

I just finished Laurie King’s latest Russell/Holmes novel entitled Justice Hall. Here is a bit from the Amazon.com website: “Justice Hall brings back two colorful characters from earlier in the series: Bedouins Ali and Mahmoud Hazr (now known as Alistair and Marsh), who last appeared in O Jerusalem. At their request, Holmes and Russell take up the trail of the doomed heir to Justice Hall, who has been executed for cowardice in the bloody trenches of France. As the detectives strive to make sense of his death and to locate another heir to the family title, an attempt is made on the life of the man who's soon to be welcomed as the new duke. Holmes and Russell soon realize something sinister is afoot, and that they must untangle a web of deceit to discover which of the many suspects is taking steps to shorten the line of inheritance. Once again, King’s satisfying tale stays true to the spirit of Conan Doyle’s original stories while extending them into new terrain.”

I just discovered a useful thread in the EN World d20 Forums: 1000 non-RPG websites for RPG ideas. I am pleased to note that I’ve already discovered some of the sites, but many, many more are new and exciting. Have at them!

The Sci-Fi Arizona Writer’s Workshop provides a plethora of informative articles for aspiring writers. The resources are slanted towards science fiction, but tidbits here and there will be useful to the TI GM.

For Nags between adventures, try some of these Top 5 Archæology Board Games: Tikal, Lost Cities, Fossil, Expedition, and Eschnapur.

Are you looking for inexpensive artwork or photographs to make player handouts or even to illustrate your own rpg? Have a look at ArtToday. For a reasonable subscription rate, you get access to scads of clip art: line drawings, photographs, images from books, Dover clip art collections, &c. Some of the art in Terra Incognita (and many other rpgs) comes from ArtToday, as did much of that in the free NAGS Society Handbook.

I recently discovered the fiction of Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child — just the sort of gonzo archæology practiced by the NAGS Society. I read The Cabinet of Curiosities and am looking forward to reading Relic. Both are set in the modern day, but Cabinet’s subject matter and sensibility are Nineteenth Century.

If you are looking for a quotation, definition, or citation, Bartleby.com is a wonderful place to start your search. Dictionaries, thesauri, encyclopedias, Shakespeare, the Bible, Gray’s Anatomy, &c. This is how the internet can make a research library portable.

I recently saw and heartily recommend The Man Who Would Be King (1975). Based on a story by Kipling, directed by John Huston, and starring Michael Caine and Sean Connery, this classic film can inspire any number of adventures.

Here is another story from the Associated Press, this time concerning an expedition to uncover the secret grave of Genghis Khan.

This story from the Associated Press has some wonderful role-playing possibilities. I encountered some flying cockroaches while living in the Dominican Republic that fit this description perfectly!

To share your pulp enthusiam with the like minded, join the Pulp Games Yahoo Group. Thoughtful gamers discuss pulp RPGs, inspiration, history, &c.

I’m not exactly sure how you might use these in a Terra Incognita campaign, but have a look at these Planetary Icosahedrons.

If you have not stopped by Julia Hayden’s Ancient World Web site in awhile, you might want to have a look. It seems to be reorganized and refortified with ancient historical goodness.

Dale Cozort’s Alternate History Page “features over a dozen alternate history scenarios, an alternate history newsletter, book reviews, alternate history links, some hype for my alternate history fiction, and some favorite alternate history stories. Browse. Read. Enjoy!” (from Mr. Cozort). The Lost Cities page alone is worth a look.

Straight from the Von Daniken School of Archæology, we bring you an interesting tidbit from David Hatcher Childress: Ancient Egyptian Flying Vehicles. It would seem that some of the more secret Society operations are finally coming to light.

The venerable Gen Con game fair begins today — happy gaming to those in attendance! For those seeking a restful repose, the historical science fiction magazine Would that it Were has a new issue with a large batch of stories.

I must admit that until this week, I’ve seen the movies, read the graphic novels and abridged versions, &c., but I had never read the actual novel Dracula. It is a pure delight! The characters — Van Helsing, Mina and John Harker, Dr. Seward, Lord Godalming, and Quincey Morris, are vivid and varied, each bringing differing strengths and weaknesses to the group. I was particularly struck by the heroes’ carefully-conducted investigation — it could serve as a blueprint for an rpg adventure. If you’ve never read this classic, treat yourself.

In a daring feat of submarine archæology, divers yesterday recovered the turret of the US Civil War era ironclad USS Monitor. Read the News and Observer story for more details. The Ocean Explorer website also has an informative story about this historic vessel.

You may find this link (at the end of this message) to the support material for a now abandoned (as of April 2002) elaborate project to create a multi-player Pulp RPG computer game interesting.

The game was to be called “Lost Continents”, and the initial package was to be set in an era reminiscent of 1930’s Pulp Egypt, ala “The Mummy” and the first Indiana Jones film.

There is some interesting ideas, characters, background material and some fantastic artwork that could be purloined/recycled by a thrifty Pulp RPG GM. There is even a neo-pulp serialized story, “The Mask of the Mummy Queen” which could be also raided for plot and character ideas.

Today we have some public writings by Nags (and Society associate) adventurers of the fairer sex:

For Nags going under cover in the Roaring Twenties, I bring you the Internet Guide to Jazz Age Slang. It’s the bee’s knees, and how!

It is with great pleasure that the NAGS Society announces the public release of the first adventure for Terra Incognita: Dead Sea Murder by Amanda Dickerson, from Rogue Publishing.

“In 1947 the world was stunned by the discovery of ancient scrolls hidden in caves not far from where the city of Qumran once thrived. These documents, some written as early as 250 B.C., were hailed as one of the most important archæological discoveries of the twentieth century. The Dead Sea Scrolls, as they were soon to be called, reportedly hadn't been seen by human eyes for two thousand years.

The members of the National Archæological, Geographic, and Submarine Society know better.”

The Dead Sea Murder is an exciting murder mystery that can be customized to suit GM and player taste — from cozy drawing-room detection to the opening salvos of Armageddon. It includes notes for recreating Jerusalem of the 1930s and four complete Nags ready for action. An apendix provides all the rules you need to play!

Stop by Clark Holloway’s Pulp Pages for the lowdown on all of your favorite pulp heroes: Doc Savage, the Shadow, John Carter, & Co. You’ll find info, excerpts from stories, links, and other goodies.

The GenCon gaming convention takes place from August 8-11 in Milwaukee, WI. There are 4 Terra Incognita events scheduled:

We’re Archæologists, Not Grave Robbers! will be run twice:
Friday, August 9, Noon (event #8698)
Saturday, August 10, Noon (event #8699 — sold out in preregistration but stop by with a generic ticket and you may get in!)

“Ancient tombs, precious artifacts, a race against time and rival archaeologists — you've done this before. But this time the tomb’s defenses may be your death…. But the prize, oh the prize!”

