Podcast Notes: OMGWTFBIBLE

This is a bit of an unusual post for this blog. Regularly scheduled content will resume at some point.

I'm a sucker for ambitious projects. OMGWTFBIBLE is as ambitious as it gets.

In a monthly (hah!) podcast, David Tuchman translates the Torah into modern English and makes jokes about it. You might think people would be upset, but it turns out no, it seems to be fine. The translation might be irreverent, but it's also respectful... and respectable scholarship.

And now it's over (for now). The last episode was posted on March 14th. Here's an interview from 2013, for additional context.

It's a huge amount of effort for a fairly obscure project. It's a hard sell. "Want to listen to the whole Bible?" "No." "Fair enough."

There's also a potential level of awkwardness. "Is it OK to laugh at this? Is this for me?" All I can say is give it a listen and find out. If you find it heinously controversial, leave me out of it. Go directly to the source.
 

Pseudosocial Relationships

One basic podcast formula (among many) is the Sage and the Muddler (the analyst and the colour commentator), who are Friends. If the podcast is interview-focused, the Muddler is the host and the Sage is the guest. In a recurring podcast, the Muddler and the Sage have ongoing explanatory banter.

The audience is invited to be a silent Friend, sitting on the couch nearby, laughing at the witty remarks without having to perform any social obligations. They are drawn into a warm, happy space where their friendship is secure and does not need to be actively maintained.

Podcasts often give their followers a special name. The PeanutPals. The Bearcubs. The Ahistorical Legion. Listeners are invited to an inner ring, a secret club, a collective fandom. It's not evil or wrong, it's just really common.

OMGWTFBIBLE doesn't do any of that. The audience is kept at arms length. Guest readers are sometimes scholars who run rings around Tuchman, sometimes muddlers of the highest order who, faced with an unexpected biblical name, pause, grin, and try their best.

It's refreshing. The parasocial relationship, and the podcast itself, is secondary to The Work.
 

The Work

Translation is difficult. Translating the bible is proverbially difficult. Some people... don't try to do their best. This list of issues with the NIV translation is well worth reading. Anyone saying "this is what the Bible actually says" should be treated with suspicion. That's a degree of confidence bordering on insanity. Literalism is impossible. The text is a mess. Footnotes and parentheticals are pretty much mandatory.
 
Tuchman insists his version is a "loose translation" and it definitely is... in a sense. Sure, Tuchman plays with word order and punctuation, and deliberately substitutes synonyms where it be funny, but the substitutions and changes are revealing. They highlight the ambiguous bits and the weird edges of stitched narratives. They're scholarship. It's presented as humour, but it's not lazy humour.

There's beauty. There's truth. There's personal growth. And there's a lot of really weird stuff.

In the final episode, Rabbi Sam Reinstein says "I just love that you made this your own. We're not trained to do this [...] to own the texts, not to just learn it as something somebody else wrote or was given to you."
 

In interviews and in the translation itself, Tuchman charges straight at the Big Capital Letter Issues... and sometimes rebounds off with a chorus of shrugs and sighs, but hey, an attempt was made. Conversations with guests are often deeply personal. The interview style isn't polished or pablum. The questions mean something because the host is genuinely interested in the answers; the guests offer unpolished answers. It's never confrontational. There are no "gotcha" interview questions, but there are questions that make the guests think.

Sometimes there are stories of extraordinary adventures and good works. Sometimes its just people being people, thinking about their lives, trying to make sense of the world.
 

Selected Episodes

Listening to the podcast in order (or just the Bible bits) is probably the best plan, but if you feel like listening to a sample episode before committing:

• The Exodus episodes with Mordechai Levovitz are my favorites. They always cheer me up.
• The episode with Tuchman's father is touching.
  
• From the more recent series, the mystery guest episode has some excellent pacing choices and great chemistry.
• Steve DeSiena does his best, despite "several gins" and a whole lot of names.
• Dvora Meyers is so done with Covid. So done.
  

Chapter and Verse

The Bible can feel like a series of disconnected statements. Numbering verses doesn't help. How many other books do you read where every line is punctuated with a number, and every story split into arbitrary chapters after it was written? Reading Bibles are handy. These days, with word processors and free texts, you can make your own at home.

OMGWTFBIBLE is an unabridged translation. Tuchman had to translate, and someone had to read, the whole thing. A lot of Bible-related works rely on greatest hits, selected sections, or summaries. This doesn't, and it's what originally drew me to the podcast. It doesn't take the easy road.

The Future

Tuchman says he's taking a break from translation for an indefinite period, and I can't blame him.

But if there's more OMGWTFBIBLE, I'd love to see Mordecai Lebowitz read Jonah. Or anyone, really. Jonah is great. So overdramatic.

I'd love to see Tuchman's translation of Ezekiel, the swearingest prophet who ever cursed a curse. Seriously, a potential translation of Ezekiel would turn the air blue and make Tarantino say "that's a bit much".

Side Note: Ezekiel bread. It's a thing you can buy. It's deliberately framed as a biblical health food... drawn from the prophetic performance art of Ezekiel. People who sell the bread mention Ezekiel 4:9. They don't mention Ezekiel 4:12, where God says to use human excrement as fuel. As Tuchman says, "Oh God, you are a nut." These days, the instructions would be "make a mash of all the old mouldy vegetables at the bottom of the fridge and cook it over a diesel fire." It's deliberately bad, weird, performance-art-as-shameful-prophecy food. Not health food. The opposite of health food. This is why context is important.

Or Ezra. That'll be an interesting ride, particularly if Tuchman goes straight into Malachi, and explores the antagonistic relationship between the two books. Or Job... in general.

Side Note: The canonical order(s) of the books in the Bible isn't nessesarily the only reading order. Starting in the garden and ending in Revelations is a sensible plan, but reading them in publication order (for lack of a better term) is interesting too. You get a sense of ideas developing and chronology shifting. I don't think Tuchman needs to stick to a strict book-by-book order for the future of this project (if there is one), especially for disconnected stories.

Or whatever the heck is going on with Shamgar the Last Action Hero.

Final Notes

OMGWTFBIBLE is, as far as I can tell, delightfully non-monetized. There are no ads, no patreon, no tiered subscriber list. Sponsorship of a long-form Bible translation podcast would be... tricky. "If Nadab and Abihu had used SkillShare, they would  have known not to offer a sacrifice with strange fire. Use the code MOLOCH for 15% off." Or maybe instead of Raid: Shadow Legends, it could be sponsored by Smite?

Yeah. I don't think that would work.

There was a crowdfunding campaign back in 2014 that raised $2,432. Split over 61 episodes and 9 years of work that's... not enough money.

