learnedhand

Playing around with my mirror lens on micro 4/3 again, this time with an aluminized mylar filter for solar work - gives a yellow tone which is "nicer" than the white of a more accurate filter.

Four sunspots are visible, but there is also a circular mark which is an artifact, probably grunge in the lens or on the sensor. Picture 1 is the best of 15 or so images, picture 2 is the same image with labels, picture 3 was taken separately with the camera in a slightly different position, showing that the four spots are real since they are still in the same position relative to the disc of the sun, while the round mark is in the same position on the frame but a different position relative to the sun.

This is a bundle of the Dread Laironomicon, a system-neutral sourcebook from Raging Swan Press, with "the dread companion", a guide to sources for things in this supplement in other books from the same publisher. Basically, it describes a hundred locations for monsters, with surroundings etc., via a LOT of tables.

https://bundleofholding.com/promo/list/key/Hideaways

  


This REALLY isn't something I would want to use - it's basically aimed at dungeon-bashing and not much else - and to be honest I don't think I'd be very interested even if I was still playing these games. It's cheap and worth having if you really have no time to prepare for a game, but even when I was playing a lot of D&D I made very little use of this sort of thing, individual design works better for me.

I've been thinking about the "Dad's Dragons" RPG thing, and by chance I found a pack of cards in a charity shop today - each card has a teeny reproduction of a WW2 poster on it, e.g. the classic "Be like dad - keep mum". About 40 are relevant to Britain at the beginning of WW2, the rest are on similar American themes.

My idea is to give each player three cards, and let them play one if the situation seems relevant, with a -1 or -2 modifier on the difficulty of whatever they're doing; -1 for a bit relevant, -2 for very relevant.

I paid a couple of pounds for them - if anyone else wants a set they were sold by British Heritage ltd. - looks like they're no longer in production, but there is someone selling them on eBay (for a lot more) if anyone wants to know what they're like:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/145239451112

There are probably other ways to get similar images e.g. from art books such as these:

https://www.tgjonesonline.co.uk/Product/Slocombe-Richard/British-Posters-of-the-Second-World-War/8659133

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/365369778921

Just bought the second of these since it's pretty cheap.

Update 15th September - the second book has arrived and is VERY good and remarkably cheap, new A4-format paperback with 20 pages of intro and 45 pages of colour posters for £3.67, definitely worth having for scene setting for anything set in WW2 Britain.