The Khazars

by on October 10, 2026 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Books

I don’t follow Osprey Publishing very closely, but it seems evident that they went out of their way to get some experts in regions you don’t hear much about in English, and team them up with their regular authors to produce readable Men-at-Arms books on what can be esoteric subjects.

From what I’ve seen, it has worked very well for them. From what I know, Mikhail Zhirohov has written one other book (in Russian), but I would imagine there’s been papers and other scholarly contributions. Him and Osprey regular David Nicolle have produced a fine introduction to a Jewish Turkic people that you hardly ever get more than distant references to.

While a 2019 Osprey book, we’re back in “classic” mode with everything outside of the eight color plates being in black and white. There’s a good map showing the extent of the Khazar Khaganate, archaeological diagrams of a few Khazar period fortified locations, and a drawing (by David Nicolle) showing a reconstruction of the fortress at Sarkel. There’s over a dozen photographs of various artifacts, and drawings of about as many (and two photographs of archeological digs); most of these come from Zhirohov’s collection. All fairly typical for Osprey. Also typical is is five page history of the people, a chronology to accompany it, and then a history of the known wars and campaigns involving them. This then goes to chapters on military arms, armor, and equipment, and finally a short one on fortifications.

Nomadic/semi-nomadic peoples aren’t something I have a lot of knowledge of, but much of what’s here is not atypical. Sarkel is the main known Khazar-period fortification, and a discussion of it takes the majority of that short chapter. In fact, most of the second half of the text revolves around archaeological discussions, with the first half more dealing with what other peoples (mostly Muslims, who fought against the Khaganate over the centuries) had to say. The Bibliography takes about a page, and ranges from The History of the Jewish Khazars (D.M. Dunlop, 1954) to Mission to the Volga (Ibn Fadlan, 2017; this was written in 2019), and is probably a little more book-heavy (instead of journals) than I would have expected.

I am a bit disappointed with the Christa Hook illustrations, which are light on anything beyond the figures themselves, but they do serve their illustrative purpose nicely, and all the text is well written. It’s a great introduction to a subject that rarely gets touched in English.

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The Real Treasure Was the XP We Got Along the Way

by on October 6, 2026 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: D&D

By 1986, the nature of AD&D adventure modules were changing, going from a location-based format, to more story-based. So, it makes sense that TSR would produce a new introductory adventure. Earlier modules dedicated to being a “first adventure” with DMs advice had been part of the Basic line, but that wasn’t really a barrier to using them with AD&D, and modules such as N1 Against the Cult of the Reptile God only misses dedicated DM-facing advice to be a “starter” adventure.

The new intro module, N4 Treasure Hunt, would be the most inventive of all of them. The cover mentions this is for levels 0-1, and this is—if anything—underselling the adventure. The PCs are all classless, “level 0” normal people, captured by pirates to be sold into slavery, and then shipwrecked on an island, left to overcome the one surviving captor, dodge other pirates, and survive. During all this, the DM takes notes of the things the players do, and near the end of the adventure they start hitting level 1, and get a class and alignment based on their actions.

The general format is classic TSR: A 48-page book with detached trifold cover. The third outer panel of the cover shows the general locale of the adventure, the Korinn Archipelago, while the internal panels have player’s maps that they will get during the adventure. The main booklet is actually on a slick glossy paper, so presentation is a little nicer than normal. The middle twelve pages are meant to be pulled out, and have tracking forms for the DM, some pre-made characters, and four pages of DM’s maps.

The initial two-page spread is a player’s introduction, and while it assumes you haven’t played AD&D, it does generally assume knowledge of character creation. (“Your Dungeon Master will tell you how to roll up your character’s abilities.” Since the DM is assumed to be new too, someone’s going to have to figure out what the primary characteristics are….) Don’t worry about class, money, or equipment, but it naturally recommends the use of secondary skills from the DMG, and then gives a third of a page description of the setting.

The next two page spread is for new DMs, gives the general plot, how the chapters are broken up, various class abilities that characters can freely attempt (generally, thief abilities, but also assassination and tracking), and how characters get to first level.

The first appendix is two pages giving advice about various things that could go wrong with the plot. This is the type of advice that any story-based adventure needs to have, and almost never does. It even freely admits that you can’t foresee everything, and encourages a flexible approach to problems (after having demonstrated how that works with some of the more likely problems). The second appendix is a further page about the Korinn Archipelago, and the back page is a listing of all the monsters that can be encountered, with checkboxes for their hitpoints to be marked off.

All this leaves twenty-six pages for the adventure itself. It moves fairly briskly from initial survival and freedom to bigger concerns. There are conversational bits basically discussing the adventure with the DM. (“Before launching into the third episode of the adventure, let’s look at the island as a whole.”) There are other pirates (generally orcs and goblins) on the island, and only a limited number of buildings available as shelter. Another nice touch is the players will encounter an old man who can draw decent maps of everything. These are given the module with a broad-leaf background, as that’s what he’s drawing on. They don’t really have the feel of been done on a rough, slick, surface, but that’s a minor point.

The adventure is also more involved than the initial setup might imply. I kind of worry that new players would be more concerned with what comes down to tomb looting in the second half than what is given. But, short of that, the adventure should flow very well. The biggest problem is that there is a “clock” to get off the island, and time tracking isn’t really emphasized in the module.

Greyhawk Adventures

The general idea of the 0-level adventure seen here was popular, and TSR got requests for more. More did eventually come, with Appendix 1 of Greyhawk Adventures giving more general rules for the idea. This version was even more flexible. 0-level characters in this system all start with 3 (!) in each attribute, and 3 HP. But, there is also a budget of points that can be applied to the attributes (and HP) at any point, so you can instantly boost an attribute up to pass a challenge. This can only be done once per week, but with a small group trading off who’s going to ‘step up’, that shouldn’t be a problem. It looks interesting, but I’ve never used the rules.