There are vague hints of a potential dead tree form of the translation, so keep an eye out for that.

Otherwise, I don't know. The hardest part of any ambitious project is getting anyone to care.

Edit: 2021/04/09
"I don’t really make OMGWTFBIBLE for anyone, it’s really just so that it exists in the world. So it’s incredible when someone out there totally gets what you’re doing." -David Tuchman

"To elicit perfect comprehension is perhaps to be expected only once." -Barbara W. Tuchman, Preface to The Guns of August

OSR: Magical Industrial Revolution - Loxdon College Pt. 3: Testing Magic

 

Sean Andrew Murray

Training in Magic

Loxdon College is like a coral reef of magic. Spells flit from brain to brain. Magical education is a perilous and poorly understood affair. Loxdon College works on the principle of magical osmosis, where knowledge (stored in books and lecturers) will gradually seep into students. After approximately four years of passing classes, students are expected to have a competent grasp of their field, even if no explicit magical education has taken place.

In a highly magical environment, cantrips naturally stick to a wizard's soul. They're like barnacles. Proper spells, stored in the brain and cast with considerably more magical energy, require effort and training. Since most spells can only be cast once per day, supervised practice demands a special type of safe, rapidly reusable, low-effort spells. A few "Returning Spells" have been developed, used by Halls and Academies to assist their charges, Clubs to improve their members, or (rarely) by lecturers with an interest in practical tutorials.

Returning Spells are difficult to breed. Some offspring require too much magical energy; some fail to return quickly. They are valuable but not coveted. Use one openly and wizards will assume you've stolen it from a school of some sort; it's like covering your house with chalkboards.
 

1d6 Returning Spells

Returning Spells can be cast any number of times per day, with a 5 minute gap between casts. They still occupy a spell slot. Each cast over a wizard's Impact Factor Level inflicts 1 nonlethal damage and the spell's Side Effect.
 
1. Feeble Hand
Minor telekinesis for 10 minutes. 50' range. Used to practice spell control at a distance. In skill hands, can roll an apple, lift a coin, or turn a page. In unskilled hands, can squish and apple, lose a coin, and slap ineffectually at a book.
Side Effect: earwax dribbles for 30 minutes. A slow trickle of warm hairy wax.
 
2. Elemental Selector
Create a fist-sized puff of the chosen element. Used to practice modal spell selection and precise targeting. In skilled hands, creates a neat heap of stones, a temporary puff of fire, or a hovering teardrop of water. In unskilled hands, sprays the room with sand, sets the caster's hair on fire, and creates a fine mist.
Side Effect: limb numbness for 5 minutes. All tingly. Limb is mostly useless.
 
3. Chest Scrying
Look inside an object within 30'. Generates a small amount of light. Used to practice scrying. In skilled hands, provides a view inside a locked chest, revealing the edifying motto written by the tutor. In unskilled hands, provides a distressing view of the caster's own brain or internal organs, the inside of a stone, or the outside of the College.
Side Effect: vertigo and wobbliness for 10 minutes. Move at 1/4 speed.
 
4. Minor Teleport
An apple-sized object within 10' is teleported up to 30'. Used to practice teleportation magic (always tricky). In skilled hands, the target arrives neatly and without wobbling. In unskilled hands, the target cooks, freezes, is flung across the room, or remains in place while one of the caster's hands makes the journey.

Side Effect: Wizard Vision glimpses for 10 minutes. Startling for the untrained.
 
5. Floating Saucer
A plate-sized disc of force appears within 10'. Used to practice force-generating spells. In skilled hands, the saucer should be level, slightly concave (to hold water), fully transparent, and able to resist a light blow with a hammer. Tutors love this one; it makes evaluation easy. In unskilled hands, spikes of force, cloudy grey blobs, warped lines, bottles, or bubbles.
Side Effect: Wizard Thumbs. They stick straight up for 10 minutes. Other fingers can be moved, but they limit hand rotation.

6. Dye Hair
The caster's hair colour changes for 3 hours. Used to practice minor alteration. In skilled hands, can select the colour (based on a colour sample provided by the tutor). In unskilled hands, produces shocking tones, patterns, or sudden hair loss. Can also dye skin or eyes. 
Side Effect: Wizard Frizz. Hair sticks straight out in all directions for 1 hour. If hair was already doing this, it becomes wavy and tangled.

Quentin Regnes

The Apprentice Test

In the their first Season at Loxdon College, on the first Saturday in the month of Malbrogia, students are called for the Apprentice Test. The tradition predates the College, tracing its roots to the ancient relationship between a solitary master wizard and their prospective apprentice. By ancient tradition, no lecturer explains the nature of the Apprentice Test. New students are informed by senior students, with varying degrees of exaggeration, misinformation, and theatricality.

At eight in the morning, as the last peals of the Bell Obdurate fade, the Proctor Senior stands before the gates of the Second Gathering Hall and calls students by name. The order is theoretically alphabetical, but late enrollments and accidents tend to shuffle the list. Students proceed, one by one, into the hall, from the east.

The hall is almost completely empty. Tables and stools are cleared away, and it is lit only by sunlight. The eight Judges of Puissance sit on two rows of comfortable chairs on the north and south walls. On the east wall, the old benches rest, with eight scorched silhouettes still visible; a gentle reminder not to get too ambitious. In the centre of the hall, between the Judges and clearly illuminated, is an unlit candle on an iron stand.

The Judges of Puissance are, in theory, anonymous members of the faculty. They were identical black linen robes and black silk masks. In practice, the distinctive silver hair of Prof. Revelston, the long foul-smelling pipe of Prof. Glass, and Prof. Turnspit's booming demands for "more beer and pastries" makes the identity of the panel less secret than the ritual's framers may have wished. Still, it is an eerie sight, calculated to unnerve young and uncertain students.

The Apprentice Test is simple. In the ancient formula read by one of the Judges, the "Apprentice to Majik" must "light yon taper by majik" without touching it. If the student succeeds, they are treated a few polite claps and ushered from the room by exasperated servants. The next student is called, and the ritual repeats.

Students are allowed to use any magical method to light the candle. The Judges of Puissance, under their black robes, are festooned with rings and amulets of protection. They are also (especially the day progresses) mildly tipsy.  All eight Judges must be in unanimous agreement. Some students maintain that, by ancient tradition, two Judges must be asleep, two must be arguing, two must be playing chess, and two must be paying attention.   

A student who passes the Apprentice Test is allowed to call themselves a wizard and wear a pointy hat. Hat fashions vary by Hall, but every student relishes the day they can join the ranks of student-wizards... and fears the price of failure.