Out of the Gobi will also be run twice:
Friday, August 9, 5pm (event #8700)
Saturday, August 10, 8am (event #8701)

“Your mission is to escort a mysterious crate from the Gobi Desert to Peking. A simple task — unless you run afoul of sandstorms, bandits, bureaucratic officials, Nazis, or the contents of the crate itself….”

Following up on the Lester Dent Pulp Fiction Plot from last week, I give you Pulp Adventure for the Confused. This concise bit of writing advice guides you step-by-step to designing the perfect pulpy adventure.

Dany St.-Pierre has assembled the Hero Pulp Page, a collection of pulp resources for the Justice, Inc. and Hero game systems. Of use to TI players are the detailed descriptions of weapons and vehicles of the era. There’s also a nifty adventure and even a Hero/Space: 1889 conversion.

Matt Stevens’ Pulp Page is an indispensible resource for pulp collectors, gamers, and all-around afficionados. Mr. Stevens includes an introduction and timeline to the important pulp publications, offers a nice list of the authors and their noms-de-pulp, provides links to booksellers where one might find originals and reprints, and runs down the pulp rpgs (circa 1999).

We have a week’s worth of pulpy inspiration provided by Ann Dupuis. First off, explore the archives of the Empire Club. This long-running pulp campaign site features detailed characters, dastardly villains, and forty-four exciting episodes of the club’s amazing adventures.

If you’re still on the trail of Col. Fawcett, you might try the Fortean Times website. Devoted to the undiscovered, the unexplained, and the generally weird, there is only a thin, thin line separating Terra Incognita adventure and true knowledge,

Here’s something to look forward to — Aaron Rosenberg’s Gamemastering Secrets (from Grey Ghost Press) has gone to press and will debut at GenCon. Have a look at the Gamemastering Secrets website, now with a complete table of contents and bios of the guest authors.

Percy Harrison Fawcett was one of those lost explorers for whom Terra Incognita was written. He and his exploits are well documented on the world wide web. See the Great Web of Percy Harrison Fawcett for one collection of articles and links.

If you need any help writing pulp-style adventures, take some advice from the master. Lester Dent, writer for the Doc Savage series, swears by the “Lester Dent Pulp Paper Master Fiction Plot.” He attests: “This is a formula, a master plot, for any 6000 word pulp story. It has worked on adventure, detective, western and war-air. It tells exactly where to put everything. It shows definitely just what must happen in each successive thousand words. No yarn of mine written to the formula has yet failed to sell.” [Thanks to Warren Shultzaberger]

The Historical Novelists Center is an invaluable resource for, well, historical novelists; but it is equally utile for TI game masters. From “Ware Words” (a list of modern slang terms that had alternate meanings in the past) to “You found that WHERE? Where to look besides history books” to expansive bibliographies organized by geographical region and time period—the Historical Novelists Center will have something useful for your historical roleplaying.

Also, greetings to all those who attended FlatCon in Bloomington, IL this weekend. Jess Ray GMed a Terra Incognita adventure entitled The Egyptian Affair.

Trying to create some authentic-looking player handouts? Using interesting fonts can make all the difference. Try the Scriptorium for a variety of historical fonts at reasonable cost. A larger collection of fonts (thus requiring a proportionately larger investment of time and funds) can be found at MyFonts.com. I would be entirely remiss not to mention Dover Publications, whose 24 Victorian Display Fonts provided the cover font for TI. [Thanks to Andy Ransom for inquiring and Michael Bowman for sharing his expertise on Phoenyx.net.]

Jess Nevins, creator of the Fantastic Victoriana website, has an excellent article in today’s Pyramid Magazine called “Victorian Archetypes in a Steampunk World”. Mr. Nevins discusses a number of character archetypes culled from Victorian fiction, providing a wealth of adventure ideas in the process.

Copplestone Castings features two lines of miniatures appropriate for Terra Incognita: Return to Darkest Africa and The Back of Beyond: Daredevil Adventure in the 1920s. The latter’s “Armed Archeologists” are particularly evocative.

Today we have a simple compendium of Victorian Web Sites, the depths of which, I imagine, will take some time to plumb.

Visiting the Field Museum is one of my favorite childhood memories. If you can’t get to Chicago, the Field Museum website is the next best thing. Check out exhibits on Sue the Tyrannosaurus rex, underground archæology, Africa, and the famous man-eaters of Tsavo.

Zenobia is a free online game by Paul Elliot (author of GURPS Atomic Horror). Here is how he describes it: “ZENOBIA is the fantasy roleplaying game of adventure and magic in the ancient world. It is a world where the deserts are home to fierce Saracen tribes, lost cities, sphinx and scorpion-men. And where the cities are home to scheming princes, bandit kings and sinister cults. Opportunity and adventure are everywhere. There are centuries-old tombs to be robbed (if their fiendish residents can be defeated), ancient underground complexes full of obscure traps and breath-taking treasures that were left behind by the gods, palaces owned by fabulously wealthy kings, and temples dedicated to the gods - temples whose physical defences cannot compare with their magical enchantments. From hundred-gated Thebes to the oasis city of Palmyra, from the wealthy caravan city of Carrhae to the strict religious city of dusty Hierosolyma, adventure awaits the brave, the foolhardy and the greedy. And for those who fail, the Afterlife beckons, or worse - perhaps slavery on a rowing bench in a Tyrian war galley, or a life in the Turquoise mines of Sinai.”

Ever since I first read about it, I have been fascinated by the Antikythera Mechanism: a strange mechanical device discovered in 1901 in a shipwreck from c. 76 B.C. Rupert Russell has assembled a nice collection of links, including the original article from Scientific American and an animated simulation of the mechanism (which, I suppose, one might use to calculate whatever it was those ancient Greeks were calculating…).

For those excursions into the bowels of Paris, Rome, or any other city with a spooky sewer system, Microtactix brings you their latest: Dirt Cheep Sewers. The modular set is compatible with other Cardstock Creations (Dirt Cheep Caverns and Dungeons) so that you can create the perfect subterranean scenario. You can try before you buy with the free Charon the Ferryman set.

The Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization brings together all relevant information about this American crypto-primate. You will find a FAQ, recent sightings, links, scheduled television programs, ancient myths, &c.

Patrick Crusiau kindly emailed to say he has updated his collection of Cardboard Warriors with some pulp figures. In the row of figures, click on the last guy in fedora and suspenders to have a look. Patrick says more figures are in the works.

I will be going incognito for awhile, so there will be no dispatches from the NAGS Society until July 10. Happy gaming to those of you going to Origins!

The Grey Ghost Press Monthly Spotlight for July is on Fudge magic. TI game masters in the market for a magic system might try one of the featured systems.

The Rogue Publishing website now has the cover for Amanda Dickerson’s upcoming Terra Incognita adventure, Dead Sea Murder. The release date is now late July.

