A Late Introduction

Like the title says, this blog will be a "Journey into The Weird." What exactly does that mean? I'm not exactly sure. All I know is when I see great art like that of Yuri Shwedoff's White Castle (Featured in the title) or Dragons  I must give it context. Sure it could be Post-Apocalyptic. The figures in these works of art could be no more that apocalypse babies ignorant of the times before the world sucked. That's cool in it's own right but the voice inside my head tells me the world these figures live in is more than apocalyptic. It tells me their world is magical. Not lethargical. It's thriving. Not surviving. It's cool. Not droll.

I think Weird as a genre has a lot of definitions and non-definitions. But at the heart of the mater Weird invokes the feeling of its namesake. That almost-terror-but-not feeling of cognitive dissonance. Weird worlds don't make sense. They just are and it's us who have to suffer through their illogic and tomfoolery, not to fix them but to thrive in them. With that said, this DM thinks nothing invokes that feeling better than crossing the streams and throwing in a little horror to top it off. Lasers and broadswords? Check. Horrors unfit for mankind? Double check!

Admittedly, I'm mostly new to the weird genre. Most of my inspiration to date has come from History and Mythology. If the ages themselves aren't indicative of how those two modes of story have withstood the test of time, just look at movies that have come out the last 25 years. Hell that movie were George Clooney runs from the cops with two goons is based of the Illiad! Anyway, because I rely on history and mythology so much my games have that "been there done that" feeling. But hey, if everyone is having fun who cares, right? Regardless I want to follow the footsteps of cool dudes like Arnold K or Zak S to expand my horizons into something new that hasn't been tried and tested by the flow of time. I want to get in there, get my hands dirty, and shock the world (or just my players, at least.)

I definitely follow the philosophy of DIY RPG design and have learned to not favor a particular game system in favor for running a system that I enjoy and that I think others will enjoy. The current craft of my games are a hack of Lamentations of the Flame Princess, Dungeon Crawl Classics, and Labyrinth Lord with OSRIC and to some extent 5th edition D&D. What exactly does all that look like crammed together? I'm not sure I can explain it in detail but it keeps my Sundays exciting. In other words take this blog to be system neutral or at the very least heavily influenced by the OSR.

Bottom line is I wanted a blog like the cool internet people, if not to motivate me then to reach out to the community. Will my journey out of the stable and boring prove successful? (If i haven't said it enough yet) I don't know but I think it's worth a shot!