A student who fails the Apprentice Test is expelled. No exceptions and no refunds. If, after months of study, a student can't light a candle under optimal conditions, they're not cut out to study wizardry, and should take up another profession.

One final recourse exists. In a shadowed corner of the hall, the Idol of Krog sits, surrounded by a circle of salt. It is wheeled out of storage once each year, only for this ritual, and returned hastily to its crypt before the sun sets. The idol is a grey stone head, chipped not carved, with indistinct but menacing features.

Any student who fails the test can touch the Idol of Krog and cry "Again, or death!". They can make one more attempt to light the candle. If they fail a second time, they die. The method of death, and its horrible details, have been explained with grisly delight and wild variation by generations of students. The ritual has not been invoked in decades; even the most ambitious student, faced with the prospect of a truly hideous death, might reconsider their commitment to this particular college and field of study.

Some insightful students speculate that the Idol is mere theater; anyone willing to wager their life to join Loxdon College must be a worthy student. This isn't true, but it's a nice thought.

Igor Krstic

1d10 Methods of Lighting a Candle

 
1. A Flame-Conjuring Cantrip
The solid, sensible, reliable answer, available to most wizards who apply themselves.
 
2. A Flame-Conjuring Spell
Flame spurt, sizzling bolt, etc. Memorizing and casting a full-scale fireball is beyond most first-year students, to the relief of the Judges.
 
3. An Illusionary Flame
Though the candle is not technically lit, if the illusion is reasonably convincing the Judges tend to allow it. Adding some false lighting effects might be wise.
 
4. Thaumic Charge
The soul is approximately the same shape as the body. By deliberately controlling thaumic flow, a wizard can create a charge differential across their hands, often igniting a candle (and their sleeves) without casting a spell. Powerful wizards sometimes create thaumic differentials by accident. This method requires a certain degree of confidence; if your soul is timid or disturbed, you'll just stand their with your palms out like some sort of gibbering idiot.
  
5. Telekinesis
Lighting a match or strip of paper and levitating it towards the candle is perfectly acceptable.
 
6. A Scroll
Casting a spell from a scroll is technically allowed, but is seen as an admission of incompetence or arrogance, and sticks to a student's reputation like glue. Tremulous students might enter the Test with a backup scroll, just in case.
 
7. Mind-Altering Effects
While casting charm-type spells in Endon is illegal, Loxdon College is allowed a certain degree of leeway, provided the spells are used for wholesome academic purposes. Charming a servant or fellow student to light the candle is perfectly legal. As far as student lore goes, no one has been foolish enough to try to charm all eight Judges.
 
8. Summoning
Raise a minor elemental or familiar spirit and have it light the candle. The Rule of Curwen states that anyone who raises a "thingge called or summoned" on campus must also "unsummone it", and the Judges will (as a matter of course) expect the summoned entity to obediently vanish at the caster's command. Fail to banish it, and you fail the test.

9. A Magic Item

Using a magic item or bound enchantment is not allowed, unless the student can show they crafted the item unaided. It's a line few students are willing to risk; the Judges have to evaluate a lot of students and tend to tire of long-winded explanations from a "mere initiate". Reading a scroll requires some talent (or at least knowing which side has the magic on it). Pressing the button on Philogloster's Marvelous Cigar Igniter does not.

10. Bluff
Potswilder Scubb, the famously absent-minded theoretical magician, arrived two hours late to her Apprentice Test. She wandered into the room, drew her spellbook, recited a simple conjure water spell, declared "candle extinguished", and left before anyone could inform her of the actual task. One legendary wizard (variously named by student storytellers, who never bother with minor details like names or dates or truthfulness) cast a mighty lightning bolt, vaporizing both the candle and candle-stick, and was passed on merit.
 

Cheating

The Apprentice Test starts at eight  in the morning and usually wraps up by early afternoon. Any student called by name who does not appear at the Second Hall by eight in the evening is counted as "missing when called", and cannot attempt the test until the next year. They are not expelled, but they are gently pitied or mocked by the student body. Missing two Tests results in expulsion.

It's considered bad form to ambush a rival, put them in a sack, and leave them in a disused cupboard for the duration of the Apprentice Test. It still happens, but someone usually comes along to let them out in time. Timid or insufficiently talented students are taunted by candles left on their pillows or slipped into their pockets, or by "gifts" of matchboxes. The Apprentice Test is as much a test of willpower and concentration as it is one of magical talent.

Actively sabotaging a rival by counter-enchanting the candle during the Test is technically allowed, but it's so difficult to pull off that it's best left to wild student tales or vague threats.

Very wealthy students can also bypass the test entirely (though studying magic without being able to cast a simple cantrip is unlikely to end well). The Faculty are all too busy, too rich, or too abstracted to deal with mere pecuniary matters, but the Proctor Senior is a graduate student, and therefore invariably broke. For a sizable bribe (at least 10gp), they will announce a student's name, then sneak them through side-passages and crypts and out the other side of the Second Hall, without the Judges inside ever noticing.

Any student with the means to bribe all eight Judges with magical items or ancient lore is probably capable of lighting a candle by magic.

After the Test

Students get drunk, set things on fire (including each other), hold bonfires on campus, and generally make merry. It's known as Cogfallow Night, though no one knows why. The newly inaugurated wizards sing traditional wizarding songs while holding up and waving their lit thumbs.

OSR: Assorted Playtesting Tales

Here are a few stories from games that didn't make it as full play reports. A fair bit of testing goes on in the background; not all of it is interesting.

Andrew Mar

Published Modules

Problem Solved
In a test of The Mysterious Menagerie of Doctor Orville Boros, a PCs found a giant tardigrade blocking the only exit. They rummaged through their inventories before realizing they had a flask of universal solvent. The tardigrade dutifully melted into slime, and as it did, the PCs remembered why they'd looted and carefully protected that flask. It was a vital component (in fact, the only component) in their plan to open the exit door and escape.
 
Exit Through The Gift Shop
In another test of MMoDOB, a PC insisted on looting at least one copy of every useless item from the gift shop, filling up their entire inventory. They were very pleased with their selection until, festooned with squeaking alligator dolls, they ran into the giant and very agitated alligator mother.
 
Gnome on the Range
The PCs cunningly Kidnapped the Archpriest by a) de-aging him with a spell, b) knocking him out, c) swapping his clothes, and d) carting him out in a wheelbarrow. The first 3 steps were sensible; the fourth resulted in a multi-story chase. In the end, the Archpriest was hauled out bodily by the two surviving PCs, leaving a dead gnome behind.

Gnomes, in the GLOG, are invisible when their eyes are closed, they are standing still, and they are holding their breath. The player argued that a dead gnome met all 3 conditions, creating an invisible tripping hazard (and unusual smell) in the fortress for months.