I will plug my latest rpg purchase: HeartQuest: Romantic Roleplaying in the Worlds of Shoujo manga by Michael Hopcroft, a new game using the Fudge system. HeartQuest is now available for sale as an electronic document at RPGNow, with a print version to follow. While I admit total ignorance of shoujo manga — Japanese comics for girls — HeartQuest is an informative primer with three Great sample campaigns. TI crossovers are hard to imagine with this one, but I recommend it for anime and Fudge fans.

Odin’s Castle of Dreams and Legends, An Archive of History and Historical Resources is a better than average collection of links useful for TI players and game masters. The site is organized by historical period (“The Dungeon-The Dawn of man to Ancient Times” &c.) with some special topics thrown in, such as “Legends-King Arthur and Robin Hood” and “The Bastion-Men, Ships, and the Sea” (which includes information about the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, thus ensuring my esteem for the site…). Odin’s Castle also includes resources for educators and historical reenactors.

This locally hosted site — ibiblio — might be a useful resource for gaming. “Home to one of the largest ‘collections of collections’ on the Internet, ibiblio.org is a conservancy of freely available information, including software, music, literature, art, history, science, politics, and cultural studies. ibiblio.org is a collaboration of the Center for the Public Domain and The University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill.”

This is an old link (from the Daily Illuminator, years ago, I believe) that is worth resurrecting. The Centaur of Volos website details everything academics know about this enigmatic archæological site. (Even if you don’t use it, the site offers a model for aspiring TI game masters!).

An extremely minor note; I just saw the movie Spider-Man and was pleased to note that the climactic battle with the Green Goblin transpires in the ruins of the NAGS Society campus on Roosevelt Island (that is, a Hollywood version of the ruins).

The Model T Ford is one of the most perfect cars ever made. The Model T Ford Club of America website contains everyting you might want to know about the Tin Lizzy (including links to other Model T clubs around the world). And if you need to get your Nag minis into a flivver, look no further than Reviresco and their Model T at War series. (They’ve got Rolls Royces, too, if the Op requires classier transport).

If you seek to acquire some inspirational fiction for your Terra Incognita campaign, you can do no better than Violet Books, “Antiquarian Supernatural, Fantasy & Mysterious Literatures Vintage Westerns, Swashbucklers, & Juveniles; Jessica Amanda Salmonson, Proprietrice.” Browse the site for annotated bibliographies, articles such as “A Meditation on Lost Race Literature with special reference to the works of H. Rider Haggard,” and an online store to purchase volumes that pique your interest.

The Danvers State Insane Asylum (just north of Boston) is one of many Victorian-era mental health facilities falling into ruins. The website offers basic information about the asylum and its history, architectural details (including floorplans), and links to other historic asylums. The website could be of use to game masters for Terra Incognita, Call of Cthulhu, Mike Jones’ excellent Pariah, and other rpgs.

Check out Mithras’ occasional column on rpg.net, Tempus Fugit, in which he has been discussing the use of props for historical gaming.

I heartily recommend three books I recently read. I have always been intrigued by the myths and mystery surrounding Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa (La Gioconda). Donald Sassoon’s Becoming Mona Lisa unpacks much of this mythology; of course, making it all the easier for the Terra Incognita game master to pack it back up again. Wash down that cultured discourse with two thrillers: Michael Crichton’s Eaters of the Dead and Congo. An accomplished movie director, Crichton’s books are ready-made for both the screen and the gaming table. Eaters of the Dead is a period piece concerning an interesting discovery made by tenth century Vikings. Congo takes place in 1979 but could easily be set down at any point along the TI timeline. Swap the late ’80’s hightech (a computer with 256k!) for NagTech and you’re in business.

The mysterious culture of ancient Crete was one of those topics that grabbed my interest during high school. The Mysteries of the Minoans website provides some background, timelines, and links. There is even a handy connection to the lost continent of Atlantis. Best of all, one of the Minoan languages, Linear A, is still undeciphered!

The Discoverers Web site contains a wealth of information about the intrepid explorers of terra incognita. Articles and links are grouped by historical period, geographical region, and individual explorers.

Phil and Kaja Foglio’s Girl Genius comics (published quarterly, currently at issue 5) is an oddly-steampunk saga set in an alternate universe. It contains secret decoders you can build (though you have to cut up the covers to do it — you can buy just the covers for a pittance), wonderfully crazy gadgetry, Falkensteinian plotting, even airships! You can read Issue One online to see if it interests you — (note that while it’s black and white, the comic went full color in Issue Four). The Secret Blueprints they mention is a preview that introduces the characters and outlines the expansive plot.

Those in the market for animal (modern and prehistoric) and gangster miniatures should check out Steve Barber Models. The 25mm line includes a wonderful collection of fearsome beasties as well as figures from Greek mythology (including a cool hydra and cyclops), gladiators, Mongols, Zulus, and scads of gangsters, cops, and molls in 1920’s attire.

Would That it Were is an online magazine dedicated to historical science fiction. The current issue (April-June 2002) contains fiction, poetry, an article on science fiction art, an annotated list of relevant books, and other sundries. Check out the Guidelines to make your own submission.

If you are looking for inspiration for a world of Nags’ names, then this list of a half-million names provided by the Canadian Kabalarians might be of use. Names are listed by country of origin and each is described by a nice paragraph that would serve nicely as the beginnings of an NPC.

Or, to continue my inspirational abecedarius in English, Gods, Graves and Scholars, an accessible and informative introduction to archæology by C.W. Ceram. Ceram organizes the story of archæology into four books: Statues, covering Pompeii, Troy, Mycenæ, and Crete; Pyramids, covering Egypt; Towers, covering Assyria, Babylonia, and Sumeria; and Temples, covering the New World empires of the Aztec, Maya, and Toltec. The book (mine is a $10.00 paperback from Vintage) is liberally sprinkled with maps, drawings, and illustrations, with a timeline in the appendix. Ceram is appropriately serious and scholarly while simultaneously communicating the sense of excitement and adventure that motivated these proto-Indiana Joneses. This one is an absolute treasure trove of adventure ideas for the historically-minded.

The Grey Ghost Press website hosts a database for finding other Fudge players (for Terra Incognita or any other Fudge game). While you are there, you might also check out (or contribute to) the list of Fudge Sightings. And, if your local game store does not yet carry Fudge products, be sure to ask them to do so.

The RPG Library is a useful resource for free and shareware rpgs on the web. The site also includes some helpful Inspiration and Accessories for gamers.

In anticipation of the Out of the Gobi adventure scheduled for Origins and GenCon, we bring you a number of resources about mysteries of the silk road. Pamela Logan’s Asia Adventure page describes the use of space age technology to unearth lost cities along the Silk Road. The Mystery of the Mummies discusses the enigmatic naturally-mummified remains discovered in the area.

