Requiem for a Muse

Artwork find: Ted Nasmith

April 29, 2021 /

While browsing /r/lotr I saw the image above, and was immediately taken by its style. Painted by Ted Nasmith, I really like the little details and the lighting. It reminds me of old-school illustrations, and it could partly be because he does seem to use traditional materials rather than digital. Browsing his site I see a wide range of work, not just for fantasy. His architectural renderings are another favorite of mine, and can provide lots of inspiration for both writing stories and RPG campaigns.

itch.io find: Doki Doki Literature Club

March 17, 2021 /

This is a new series in similar vein to my “Bandcamp find” posts. There are a LOT of great games (free and paid) on itch.io, and I’ll be highlighting my finds as time goes on.

One of the most popular free games available on the site is Doki Doki Literature Club. Created with the free Ren’Py visual novel engine, this game is FAR different than what it appears to be on the surface. It’s pretty hard to describe much more without spoilers, so I’ll simply leave it there. Note that this game does tackle some potentially sensitive and emotional issues.

Bandcamp find: Josh Sager

March 12, 2021 /

At work I prefer to listen to soundtracks and ambient music. For the latter, I’ve been leaning toward the dark ambient sub-genre. On Bandcamp there is of course a wide variety of work in this field, involving any amount of synthesizers, samples, field recordings, etc. I’ve only just begun to familiarize myself with this music, and I wanted to highlight an early discovery that has really impressed me: Josh Sager. Of course while I always listen to the full album, from the front Bandcamp page it linked the 6th track on his latest album “interlopers”: auger spires. Turning up the speakers and enlarging the album artwork, this does the job any ambient work (dark or not) should do: envelope and allow the listener to truly immerse in the atmosphere! It will take me awhile to really get acquainted with this album and the others he has online. Along with that, he also has a few other great recommendations I’ve already added to my to-listen list: loscil and BLAKMOTH.

Website find: Standard Ebooks

February 17, 2021 /

If you’ve been looking for something to read, or you’re frustrated by the terrible layout, mis-spellings, etc. of free and public ebooks, well then Standard Ebooks is the site for you! Free and open-source, each ebook is available to download in multiple formats, including epub (for most eReaders, Calibre, Books on Apple devices, etc.), azw3 for Kindle (you’ll need to download the cover thumbnail seperately), kepub for Kobo, and advanced epub if desired. As mentioned, each ebook also has a nice illustrated cover and a clear and consistent (if somewhat simple) cover title so you can easily recognize each ebook.

Being open-source, anyone is welcome to contribute to the project, whether to improve existing titles or help bring new titles up to their standards. If you aren’t technically inclined or don’t have the time to contribute, you are still welcome to donate to the project, to help those working on the project along with the costs of website hosting, etc. One-time and monthly options are available.

As noted on each ebook page, the titles are made available freely as they are presumably free of copyright in the United States; each book’s copyright status may not be the same in other countries, and you will need to check your local laws prior to downloading outside of the United States.

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