Skeleton Shrapnel
In an early test of Tomb of the Serpent Kings, the party evaded the hammer trap and reset it "in case we need it". The skeletons in the next room proved a tempting target. The PCs fled; the first PC through the door set off the hammer trap. The next PC ducked and evaded; the third PC did not, and neither did the skeletons. All ended up in a mangled heap on the far side of the room.

Acorns of Doom
Magical Murder Mansion contains three magical acorns that sprout into trees when placed in soil and sunlight. In various tests, they were:

• used as a weapon (acorn + boot full of soil = tree gun).
• fed to the Mole Dragon (no effect).
• used to boost the power of an Elf Wizard.
• buried with a PC, resulting in a sudden exhumation and cries of "Ents! Ents in the garden!"
  

The Riddle
In MMM, there's an illusory demon that asks a particularly stupid riddle. One PC couldn't wait to hear it, and shouted "a man!" (The default answer to all riddles.) The rest of the group wisely dived for cover as the intrepid riddle-solver received a 6d6 firebolt to the face and took... 9 damage. Scorched but undeterred, the PC said "not a man then", and promptly caught a second fatal bolt.

The Regeneration Chamber
The penultimate room of MMM contains a regeneration tank. In one test, the PCs had diligently checked every room, but with the prospect of the end in sight, decided to skip one door (to the post-session consternation of one player, who'd lost a battle-scarred one-shot PC to the Death Ray).

In another test, a PC worked out what the chamber was for, but instead of chucking in a fragment of a dead ally or a random corpse, threw in an entire jar of assorted teeth (looted elsewhere in the dungeon). The resulting amalgamated monstrosity cheerfully demolished the mansion as the PCs fled.

Magical Industrial Revolutions
Things the players invented:

• The mobile newspaper (reporting on the spot, printing within minutes, delivery via spells). "Stop the presses" is easier said than done when you're driving a three-ton iron monstrosity that can reach the tremendous speed of 10 miles an hour.
• The rotating gatling wand (six wands on a spinning stick). Hold down your thumb and pray.
• Illegal afterlife insurance. Die, and we'll revive your corpse to find your murderer or make any last-minute edits to your will.
• Dick Crazy, Private Eye Tyrant. Just a name, no further elaboration (sadly).
  
• Ray of fog to frogs.

Nikola Matkovic

Misc Games

 
Fail Hydra
After a difficult fight and several PC and hireling casualties, the party finally took down a hideous regenerating Hydra. Only two PCs survived. One, unwounded but very tired, decided to eat the Hydra's heart... then exploded. Whoops.

The lone gore-splattered and shocked survivor spent the next few hours carefully relaying loot to the dungeon exit, leveled up significantly, hired a new crew, and went back in... this time, leading from the back.

The Perfectly Normal Horse
The PCs put a magic obedience-inducing saddle on a mimic horse, then rode it around. The horse happily squeezed into places a normal horse couldn't possibly fit, requiring some very hasty explanations to visitors and allies. It also tried to eat children when not directly observed.
 
One Way To Evade A Blockade
In a Star Wars game, a force-sensitive but untrained (and very un-Jedi-like) PC heard the ghostly voice of their mentor saying "Use the Force. Let go." She obediently, and with suitable reverence, closed her eyes.... and let go of the ship's controls. The panic that resulted, and the nearly disastrous crash, was probably not what the mentor intended.

That PC also mastered a form of lightsaber combat known as "I don't know how to use this thing and that should scare you as much as it scares me."

OSR: Magical Industrial Revolution - Loxdon College Pt. 2: Clubs, Leagues, and Distractions

Beneath the formal structure of Courses and Halls, Loxdon College is riddled with informal student organizations, traditions, and ways of whiling away the idle hours. Here are just a few examples. Additional cults (Goodberry Monthly).

Nothing in this post is canonical, just as nothing in MIR is canonical. Everything changes.

Academic Envy

A wizard's Impact Factor is (depending on who you ask):

• the number of people the wizard could kill without warning.
• the number of people you would need to assassinate to reach the wizard's current position.
• the percentile chance that the wizard's death will collapse Loxdon College (either physically, morally, thaumaturgically, or some combination of the three).
• the radius of the crater (in yards) the wizard is likely to leave.
  
• the wizard's Level (though no one knows what that means. No wizards are entirely on the level).

A simple spell exists to check a willing wizard's Impact Factor. Using it front of your peers results in general mockery and masturbatory hand gestures.

Some spells allegedly inflate, alter, or completely obscure a caster's Impact Factor.
 

Pickman's Economic Model

Dick Pickman, highwayman-turned-professor-of-economics, postulated a theory that the catacombs of Endon contained enough portable wealth to enable any delver (on average) to earn more than they would at steady honest work. This "crypt-currency" was in finite supply; the first delvers in would be rich, the last would merely be mud-soaked and tired.

Students, being poor, easily convinced, and fairly risk-tolerant, flocked to the catacombs. The crypt-currency boom, and the associated side-trade in crypt-art and crypt-analysis, threatens to destabilize Endon's precarious gold-backed currency.

The environmental consequences of undermining Endon's foundations, dredging up forgotten evils, and loosing powerful spells in an already saturated region cannot be understated... or explained to students.
 

The Skull and Bones League

Dread Necromancy is illegal in Endon. Citizens, on average, treat rumours of necromancy with frenzied contempt. Loxdon College tries to balance academic investigation of the palatable aspects of necromancy with a powerful desire to avoid being burned to the ground by the mob.

The Skull and Bones League is a secret student club that debates potential societal improvements that necromancy could bring to Endon. Legions of tireless farmers. Horses that need no food, soldiers that need no pay. Miners who work without rest or air. The knowledge of the ancients, available for anyone. All very good on paper, of course. One member in every four is an informer, or at least someone who thinks they're in the club to keep an eye on the others. Despite rumours and a few macabre trophies, no necromancy is practiced by the League.

The actual secret necromancers of Loxdon College use the club as a convenient dumping ground for the inquisitive or a recruiting pool for talent.

Sean Andrew Murray

The Seven League League

Students, like anyone else, love stupid jokes. The Seven League League is named for the fabled "seven league boots", a magic item which (it properly calibrated), allows a wizard to step across the landscape at enormous speed. (Improperly calibrated boots allow part of a wizard to step across the landscape at enormous speed, and the rest of the wizard to remain behind.)

The League hosts impromptu races of all kinds. Any member can name a destination ("the spire of the Auld Grey Cathedral) and conditions ("without touching the ground") and, at an appointed time and after suitable bets, the race takes place. The survivors are showered in glory. It's a rambunctious and good-natured league. Members are perpetually short on funds, lightly concussed, and open to new and exciting innovations.
 