Also, today is the final day to vote for the best games of 2001. Go to www.originsawards.com to cast your vote.

Forgive me for shouting, but this site seems to warrant it. The Biggest Mysteries Megasite on Planet Earth provides exactly what is says: annotated links to all things mysterious, from acupressure to zombies.

Until we have a forum on the website dedicated to Terra Incognita, let me point everyone to the well-established Fudge List on Phoenyx.net. TI topics have popped up now and again in the past (you can search the archives by keyword) and the list is a great way to communicate with other Fudge and TI players. Insightful list members discuss the gamut of Fudge topics — I have gleaned a tremendous amount of good advice through the months. You can adjust the settings to have posts arrive in digest form or have them individually pepper your inbox all day long.

If pulp is more your style, OtherWorld Creations’ new rpg Forbidden Kingdoms is now shipping to distributors. The website has an adventure seed generator which spits out tidbits such as: “A hate-filled poor Academic with a mysterious case attached to his arm!”

Heresy Games has posted a four page preview of their upcoming rpg, Victoriana. Scheduled for release as a pdf this fall, Victoriana will use the Fuzion system. The preview artwork looks very nice — the game appears to be Castle Falkenstein-ish with cyberpunk trimmings. Judging by the copyright (which extends from 1992), it would seem Victoriana has been a long time in the making.

If you are looking for gaming-related news, Gaming Report is a useful website. News, reviews, forums, &c. And if you think you can pick this year’s Origins winners, you can win the original D & D boxed set.

I ran across this interesting bit of Victoriana on a web perambulation—the Victoria Regina Tarot. Here is how the website describes it: “Artist and deck creator Sarah Ovenall used original engravings from nineteenth-century commercial illustrations to create the unique collage art of the Victoria Regina Tarot. The result is a Tarot that is both nostalgic and modern. The court cards depict prominent Victorians, while the traditional Tarot suit symbols have been replaced with symbols of the Victorian age: cups become Mason jars, wands are fountain pens, coins are pocket watches, and swords become guns.” The site contains the images for preview, desktop wallpaper for download, and other sundries. You can order the set at Amazon.com.

In spite of the dramatic title, Demonground is a high-quality, Origins Award-nominated free online magazine devoted to the horror genre. You’ll find numerous adventures for popular horror rpgs, as well as the occasional article or review. The whole thing is copiously illustrated and easy on the eyes. Terra Incognita game masters will have little difficulty adapting adventures to their own ends.

In gearing up for Grey Ghost Press’ summer release, check out the Game Mastering Secrets website. This is a new edition by Aaron Rosenberg and industry notables such as: John Kovalic (Dork Tower strips) Sam Chupp (Gamemastering for Kids), Hilary Doda (Harems and Harpies), Ann Dupuis (Here Be Dragons: The Science and Art of Mapmaking), Lee Gold (NPCs: Not Paper Cutouts), Matt Forbeck (Running a Con Game), Kenneth Hite (The Joy of Research), Larry D. Hols (Throw ’em to the Wolves!), Steven S. Long (Genre and Setting), Steven Marsh (Treasure), Frank Mentzer (Trust at the Gaming Table), John Nephew (The Beginner’s Game), John R. Phythyon, Jr. (Memorable Villains), Jean Rabe (Winging It), Lester Smith (Troubleshooting Campaigns), James M. Ward (Worldbuilding), and Ross Winn (Character Creation). This one will be great!

Players with access to cable or satelite television can find a wonderful source of inspiration in programs on the Discovery Channel. Those with computer access can find out what’s coming up on the online version (or the European online version). [Suggested by Thomas Krømke].

I just purchased my copy of Knuckleduster Publications’ new release, Cowtown Creator, a 288 page, jam-packed sourcebook for creating an authentic western town for your role-playing pleasure. The book contains history, guidance, floorplans, rules for Faro (and other games), and adventure ideas drawn from The Police Gazette. Best of all, it contains rules for western gaming with Fudge by Phill Webb (you’ll also find advice for using Deadlands and d20). Many NAGS Society operations occurred in the west (I’m writing about one now), so this book is well worth $24.95.

I’ll take this opportunity to remind everyone that Microtactix makes a wonderful cardstock western town, Vulture Gulch. I’ve built the entire town, including the train (next comes the fort) and it is incredibly satisfying. Take a moment to check out the new Dirt Cheap Caverns, for those winding tunnels under Vulture Gulch.

Palladium Books has released a free downloadable version of their first boxed RPG Valley of the Pharaohs. This old school RPG (circa 1983) contains an informative 50 page book about ancient Egypt and a variety of illustrations. All of the stuff is useful and you certainly can’t beat the price. [Suggested by David Crowell.]

May 29, 2002 — And Some Steam Powered Tanks and Flying Things to Go With the Themes…

In their Victoriana at War line, P.M.C. Games features some incredible steampunk miniature vehicles. I particularly like the Aeronefs (see VFV04--light framed bomber); check out the sporty exhaust pipes for the steam boilers! They also sell various ships, armored tanks, and Victorian figures.

Mark Whitley has assembled an impressive list of Victorian Roleplaying Themes. The site takes various themes from the Victorian era — High Society, Social Reform, Exploration, Weird Science — and collects links to literary and historical resources that the game master will find of use. If you move back one level in the site, you come to Mr. Whitley’s Victorian GURPS site, which provides more useful information, including a plethora of adventures and adventure seeds that could be adapted for TI. [Suggested by Ann Dupuis.]

I was going to write up some guidelines for converting animal statistics to Fudge equivalents, but it looks like Mike Harvey already did the work. Check out the Fudge Net Bestiary for some sample beasts, and more importantly, guidance about how to do it yourself.

Tesarta’s Online Gamer’s Resource Page provides informative articles on everything that might be of interest to the discriminating TI enthusiast, from Alchemy to Weights of Common Substances by way of Hex Areas and Leprosy. There are subsections for humanities and sciences and copious links to other authorities.

Uchronia is the place to look for inspiration concerning alternate history. Capsule reviews of AH books are organized by author and point of divergence.

TI artist DT Strain has a new web address: www.dtstrain.com. Head over and check out his portfolio.

The Zeppelin Library Archives collects a bounty of great information about these gentle giants, from specs to pics. Now, if you’re ready to build a zeppelin, head to the Currell Graphics site to download a free paper model of the R-100 in 1:700 scale.

Fiddlers Green has some beautiful, color paper models available for purchase: aircraft (WWI and II) and buildings (old English, American west, and modern). The free downloads page just has a comical shark; but poke around, and you might find some freebies to try.

The excellent online magazine Places to Go, People to Be is running a contest with a copy of Terra Incognita as the prize! Head over, enter, read, enjoy, and then contribute. The web needs more quality online gaming magazines.

Also, Patrick Crusiau let me know that while the Alienstar site is reorganizing, his free paper miniatures will be available at Patrick’s site.