The Physical Enthusiasts

Effort, the saying goes, is for the Lower Class. The higher orders of Endon strive to avoid manual labour wherever possible. Hunting, shooting, military service, and thrashing servants requires a certain degree of fitness, but anything beyond the minimum is seen as unpleasantly rural.

Wizards are traditionally seen as bookish, emaciated by thought and strange energies, prematurely aged, and relatively feeble. Rebellious students invent strength-improving exercises, distill potions from the glands of cattle or apes, disassemble ancient enchantments, or simply engage in vigorous physical activity (during the daytime; nocturnal activities have taken place at Loxdon College since the invention of the candle).

Some students even train in pugilism, even though punching a trainee wizard's head is liable to result in a catastrophic explosion.

Sean Andrew Murray

Unintentional vs. Unintended Design

A buildy-crafty-type game adds a piston that can push other objects.

• Intentional behavior: push other objects. 
• Unintentional behavior: if you push a beehive, the game crashes.
• Intended design: players can use it to make a secret door. The developers tested it. 
• Unintended design: players can use it to make an elevator, a Turing-complete computer, and a cannon.
  

I intentionally added lots of interesting tools to MIR. I did not intend for these tools to be used in any specific way. I didn't want to add guidance on intent, because that would break the future-imperfect maybe-vagueness of MIR, it would feel overly prescriptive, and it might convince GMs that their players had to or should take certain routes.

The game isn't in the book. The book is just a tool to make the game easier. The really interesting bits happen at your table, based on your shared choices, and can't be predicted or steered. Improvise wildly. Follow leads. Link things that aren't explicitly connected but that could be connected. Take notes.

Still, since someone asked, here are some ways the PCs can make Loxdon College weirder.

• Start a student newspaper. It's an obvious step, which is why I haven't written about a canonical one. Leave deliberate gaps in your worldbuilding and players might try to fill them.
• Start a student union. Currently, students at Loxdon College are disorganized and fractious. Give them a Cause, and you might be surprised at the results.
• Start a catering business. Cheap food, served on campus at all hours.
• Throw failed experiments or cursed items down a drain and forget about them. 
• Summon something squamous to gain otherworldly knowledge, then publish.
  
• Invent a new field of study, then lecture in that field.
• Raise funds for a new experimental building / Innovation / counter-Innovation.
• Set up a new hall with byzantine entry requirements, rituals, or secrets.
• Set up a rival College.
  

40k: Crassus Command Vehicle

 Brace yourselves for 40k minutiae.

The Praetor Armoured Assault Launcher is usually pictured open, with its bank of ludicrous missiles on display. When closed though, the vehicle's shape is very striking. Since the Moribundan 1st Armoured Regiment doesn't use missiles or rockets, a Praetor wouldn't fit the general theme. I decided to convert the vehicle into an mobile command bunker; an upgraded Crassus Armoured Transport.

Illustrations of Imperial command scenes always feature loads of interesting details. Holoprojectors, withered servitors, skulls, cables, robes. This isn't a clean Star Trek bridge. It's closer to a submarine or a feudal throne room.

I don't normally do vehicle interiors or mini-dioramas, but the Praetor has basic interior details. After a long bath in paint remover and many hours of scrubbing, the vehicle's interior was ready for basic blocking.

The Imperial Guard commander (based on a Titan pilot) is the focus of the scene, and the only seated figure. In front of them, advisors squabble and gesture.

The Master of the Administratum types on an autoscribe with one hand while gesturing upwards with the other. The miniature's base is a Solar Auxilia commander, with a Genestealer Cultist head. Love the goggles. The base figure is ridiculously ornate and perfect for the scene. The plain shaven head creates a nice contrast with the layers of buckles, scrolls, and tiny gears.

The Master reads from a book held by a kneeling Servitor (not show in the blocking because it kept tipping over). The book contains a few subtle Inquisitorial symbols. Perhaps the Servitor is not all that it seems.

The servitor subtly points downwards with its right hand, while the Master points upwards with their left. In standard Imperial symbolism, this indicates that the Master is supporting the action in question, but is wrong, while doctrine (represented by the book), does not support the action and is correct.

The Tech-Priest's right hand is an iron claw. Their left, flesh, holds a dataslate. The exact symbolism is obscure. They do not hold an Omnissian Axe for three reasons. First, openly displaying a weapon inside an Imperial command vehicle would be a breach of protocol. Second, the miniature didn't come with one. And third, it wouldn't have fit inside the hull.

The last member of the tableaux (so far) is an Imperial officer, possibly representing the Imperial Navy, possibly the Commissariat. Depends on how I paint them, I suppose. Apparently this figure came with the Lucius Pattern Warlord Titan head. I'm not sure how I got it. The figure holds a scroll case in their right hand, but conceals it behind one leg, symbolizing an opinion withheld.

I'd like to put more figures in the scene, but the vehicle's roofline drops suddenly towards the rear, so there's not a lot of space. I'm planning on adding a small shrine and a kneeling Ministorum priest, facing away and to the side. The floor will be covered in cables, parchment, and candles (and skulls, of course). I'll also try to stick a few extra servitors and acolytes into the mix.

I want to create the sense that this Imperial commander is surrounded on all sides by contradictory advice, overwhelming and irrelevant information, factionalism, ritual, and prayer. Their pose is fixed, passive, staring straight ahead. Are they listening and evaluating or gripped by apathy and madness? In the Grim Darkness of the Far Future, is there any difference?

OSR: Wizard Libraries

Under this paradigm, a library full of spellbooks is like a mink farm or a cattle ranch, with all the associated problems. Spells can accidentally crossbreed, cast themselves (with disastrous results), devour each other, or slowly fade.

Sensible wizards keep a spell on one page of a spellbook and fill the facing page (or several pages) with explanatory notes, warnings, and useful notes.

Spellbooks don't burn. Scrolls burn (that's their job), but spellbooks are written on thick vellum. Powerful spells are trapped in gemstones, lead sheets, or gold wafers. Setting fire to a magical library seems like a great way to ruin a wizard and level their tower, but in practice, it usually just scorches the furniture and irritates the cleaning spirits.

Cascade failures (where one spellbook fails and sets off the next spellbook) are possible, but wizards usually space out critical volumes and insert mundane books, lead buffers, or blocks of wood between active works. Magical librarians would feel at home in a nuclear safety course. Incidentally, a good scroll case is designed to turn an accidental magical explosion into a magical shaped charge. Anything directly in front or behind of the scroll case is going to have a very bad day, but the carrier, protected by the tube, might survive.

Sensible wizards also use early warning systems. These days, industrial wizards buy auto-buzzers and colour-coded charms. In the old days, a stuffed alligator and some special herbs served the same purpose. Any escaped necromantic spells might earth in the alligator instead of in the wizard; some herbs react to spells or ambient magic in unusual ways. Wizard kitsch serves a purpose. If a wizard finds a strange rock that vibrates whenever fire magic is cast, they'll probably stick a bell on it and use it as a paperweight, because you never know.
 

Books of Theory

The saying goes, "Before Principia Arcana, nothing." Principia changed the world. Old magical theories, no matter how elaborately documented or embellished, were swept into the dustbin of history. A few wizards might keep copies of Druidic Laws or Statgolger's Elements to show their erudition, but they aren't reference works.

The saying continues "After Principia Arcana, a lot of bickering." The core principles of the paradigm are widely understood and rigorously tested. The details, such as the Eightfold Theory and the Problem of Classification of Spells, are hotly contested. Every season sees a fresh fleet of books printed in Endon. Keeping track of their arguments, let alone reading all of them, would take a legion of wizards. Most shrug, pick a few ones with decent titles or reputable authors, read the first few chapters, and leave them to decorate a shelf. Industrial magic requires more than mere theory.

History and Poetry

Was Cuthbert Coldhand's sword really "so sharpe it cleft / light itself in twain / and scattered half-rainbows like tears to the ground"? Did wizards of old really raise mountains or cut new paths for rivers? Where are the fabled cities of Ithicon and Luuur, whose sorcerers once ruled the known world? Wizards, in their idle hours, like to paw through volumes of forgotten lore, both for inspiration and for potential clues.

Untranslated works in obscure languages fetch high prices at Endon's auctions. Forging them is a lucrative art.
 

What Not To Do (And How Not To Do It)

Few wizards are willing to admit that they turned 40,000gp of funding into a small lake of sludge, an ocelot that can sing, and a permanent odour of buttermilk. A wizard has to balance the humiliation of publishing their failures with potential gains in revenue, credibility, and survival. The nascent academic publishing system in Endon is more of a newsletter distribution mechanism; wizards publish papers by stuffing notes under doors, taunting rivals, or writing screeds to the editors of papers.

Since spectacular disasters tend to destroy all notes, experimenters, equipment, and witnesses, reconstructing events that lead to the final "hrm, that doesn't look right" moment is a difficult art. Retrograde scrying is possible, but grows increasingly fuzzy near high-powered magic events. Wizards with the skill and experience to examine the wreckage tend to stay away from smouldering craters. The mob might mistake them for the perpetrator. The greater the disaster, the more speculative the reconstruction. Criminal prosecution can uncover all sorts of interesting details. The courts of Endon are notoriously slow, corrupt, and ignorant of magical matters, but when the public good is at stake they can force wizards to explain extremely complex concepts in absurd levels of detail. Court transcripts (copied by diligent scribe-spells) form a solid core of many libraries.

The line between "cautionary tale" and "instruction manual" is very thin. One wizard's disaster might be another wizard's desired outcome.

Bottled Memoirs

Wizards with more money than sense buy and store bottled memories. Drink one and you gain a new memory. If the seller was honest, it might be a titillating, scandalous, or thrilling memory.

Memories are fickle things. Without links to other cues, a new memory fades quickly. It's not an immersive experience (despite promises on the bottles). It's a memory; it's in the past, and all the irrelevant details are fuzzy. Drink too many and your own memories will get mixed up.

Some wizards are said to store crucial trade secrets in memory bottles, but it's a device from melodrama, not from life. The safest and most useful place for a secret is in the wizard's head.

More than one wizard, haunted by youthful hubris or foolish decisions (the kind that arrive suddenly in the night and make one want to gouge out one's forehead with a metal brush), has prised offending memories out of their head and stuffed them into bottles, to be stored and ignored. Editing your own past is a recipe for disaster; your past mistakes inform your present self. Still, it's a tempting prospect. Woe betide the burglar who downs a draught labelled "A Night With A Princess of Thule" and gets a brainful of "My First Date And The Horrible Aftermath", courtesy of a frugal wizard reusing bottles.

Extracting a recent memory from a trained and willing individual requires a trivial spell. Extracting a buried, distant, or complex memory requires a dangerous and experimental helmet, the services of a dubious physician, a human-sized centrifuge (#41 in the catalogue), and some bottled lightning.
 

Animated Pornography

The oldest enchanted illustration known to Loxdon College features, according to the prudish catalogue card, "two nude figures encountering difficulties while attempting to fold a bearskin rug". Chronoscrying puts the illustration's age after the invention of fire but well before the invention of trousers. Students, of course, use "encountering difficulties" and "folding a bearskin rug" as euphemisms.

Moving illustrations of every act imaginable (and some you can't imagine, even with the aid of explanatory diagrams) are available in Endon for the right price. Owning them is technically a Moral Crime, but punishment (if any) depends on the nature of the acts illustrated, and the outrage that can be mustered locally.

The largest enchanted illustration known to Loxdon College (though not officially) is "Custard Accident #4", a 12'x'18 canvas currently in possession of an anonymous coal magnate.

Book Lists and Useful Tools

I was going to write my own table of books, but a) there are plenty of tables and generators out there, b) MIR has an abundance of name tables, c) the course list in this post can double as reference book titles, and d) the temptation to make them all puns was too high.

Elfmaids and Octopi
1d100 Books Found In A Dungeon
1d100 Worst Books In The World
1d100 Blasphemous Books of the Black Library
1d100 Books of Shadel Port
 

One Hundred Grimoires
Donjon Tome Generator

The Library of William Morris
Listing to Port (tagged) books
Pulpcovers.com

The Stygian Library

OSR: Generic Laboratory

Patrick Stuart set a challenge. I needed a generic laboratory for a chapter of the Monster Overhaul. Lo and behold, it all worked out.

Original: Pits of the Black Moon by Dyson Logos.

It's about as poetic as those dreadful sonnets students are forced to write and about as artpunk as an office photocopier used to make zines, but it's done, and (hopefully), it's useful.

Small Dungeon Considerations

• I try to aim for 6-12 rooms. Fewer than six isn't really a dungeon; more than 12 doesn't fit on one page in the format I've chosen, and often leads to duplicated ideas. This limits map selection. Having a d# of rooms lets GMs easily roll a random room number.
• I try to pick maps where the natural room order (if you start numbering where the PCs enter the dungeon and increment in some sort of logical path) matches the layout on the page, so each room's description is close to its number. Sometimes (like in this map), it doesn't work perfectly, but it's something to aim for. Dyson has so many maps that picking one is often the hardest part of a generic dungeon; this challenge was helpfully specific.
  