The summer convention season begins! The NAGS Society would appreciate hearing from anyone who would like to run an adventure for us — I’ll send free copies of Terra Incognita for GMs and extras to give away. Drop me a line if you are interested.

Michael Gentry has some thoroughly enjoyable Fudge material on his Enantiodromia website. I think his Fudge: Buffy the Vampire Slayer does an excellent job of adapting the universal qualities of Fudge into a custom version that perfectly complements the genre. His tweaking of the skill system, though simple, is simply perfect. I am a fan of Mr. Gentry’s work.

Elsewhere on the web, columnist Ken Hite runs down his picks for the 2001 Origins Awards in his Out of the Box of 5/17.

Here are three recent books I’ve read that are worth a look: Salt: A World History is a testament to the critical role played by salt in the rise of civilization. I learned something new on every page — even the Mummies of the Silk Road make an appearance — and I’m sure Ken Hite could weave a great salty conspiracy in his Suppressed Transmission column in Pyramid Magazine. Allen Kurzweil’s two novels have a plethora of tidbits for the Terra Incognita GM. Set in Revolutionary France, A Case of Curiosities concerns a nascent gadgeteer and his greatest creation. The Grand Complication in the sequel’s title is a famous Breguet pocketwatch stolen from Jerusalem in 1983. The novel describes in detail the workings of the New York Public Library and it’s mysterious basement stacks — GMs planning to run “The Return is Overdue” take note.

I’ll be the first to admit it — I’ve got Dinotopia on the mind. The recent miniseries featured wonderful computer animation, but the original books are a more rewarding treat. The first, Dinotopia: A Land Apart From Time introduces this new twist on the lost world theme in the form of a Victorian explorer’s journal. The sequel, Dinotopia: The Land Beneath (which doesn’t seem to be available from Amazon.com) covers the story about Crabb’s father mentioned by Cyrus Crabb in the miniseries. The most recent book, Dinotopia: First Flight concerns the island’s past, and includes a board game inside the front cover. The books are featured at the www.Dinotopia.com website while you can find out more about the miniseries at www.VisitDinotopia.com.

Trying to remember something about a game you last played in 1983? John H. Kim’s RPG Encyclopedia might help. Mr. Kim has a number of other tidbits of interest sprinkled through his site.

In continuing my inspirational abecedarius, we come to the letter F: that notorious Victorian scoundrel, Flashman. Author George MacDonald Frazer uses a brilliant conceit across eleven novels: take as your hero a literary bad guy, in this case, the bully from the Nineteenth century best seller Tom Brown’s Schooldays, and tell the story from his perspective. After being thrown out of Rugby, Flashman manages to take part in nearly every event of historical import in Europe, Asia, North America, and Africa during the Victorian Age. Flashman is unsparing and unflattering in his depiction of himself and equally blunt in his assessments of his peers. Flashman’s vivid narration ensure that all the excitement of colonial history, as well as the greed and foolishness, are vividly rendered. (Farwell’s out-of-print Queen Victoria’s Little Wars covers the same ground and somehow manages to drain the excitement from the period.) I would be remiss to omit the Royal Flashman Society of upper Canada, one of many websites devoted to Flashman. And if you didn’t get a chance to browse Volume Four of the Transactions of the Royal Martian Geographic Society, Dylan Craig wrote a nifty piece concerning Flashman, with stats for Deadlands, Castle Falkenstein, Call of Cthulhu, Risus, and Forgotten Futures.

Voting for the 2001 Origins Awards began yesterday! Click here to vote for your favorite games of 2001.

To follow up yesterday’s Dispatch, Dirk Collins of the Tamerthya 25mm Floorplan Gallery emailed me a list of some of his previous floorplans that might be useful to the Terra Incognita GM: “The dirigible for example, floorplans for the cab of a Hindenberg style passenger ballon, and the vintage cars and trucks... The undersea tiles, the research sub, the sailing ships, the speed boats, the jet skis, the underwater research lab, and two internal floorplan sets for a DC-3 airplane to name a few...” Not to mention various upcoming ruined temples. $9.95 seems extremely fair for a CD chock full of such goodness.

The Tamerthya 25mm Floorplan Gallery features some extremely attractive tiles that can serve as maps for miniatures. Unfortunately, the floorplans currently available are either fantasy themed (The Wizard’s Keep) or modern (the Supermarket and School). The creator, Dirk Collins, sells a CD of previously-created floorplans (I can’t find a list on the site of what’s included) and takes requests — he lists the next several month’s worth of projects. Finally, there’s a nice list of links to other floorplans sites.

Tabletop wargames are the venerable ancestors of the roleplaying hobby. James Dunnigan has written the definitive history, The Complete Wargames Handbook. I have just discovered that Mr. Dunnigan makes the second edition of the Wargames Handbook available online. If you are at all interested in wargaming or the prehistory of RPGs, step into the Wayback Machine, Sherman.

Fordham University hosts an excellent Internet Modern History Sourcebook. The extensive site includes articles and links to other sites of interest. For those “visual learners”, the site features a period-by-period annotated guide to Modern History in the Movies.

Philip Burns maintains an extensive web page devoted to Cryptozoology, the study of those creatures that go bump in the night. Find out more about your favorite cryptids and mythological creatures, such as the Maryland Megalodon and the Orang Pendek of Sumatra. Happy hunting!

Blackmask online is an incredible resource for free, downloadable inspirational fiction for gamers (and readers). With categories like Action Adventure, Esoteric, For Boys and Girls, Gothic Tales, and Pulp Fiction, Blackmask is the place for online literature, available in a variety of formats. You will find Percival Lowell on Mars, Ignatius Donnelly on Atlantis, Doc savage, Deadwood Dick, &c., &c.

Here is another resource for reviving the good old days — Randy’s Old Time Radio Shows. You can purchase shows from the impressively vast collection on CD ($5.00 for 650MB or about 40 hours of radio) or set up a download account ($6.00 gets you 1GB or 125 shows). The catalog of shows weighs in at 1.2 MB — almost 18,000 episodes! You can even try a few freebies before you buy. Great stuff!

The Internet Sacred Text Archive provides online versions of a plethora of sacred texts. The major religions are represented, of course, along with outré works such that of Charles Fort, the Piri Re’is map, Atlantis, even Tolkein.

For those who prefer a little more detail with their firepower, Ken Hood provides the extremely useful Guns of Fudge (look under Generic Fudge Downloads). All the sample weapons are modern, but Ken explains exactly how to represent real firearms with Fudge stats. While you’re there, have a look at some of Ken’s other Fudge materials.

Check out the 19th Century Scientific American site for an online version of the magazine (not affiliated with the modern incarnation of Scientific American). The numbers, from 1845 to 1859. are presented in facsimile. Explore the cutting edge of scientific knowledge at the beginning of the Terra Incognita timeline.