• I edit maps to make them fit the page, the concept, or the format restrictions. Dyson's maps have shadows so rotating them can lead to odd effects, but trimming off a few rooms or adjusting some details is trivial and can significantly change the nature of a map. In this case, I cut off the entire left wing of the dungeon.
  
• I try to strike a balance between evocative language and impenetrable prose. These generic dungeons are supposed to be instant GM assistants. Every line should add meaning or utility, but if a GM has to stop to untangle a sentence, the generic dungeon becomes less useful. Distilled essence of dungeon or Reader's Digest pablum? Your call.
  
• All generic dungeons (and all bestiary entries) receive periodic punch-up passes, where I try to identify boring bits, excise dull words, and look for repeated adjectives.

Here's a bonus Generic Grotto.

OSR: Thomas Infolded

Straight from a nightmare I had.

Thomas Infolded is, by most definitions, a cannibal. He eats people. Technically, he infolds them. He weighs twenty two and a half tons, but he can fly.

And he looks just like anyone else.

Imagine the outline of a human being on a sheet of paper. That's a normal person.

Thomas has the same outline, but the paper inside the outline is crinkled and warped and extends backwards and forwards. There's more surface area. There's more Thomas. A lot more Thomas.

He eats people by touching them and folding them into his body. For a few seconds, they look like they're falling into his flesh, as if he's much farther away (and much larger), or they're shrinking. And then there's a ripple and warp and he's whole again.

He eats people to gain their memories and their powers. He's a polymath. He speaks most languages. He's a very powerful wizard (but keeps it hidden in his infoldings, so you'd be hard pressed to detect it from a distance).

Stab him, and fresh hearts swim to the surface. Thomas's outline is human, but the filling isn't. Not really. Not anymore.

Thomas has a lot of HP. Physical damage is irritating but rarely dangerous. He's eaten people who can regenerate; he heals very quickly. He's hard to assassinate; his infoldings have eyes in all directions. He's hard to poison and hard to trick. He can fake his own death (he's done it more than once).

It might be possible to kill him by letting him eat someone unpalatable or fundamentally unstable.

He's strong, but not overwhelmingly strong. There's only so much muscle you can cram into a human-shaped outline. He's smart, but his brains still take time to process information.

But he's been alive for a long time. He's eaten several immortals. He's not done eating yet.

OSR: Massive Community Hexcrawl - Complete

 The Massive Community Hexcrawl is finished. 42 different people contributed hexes and encounters. Starting from nothing (no prompts, no direction, no theme or direction), the hexcrawl grew organically into a post-apocalyptic science fantasy wastelandcrawl, the sort of thing you could use with Ultraviolet Grasslands, Acid Death Fantasy, or stick next to Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, or mash it up with my unofficial World of Rust bestiary.

V 1.7 PDF

Final Notes
It was really interesting to see how the project developed. I tried to stick to a format that would avoid some of the worst issues with community projects and (despite the extended timescale), it worked. The main delays were on my end.

The strict character limits were usually followed, but some people either missed them or didn't care. I had to do a fair bit of editing and, in a few cases, ignore submissions that didn't really fit the theme or provide any added utility.

People tended not to submit encounters. It's strange that writing a hex is easier than writing a good random encounter, but not too surprising. I had to write a fair number of them.

The hex and encounter formats (first tested in the Veinscrawl) are as robust as ever.

Enjoy! And thanks again to everyone who contributed. The whole thing is licensed under CC-BY-NC 4.0. If anyone feels like making alternate maps, handy tools, or extra content, drop a link in the comments.

10 Stupid yet Robust Games for Video Calls

2020 is a weird year. A lot of people are relying on video calls for holiday gatherings.

This is fine, but it does limit the type of holiday games that can be played. For some participants, setting up a video call might push their technical skills to the limit. Asking them to also download an application, share a screen, learn a video game, or install something would lead to disaster.

I've come up with (or, more accurately, adapted, stolen, or lightly improved) 10 stupid robust games for video calls. They've all been tested.

Criteria

• Will work over video chat.
• Cannot require special items, applications, or elaborate preparation.
• Cannot rely on the physical fitness of any participants.
• Are not intellectually challenging.
• Are sufficiently ridiculous that anyone who gets overly competitive will feel a bit silly, yet still retain a degree of competition.
  

Items
Each Participant Will Need: Several sheets of paper, a marker, and a pen.
Each Household Will Need: A ruler or tape measure, and an umbrella, rolling pin, or walking stick.

A marker is easier to see when held  up to a camera. Pencils will not work; they're too hard to see. The ruler/tape measure and umbrella/rolling pin/walking stick keeps people guessing and promotes interest in the game. Ooh, what have they got planned?

Participants
The games work with up to 20 people, though anything past 10 results in moderate chaos from time to time.

The person organizing the games should commit to them knowing full well they'll look like a damn fool. The organizer can participate in most of the games.

If you've got one uncle who flipped a card table when they lost a particularly close card game, or an aunt who hasn't had fun since 1952 and has no intention of starting now, these games simply won't work. Arguments should be fun, self-aware and performative, not actual fights. As with any game, you need a certain type of relaxed group.

1. The Category Challenge

Using your pen, on one sheet of paper, write down:
5 Animals larger than a golf ball.
5 Machines
5 Foods
5 Musical Instruments

Do not let anyone else see your sheet of paper.

If the thing you write down is unique, you get 1 point.
If exactly one other person writes down the same thing as you, you get 2 points.
If two or more people write down the same thing as you, you get 0 points.

So you want to be clever, but not too clever. Animals should be general: "Spider" not "Black Widow Spider".
 
You have 2 minutes starting now.
 
Notes
You can adjust the number of items required. Use 3 if you actually intend to cross-reference and mark the results. 5 is a decent middle-of-the-road value. 10 keeps everyone very busy.

The scoring system for this task is a bluff; it's a bit painful to actually mark it. The idea is to promote some animals that aren't just "dog, cat" etc, and get categories for other games without having to email out a secret list of animals. It's very cunning.

If you do want to assign points, after you have played all the other games here and no longer need the secret list, have one person list their animals, then see if anyone has the same one, then have them write down the points next to it.
 

2. The Noise Game

Holding the umbrella/rolling pin/walking stick in both hands, one person will make the noise of the first animal listed on their sheet of paper. They may only make noises. They cannot use actions or gestures, or make any noise that sounds like a word.

They will make the noise for 10 seconds, then everyone will get a chance to guess.

If your animal doesn't make a noise, make the noise of a person seeing your animal, or a noise associated with your animal.

The person who correctly guesses the animal gets 1 point. If no one guesses your noise, you get -2 points.