Also, following up on the Incan Mummy Dispatch, I just received my May issue of National Geographic. Wonderful photographs, a teaser article (there will be a television special on PBS May 15), and a breathtaking artist’s rendition of a thriving Machu Picchu. It was, I suspect, based on field drawings from the infamous Nag Op of 1873…

Flying Buffalo games is releasing a collectible card game at Origins called TOM: The Origins Metagame. The cards represent games, game designers, and game companies. Among the cards are Ann Dupuis, Steffan O’Sullivan, Grey Ghost Press, Fudge Expanded Edition, Another Fine Mess, and Terra Incognita! Read the full details in the Gaming Report press release and then check out the full card list and rules on the Flying Buffalo site. Woo hoo!

Fan David Crowell provided these links concerning the fairies who inhabit Monhegan Island, Maine, USA. Faerie Legend or Forest Lost gives a nice overview and directions to the island. FairyHouses.com offers a crash course in building the diminutive domiciles. Finally, the Boothbay Register has a relevant letter to the editor (near the bottom), a perfect player handout if you change a few dates.

The Vintage Library is a great source for pulp, classic science fiction, fantasy, and horror novels (on paper and pdf), and pulp radio programs (on tape and CD). Poke around to find a few free stories. If your Terra Incognita campaign is set a little earlier, you might find inspiration at the Dime Novels and Penny Dreadfuls site, dedicated to the precursor to pulp.

I just discovered the site hosting an online version of the 1911 edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica. The entries are far from perfect — OCR errors and artifacts abound — but the meat is there for your browsing pleasure. Many people consider the 1911 Britannica to be the finest reference book ever published. To be sure, it is smack dab in the middle of the Terra Incognita timeline and contains numerous covert contributions by NAGS Society Members.

Fan Thomas Krømke suggested this online resource for Terra Incognita players: the new online StrangeMag is custom made for Society members. The site includes the Clip of the Day, a little tidbit of weirdness cut from the morning papers — today’s concerns a detailed wooden crocodile found by German police in the Rhine (the world will read the real story about that one in the Journal in 2012). There are also a number of useful free articles (towards the bottom of the page). As for the online magazine itself, here’s the blurb:

The price per issue is $5.00 — a tad steep, perhaps, but how much would you be willing to pay for all this high weirdness?

I spent some time this weekend expunging typos in the NAGS Society Worldbook, my original amateur attempt at game design. If you have not yet downloaded the free, 100 page precursor to Terra Incognita, it is now a little easier on the eyes.

I’d like to plug the Fudge Ring, maintained by Jim Dickinson, a small yet growing webring of sites devoted to Fudge. The diversity of genres and even languages is encouraging. If you have a Fudge related website, consider joining the ring.

Itching to write for the NAGS Society but daunted by the convoluted tangle of acronyms and argot? Fear not! Download the Terra Incognita Style Guide for the last word on NAGS Society style.

I pored over the Forgotten New York site years ago while working on a (still unfinished) rpg sourcebook on New York City. The site is, of course, most useful for adventures set in New York. It also serves as a guide to the kinds of lost treasures to look for in your city.

If you happen to be in or around Plymouth, NH (USA) this Saturday, stop by Econocon VI, “the Sixth Great Northeastern Concordance of Simulation Enthusiasts.” Terra Incognita debuted there last year (before the book itself was finished). Meet Ann Dupuis (Grey Ghost Press), Steffan O’Sullivan (creator of Fudge), and Sharon Trip (of Rogue Publishing). I also noticed that d20 author Mike Mearls and the ever-creative Jared Sorensen will be there.

The World Explorer’s Club publishes a magazine, World Explorer, that one can only describe as a jam-packed with fantastic-archæological, conspiratorial, cryptozoological goodness. The website provides only teasers, but the subscription rate is reasonable. Past articles such as “Are Dinosaurs Extinct?”, “Reconstructing Ancient Egyptian History”, and “A Pre-Tesla Tesla Coil” give you an idea of the ground covered. This stuff is gold for Terra Incognita game masters.

For those who want to know more, here is a link to the Shrine of the Book, the home of the Dead Sea Scrolls and other rare documents.

Umberto Eco, in my inspirational abecedarius, that is. While neither of his nove

ls, The Name of the Rose nor Foucault’s Pendulum, is set in the Terra Incognita timeframe, they are both exciting and well written idea mines. The Name of the Rose (which has also been made into a movie) is a mediæval murder mystery with a lost book by Aristotle as the MacGuffin, copiously infused with period details and Latin quotations. A modern conspiracy novel (predating the X-Files craze) Foucault’s Pendulum is what you might call an intellectual thriller, with secret societies, conspiracies under every rock, and non-heroic heroes. Both books get better on repeated readings.

Cumberland Games & Diversions, creative outlet for veteran game designer S. John Ross, has a new Sparks font set: Darcy Dare. Drawn by Jonathan McNally, this “21st Century Pulp Action Set” features a great backstory by Mr. Ross (a secret society, cool gadgets, and a perky heroine) along with a passel of great adventure ideas. Messers McNally and Ross provide the “spark” for an entire rpg with just a font and a few notes. Sparks, for those who have not yet encountered them, are paper miniatures in the form of a font, allowing you to print them in just the size you need.

The bulldozers of progress have unearthed hudreds of Incan mummies in Peru. The May issue of National Geographic, competitor to the Society’s Journal, features the story. It seems the NAGS Society is finally ready for the world to know about this treasure trove.

In 1947 the world was stunned by the discovery of ancient scrolls hidden in caves not far from where the city of Qumran once thrived. These documents, some written as early as 250 BC, were hailed as one of the most important archaeological discoveries of the twentieth century. The Dead Sea Scrolls, as they were soon to be called, reportedly hadn't been seen by human eyes for two thousand years.

The members of the National Archæological, Geographic, and Submarine Society know better.

Coming in July from Rogue Publishing, Dead Sea Murder by Amanda Dickerson, an adventure for Terra Incognita.

Today I’ll give a nod to the person who designed the Terra Incognita website, the TI book cover, the official Fudge Logo (seen below on the webring link), as well as the new Deryni Atlas for Grey Ghost Press. Have a look at Daniel’s Agyris website and his design portfolio. Many thanks to Daniel for making the NAGS Society look so good!

On the heels of Tesla, we have another notable Nag, the indomitable reporter Nellie Bly. These trading cards depict Bly in full Adventurous Attire on her record breaking trip around the world.

Ignored by historians but rehabilitated by roleplayers, Nikola Tesla was a thoroughly fascinating character. I just read a melodramatic, fictionalized biography of Tesla by Tad Wise. Here are a few links to more information about the inventor:

The Complete US Patent Collection — Just a list of the titles online, but you can order the complete records on paper or CD, along with Tesla’s FBI file.