[You can repeat this game, immediately or later, with machines, foods, and musical instruments. In a large group, it might be a good idea to have the first few people do one category, then switch it up.]

Notes
Taskmaster task for reference (UK S10E07). Any attempt at controlled sequential guessing usually (OK, immediately) devolves into everyone shouting guesses as the poor person valiantly struggles to make noises, so there's no point in trying to structure it.
 

3. The Third Largest Duck Game

Using a marker and a piece of paper, draw the third largest duck. There must be 2 ducks larger than your duck. You have 30 seconds to draw your duck. Then, hand your duck to someone else to measure.

Winner gets 5 points.

Notes
Taskmaster task for reference (UK S04E08). Duck measurements are controversial. Some people measure beak to tail, some people scalp to foot, some people insisted the duck they were asked to measure wasn't a duck but a sort of mutant potato and therefore should be disqualified, etc. It's all great fun. Though yes, it is a blatant duck measuring contest, and you may need to keep a straight face when discussing it.

You can't use "the average duck" because that requires math and you can't use "the median duck" because you might have an even number of participants.
 

4. The Portrait Game

Using a marker and a piece of paper, draw a portrait of one person you can see on this video call. You cannot use your dominant hand. You cannot write letters.

You get 1 point for each person who correctly identifies the subject of your drawing.

You have 30 seconds starting now.

[Ask people to write down their guesses as each drawing is held up to the camera... or just let everyone shout answers and award maximum points all 'round.]

Notes
In theory, very competitive people will deliberately fail to recognize the subject of any drawing. In practice, everyone gets caught up in the hilarity (or tragedy) of the results.
 

5. The Ten Word Fact Game

Using a pen and a piece of paper, write down a ten word fact. There is a bonus point for the best fact. You have 1 minute starting now.

Silently mouth your ten word fact to the judge. You get 1 point for each word the judge gets correct. The judge gets the average of all points assigned.

Notes
Taskmaster task for reference (UK S07E03). Ideally, you'll want to select a fairly competitive and confident person to be the judge. Averaging points does require math, but there's no easy way around it. In testing, it's much easier to mouth facts when the judge is physically in the same room, so you may need to rotate or swap judges. You can also rotate judges for each fact (the judge and the fact-mouther getting the same points).
   

6. The Straight Line Game

Using a marker and a piece of paper, one person will draw the second animal listed on their sheet of paper. They can only three straight lines at a time.

After drawing three lines, everyone will get a chance to guess.

The person who correctly guesses the animal gets 1 point. If someone correctly identifies your animal after 3 lines, you get 5 points. After 6 lines, 4 points. 9 lines, 3 points, etc.

[You can repeat this game, immediately or later, with machines, foods, and musical instruments, though they're much harder than animals.]

Notes
Taskmaster task for reference (UK S10E06). All the notes from the Noise Game apply here.
 

7. The National Pride Game

Using a marker and a piece of paper, draw a map of this country/region/continent/etc.

The most accurate drawing, by popular vote, will get 5 points. You cannot vote for yourself.

You have 30 seconds starting now.

Notes
You could also have a judge (the person with the worst drawing) pick a first, second, and third place drawing. 30 seconds isn't a lot of time, particularly if you're looking for complex internal borders or geographical features.
 

8. The Hand Drawing Game

Using a marker and a piece of paper, draw the outline of your dominant hand. You cannot use your dominant hand to draw, and you cannot trace your hand or touch the paper with anything other than the marker.

You get 1 point for each finger that has an outline all the way around it, but where the outline is not more than 1cm away at any point from the finger. Someone else will judge your drawing.

You have 30 seconds starting now.

Notes
People tried using the shadows of their hands, or drawing a huge circle and arguing that the fingers were all inside it, etc. It was very fun.
 

9. The 45 Second Game

Close your eyes. Put your hand on your head closest to 45 seconds from when I start the timer. The person who puts their hand on their head closest to 30 seconds, but without going over 45 seconds, will get 5 points. Do not open your eyes or make any noise until the game is over.

I am starting the timer now.

Notes
Taskmaster task reference (NZ S01E06). The organizer can't participate in this game and should be fairly vigilant, but it's a fun one. You can use a toaster instead of a timer, but that requires effort. The longer the time, the greater the spread of results, but the more bored everyone will be.
  

10. The Monster Drawing Game

Using a marker and a piece of paper, draw the monster I am going to describe. You have 2 minutes to draw your monster, starting from when I start describing the monster. I will not stop or repeat myself.

The happy monster has two arms and three legs. Two of its legs are spiky.

It has two wings on the top of its head. The wings are like bat wings.

It has three eyes and two more eyes. And sharp fangs. And two more eyes.

It has scales on its arms and it has claws on one hand. Its tongue is very long and it has a tooth on the end of it. It is holding a curvy sword in one hand.

It has big round dots all over its body, but none on its face. And it has two more legs. And it is riding a bicycle. And it has one more withered arm. And it has chains around two of its ankles.

And it has a scarf made of fur. And one more very big eye. And it has a ring shaped like a skull. And it is drunk and cross-eyed and very sleepy.

Hand your monster to someone else to mark. You get 1 point for each criteria your monster meets. Arguing is permitted. Maximum of 20 points.

Criteria (1 point each):
[Read out loud and get people to put a checkmark for each criteria met, then collate the totals.]

• Arms: 3
• Legs: 5
• Eyes: 8
• Two spiky legs?
• Bat wings on head?
• Fangs?
• Scales on arms?
• Claw on one hand?
• Very long tongue?
• Tooth on tongue?
• Holding a curvy sword?
• Dots on body but not on face?
• Riding bicycle?
• One withered arm?
• Scarf made of fur?
• One very big eye?
• Ring shaped like a skull?
• Drunk?
• Cross-eyed?
• Very sleepy?
  

Notes
Taskmaster task reference (UK S10E09). Feel free to write your own monsters (and/or post them in the comments). The description should be convoluted, but each individual element should be clear, brief, and distinct. Most of them should be easy to draw (the bicycle is just pure evil). Pause while describing the monster to let people catch up. Really relish each word.

This game leads to some truly hilarious mock-arguments over the number of legs, what constitutes a fang, etc. It's good fun.
 

Final Notes

 A lot of old game books have truly terrible party games in them. Classics like charades, impressions, Who Am I?, Pictionary, etc. can work over video calls, but it's good to try new games or introduce arbitrary twists. Programmed party games, like Jackbox Games, are great but feel really sterile and soulless to me. It's like enforced, optimized, normalized fun. Everyone is looking at a screen instead of at each other.

If you try these games, let me know how they go. I will not accept responsibility for any disasters that might result.

Goodbye 2020. You won't be missed.