Finally, just type Tesla into Google and you’ll get more links than you can shake a coil at.

Continuing my inspirational abecedarius, I recently re-read The Difference Engine, my original inspiration for the NAGS Society. Authors William Gibson and Bruce Sterling imagine an alternate Victorian England in which Babbage finished his analytical engine, information technology is king, and Radical Lords such as Byron run the place. It is a bit of a mystery, though I didn’t find the story particularly compelling. Gibson and Sterling are clearly enamoured of the technological possibilities — many descrptions, such as huge kinotropic presentations modelled on computer pixels, are plausable and easily imagined.

The new issue of Fudge Factor is up! You’ll find therein some rediscovered rules for spirit magic, a discussion (with colorful graphs!) of awarding bonuses, a short adventure, and alternate combat rules. Previous issues of Fudge Factor have some TI content. I encourage readers to submit your original Nag Tech, vehicles, and adventure ideas.

If you plan to outfit your Nags with biplanes (or have any interest in WWI aircraft), I just found a wonderful resource: wingswithwires.com. The site contains copious technical information, and sells books on the subject as well as CDs with fold-up paper models. Apparently they’re working on a combat simulator program called Birds of Prey.

I love reading Harper’s Magazine, but, confound it, my mailcarrier only brings current issues! The Cornell Library website has an online archive of Harper’s New Monthly Magazine from 1850 to 1899. The site also hosts Scientific American from 1846 to 1860 and The Manufacturer and Builder from 1869 to 1894. These are a goldmine of period detail — scans of the original pages which you can download as pdf files (although they also have plain text versions). Print them (for personal use only, of course) for player handouts or do a mock-up to include campaign specific information.

The About.com site devoted to Paranormal Phenomena is a wonderful resource for players and game masters. The list of topics on the left — Ancient Anomalies, Hollow Earth, Mad Scientists, &c. — runs the gamut of Terra Incognita topics.

Tony Matteliano's Scale Model Index is the mother of all modeling resources. Much will only be useful to the hardcore modeller, but there are links to historical sites, terrain building tips, &c. If you use miniatures in your roleplaying games, you'll find something of interest here.

The University of California, Riverside has a wonderful collection of resources on Historical Times and Places. You'll have to click around a bit, but it contains numerous links to articles and other sites of historical interest.

Continuing the ABC’s of inspiration brings us to the letter C and Crocodile on the Sandbank and its many sequels by Elizabeth Peters. Another Shirt Ruined — the official Elizabeth Peters website — provides synopses of all of the books in chronological order. The site also contains information tidbits and some great links, particularly concerning Egyptology.

I’ve read the first two books — Crocodile on the Sandbank and The Curse of the Pharaohs — and enjoyed them both. Rousing mysteries with copious period details and a dollop of romance, the books also managed to evoke a little old-fashioned horror. The books also provide models of enlightened sensibilities in a fin-de-siècle setting.

I’m going to plug a few Grey Ghost products today: I just purchased A Magical Medley and my first set of Fudge dice. I’ve always used regular dice (1,2 = -, 3,4=0, 5,6=+) to prove the point that “no special equipment is necessary.” However, I’ve discovered that rolling Fudge dice is an æsthetic experience — all those pluses and minuses popping up like so much fruit on a slot machine… Jackpot!

A Magical Medley contains everything you need to redress the fact that Terra Incognita does not yet have its own magic system. It contains guidance from Steffan O’Sullivan about converting GURPS magic, a collection of magic items, a complete fantasy adventure (a dungeon crawl, but the dungeon is a tomb, so by filing off a few serial numbers, you might turn it into a TI adventure), and, most importantly, six detailed magic systems: African Spirit Magic, Bioenergetics, Celtic Magic, Chinese Magic, The Gramarye, and Occultism.

I think that games involving mysteries and investigation are enhanced by using properties such as player handouts, maps, tomes, matchbooks, &c. To that end, Propping Up the Mythos offers step by step instruction for essential props such as a Mythos tome and a bottle Deep One. Obviously intended for Call of Cthulhu, the creations could easily be adapted for Terra Incognita. Please send along any links to other sites concerning gaming properties or player handouts.

Tales of the Gold Monkey was an 80’s era, Indiana Jones-ish television show, still shown on TV Land (although apparently not now — the site has a write-in campaign to get it back). This unofficial website includes photos, a “scholarly” essay discussing the show's setting, scads of facts, &c. I've never actually seen the show, but I enjoy the site.

The books feature the brilliant, philosophical Oxford student Mary Russell as a foil for, well, Sherlock Holmes! King does an excellent job of portraying Holmes in his mature years. The Moor harks back to The Hound of the Baskervilles while O Jerusalem includes a Burton-like disguised infiltration of the holy city. No gadgets, but inspired detective work from two nuanced characters.

Easter Island was one of the first Places of Mystery I remember reading about as a child. Rongo-Rongo: The Easter Island Tablets discusses the mysterious writing found on the island.

We begin today a series on fiction that was inspirational to Terra Incognita. The first novels are Caleb Carr's The Alienist and its sequel, The Angel of Darkness.

“The year is 1896, the place, New York City. On a cold March night New York Times reporter John Schuyler Moore is summoned to the East River by his friend and former Harvard classmate Dr. Laszlo Kreizler, a psychologist, or "alienist." On the unfinished Williamsburg Bridge, they view the horribly mutilated body of an adolescent boy, a prostitute from one of Manhattan's infamous brothels.

“The newly appointed police commissioner, Theodore Roosevelt, in a highly unorthodox move, enlists the two men in the murder investigation, counting on the reserved Kreizler's intellect and Moore's knowledge of New York's vast criminal underworld. They are joined by Sara Howard, a brave and determined woman who works as a secretary in the police department. Laboring in secret (for alienists, and the emerging discipline of psychology, are viewed by the public with skepticism at best), the unlikely team embarks on what is a revolutionary effort in criminology-- amassing a psychological profile of the man they're looking for based on the details of his crimes. Their dangerous quest takes them into the tortured past and twisted mind of a murderer who has killed before. and will kill again before the hunt is over.

“Fast-paced and gripping, infused with a historian's exactitude, The Alienist conjures up the Gilded Age and its untarnished underside: verminous tenements and opulent mansions, corrupt cops and flamboyant gangsters, shining opera houses and seamy gin mills. Here is a New York during an age when questioning society's belief that all killers are born, not made, could have unexpected and mortal consequences.”

My thoughts — These books are particularly useful because of thier excellent period detail, appearances by notable historical figures, and well-plotted mysteries. They also portray a diverse group of adventurers working together, each contributing unique skills. Finally, their sensibility and use of technology is slightly ahead of its time. All in all, both books capture the spirit of Terra Incognita.

AncientScripts.com discusses ancient languages and alphabets. Brief articles and copious links make this site an excellent resource.

The UCLA Epidemiology site hosts an extremely detailed Map of London in 1859. Click on the sections to zoom in for street level detail. On a completely unrelated note, I just finished Sir Anthony Hope's The Prisoner of Zenda and highly recommend it for swashbuckling goodness and intrigue.

Rogue Publishing is an electronic publisher featuring games using the Fudge system. Check out Mike Jones' excellent Pariah (wonderful TI crossover possibilities!).

Gareth Long's Encyclopedia of Monsters is an excellent resource concerning monsters of all stripes. Entries range in detail from a sentence to a multi-page annotated treatise (see the basilisk, for example).

I'll plug one of my inspirations today: Into the Shadows by Craig Griswold, a free rpg for the West End Games d6 system. It's set in the modern day, owing quite a bit to the X-Files, but is a veritable idea mine and a great game.

We are proud to announce that Terra Incognita has been nominated for the Origins Award for best role-playing game of 2001! Gaming Report has the complete list of nominees in all categories. The NAGS Society and its membership are most gratified.

These links will have to last you until Friday! I'll follow yesterday's pulp link with some sites of Victorian interest:

ThePulp.net has the scoop on all your favorite pulp heroes, a history of pulp publications, and links to sources of pulp fiction.

The Fudge List is an email list devoted to all things Fudge. Terra Incognita comes up now and again, and new subscribers are welcome.

The Museum of Unnatural Mystery offers capsule descriptions of the gamut of mysterious events, cryptids, the supernatural, &c. It's a great place to mine for ideas.

I’ve added several new links to sources for miniatures, both for Nags and minions. Have a look at the Properties section of the Links page.

I’ve just discovered the Egypt Revealed site, but I'm looking forward to diving right in.

P.S. — I welcome any suggestions for Daily Dispatches. Email me any sites of interest to the NAGS Society.

Win Scott Eckert's Wold Newton Universe site recently got a new url. Originally discovered by Philip José Farmer, this hypothesis posits that most fictional heroes — Sherlock Holmes, Harry Flashman, Doc Sabage, James Bond, for example — are all members of the same extended family. They all trace their heritage back to the small English town of Wold Newton where, in 1795, a strange radioactive meteorite fell from the sky. The site provides an extensive timeline and provides connections among every adventure hero in the book.

The Old Time Victrola Music webpage features just that. Snippets are available for download while much more can be ordered on tape or CD. According to the site, it’s all recorded from an actual, hand-cranked victrola. Give your Terra Incognita campaign that authentic feel with some Old Time Victrola Music.

The Savage and Soldier Online is the internet archives of Savage and Soldier magazine, a periodical devoted to colonial miniature wargaming published since 1965. The website features a lengthy article titled The Dark Continent by Howard Whitehouse, “Being a survey of the East African interior regions made in the year 1889 for the purposes of providing information to the intrepid traveler, together with gaming ideas and divers rules, for players of Space 1889 and other systems of role-playing and wargaming, by an Old Africa Hand”. The article is interesting and detailed, originally intended to be published as a Space:1889 supplement.

The Museum of Retro Technology is publicizing many of the mechanical underpinnings of NagTech. Look here for more civilized communications technologies such as pneumatic networks and optical telegraphs.

Once again I urge you to subscribe to Steve Jackson Games' online Pyramid Magazine. Today's issue contains an article I wrote — “Around the World in a Shilling: The Great Exhibition of 1851”. You will find therein a history of the Great Exhibition, a description of the Crystal Palace, and descriptions of the strange and wondrous exhibits it contained. (If you're feeling strangely benevolent, mention paigescott as the referring username.)

Prufrock in Peril! — The Colonial Angle is a website devoted to miniature wargames (my new passion). It contains a photographic battle report of “The Demise of Professor Prufrock, a tale of supernatural mystery and desert intrigue.” Though presented as a wargame scenario, just add Nags and you have a perfect Terra Incognita adventure.

Grey Ghost Press is looking for a few good Nags to GM Terra Incognita adventures at the Origins Gaming Convention in Columbus, Ohio from July 4-7. Payment will be free Grey Ghost product (the more events you run, the more we'll give you), plus, if you run several events, some money towards meals. Contact Grey Ghost Press if you are interested in GMing any of these adventures.

The Perry–Castañada Library Map Collection is an invaluable resource for cartographers, this online map collection comprises numerous modern and historical maps, most in the public domain, as well as copious links to other cartographic resources. Two examples:

Bookworm Caleb Jansen has authorized the dissemination of NAGS Society Letterhead. Use it for all of your Society records and correspondence.

Terra Incognita was reviewed in last week's (21 Dec.) Pyramid Magazine. As enticement to subscribe ($15 per annum), recent issues featured articles concerning The Lost City of Chichén Itzá, “Mafeking, SW1 — An Adventure — Generic In Its Presentation — For A Steampunk World,” and “'They Shall Not Pass!': The Spanish Civil War For GURPS Cliffhangers.” Browsing the back issues unearths a plethora of relevant articles.

Nine new Nag Tech gadgets added to the Resources page, provided by noted Nag, Professor Nigel Barriston (compiled by Tony Spallino). Several new links added.

Obscure bookworm Scott Larson receives a copy of Terra Incognita: The NAGS Society Handbook from Society Associate, Wizard's Attic. Inevitable errata added to Resources page.

Gadgeteer extraordinaire Daniel M. Davis completes final details of NAGS Society ætheric transmission parameters. New Terra Incognita website begins broadcast over all frequencies.

Terra Incognita: The NAGS Society Handbook debuted at the Essen Spiel game fair in Essen, Germany, on Friday, October 19 (one case — 38 copies — was expressed shipped from the printers that Wednesday).

The very first person to purchase a copy of Terra Incognita was Steffen Vulpius.

Seven copies were sold at Essen, to lucky Fudge fans who either came looking for Grey Ghost Games or stumbled upon us in the sea of game booths filling 8 entire halls in Messe Essen (the Essen “Events” Place).

Several other copies were either given to reviewers, retailers, and distributors, or traded for other Victorian/Pulp games (including Dark Continent, a Victorian roleplaying game set in Africa from New Breed Games UK; and Midgard 1880, a German Victorian/Fantasy rpg. Remaining copies were purchased by retailers (Tellurian Games of Dortmund, Germany; and Szeherezada of Poland) and Welt der Spiele (a German distributor).

The bulk of the print run arrived at the Kentucky warehouse of Wizard's Attic on Friday, October 19. From there, it will ship on Wednesday October 24, for delivery to USA distributors Thursday Nov 1st. Grey Ghost Press will be receiving a shipment as well, for direct mail order and promotional purposes (including “comp” copies for playtesters, artists, and others involved in the project).

So, European Fudge fans rejoice! For the remainder of October and the first week of November, Terra Incognita will be easier to find in Europe than in the US!