Forgotten Realms

The setting for the module is an extensive archipelago, which should be easy to drop into any setting as long as there’s a large sea or an ocean to place it in. And just a little while later this happened officially, with the setting being incorporated into the Forgotten Realms. Geographically, it’s a great fit, with the archipelago being added to one corner of the more extensive Moonshae Isles, and the goddess that appears in this module could even be the goddess of those islands. Past that, it’s a harder fit. There’s no sign of the Welsh/Norsemen model the Moonshaes use as a whole, and I don’t think there’s any known nearby orc pirates stipulated in the background here. (Though there are plenty of other pirates nearby, so that’s not a big deal.) This makes it the third Forgotten Realms adventure published (discounting Oriental Adventures materials, which would bump this back to fifth). The copyright says 1986, but my understanding is it came out in January 1987, a mere seven months before the boxed set.

Conclusion

This is a very well done adventure with a lot of good advice. Aaron Allston was a great writer, and it shows here. It’s also fairly quickly paced, with the deadline of two days to get off the island. The ‘see what you do’ and then award a class is an extremely inventive choice, and with the start is used to skip some of the initial choices that can take a while to get through (notably selecting equipment).

Presentation is great. In addition to the slightly better paper, Stephen Fabian has great art in here (including portraits of the pre-generated characters), and the maps are… mostly good. The one problem is the DM maps are black and light grey, and it’s too light on the map of the island, making it hard to see the elevation lines. The Easley cover is a spoiler, since it depicts the final escape from the island, but since that’s the obvious goal from the start, that’s not a big problem, and the destruction shown would just warn any players looking at that they will need to get out.

The main “failure” is that it is very much in the plotted adventure mode that took over in the mid-’80s. This adventure is small enough and has well done options so it should stay largely on track. But, if you prefer the older “location as adventure” mode, this not only is probably a bad choice for you, but may get players expecting the wrong things from you as DM. On the other hand, there’s only a few places of note on this island, and without the timetable, it is about a place, so it actually straddles the line a bit, and it might be worth using this to experiment with play styles a bit.

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The Civil War of 1812

by on October 2, 2026 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Books

This isn’t quite a history for the War 1812, though it lies behind much of the book.

Taylor starts by pointing out that Britain maintained that a subject was created by birth (inside the Empire), and nothing could remove that status. The United States gave citizenship to those people living there, and then to immigrants who become naturalized. These two systems were at odds with one another, especially as the Napoleonic Wars heat up, and Britain needs as many sailors as it can get to man the Royal Navy, which makes adopting the widest possible definition of subject inescapable.

But this fades into the background, and while the subject of impressment is handled in the book, it isn’t actually a central thesis. Rather, Taylor looks to the lands between the settled areas of the United States and Canada, which have a line drawn through them, but little else until you get further west where there are plenty native Americans who are looking to retain their lands and autonomy. The best route to this is through the British, who also want them to help contain the new republic. Another prong of this drive is splitting off Upper Canada from the rest of the dominion in 1791, which is basically where this book starts.

The initial point of Upper Canada is to develop territory adjacent to the United States so as to attract people from across the border and bring them back to the Empire. This experiment largely failed, and worse, when the War of 1812 started, both sides misunderstood the nature of that failure. Many “Loyalists” had been forced out of the colonies during and immediately after the Revolution, and had largely ended up in Canada. This second wave of immigration are termed Late Loyalists, but the main motivation was get free/cheap land, and stay out of politics of any kind, by living in a remote undeveloped area. They certainly had no love for the republican government of the US and all its apparent instabilities, but they had no love for a distant authority making demands on them either.

Meanwhile in the United States, the government is working through the crises endemic to a new organization, but what Taylor terms the Republican Party (technically correct, but never noted as not being directly related to the later party of that name, which survives today, and was more formally known as the “Democrat-Republicans”) is indulging in a dangerous combination of small government and aggressive foreign relations. One of the overriding concerns is keeping taxes down, which requires various expenditures, such as the army and navy to be as small as possible, but there was also a strong desire to acquire some or—hopefully—all of Canada. This leads into a declaration of war… with no good means of prosecuting it.

Taylor goes into some of the reasoning, but that end of his book might have been strengthened by looking more deeply into the view away from the border. This is a book on the borderland itself, but a bit of a time out to see what that borderland looked like from the viewpoint of Washington DC could have been a good idea. We don’t get London as such either, but we do get a number of policy decisions, starting with the creation of Upper Canada, and its administration by various people. A look at the relative population shifts on both sides of the border from 1790 to 1812 would be informative, as would the evolving organization of territories and states, but that is not gone into.

Of course, most of the War of 1812 is fought on the Canadian side of the border, so that is the territory that the history of the war here traverses. And this is where a very solid book has trouble. He goes into a fair amount of detail of the various operations, and gives the various battles, and how nearly all of them come to grief. This ends up as a jumble, and it is hard to tell the paths from the weeds. But, there is a theme consistently explored: How the various troop movements affected the local population. As usual in war, the locals do not do well, and as usual with such situations, opinions harden against the invaders.

The end conclusion of the book is centered the idea that the area was a borderland; an area where two governments had drawn a line, but there was little reality behind it. As more people come into the area, the shadings from one side to another remain, and then war ends up dividing things much more starkly, and a border that was little more than a line drawn by a treaty becomes much more a reality in the aftermath. Do not mistake this for a history of the War of 1812, for there is much more to that subject than is covered here, just as there is more to this book than the War of 1812.

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Anime Summer 2026

by on September 28, 2026 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Anime

Another three months come and gone, and another list of what I’ve been watching for the last season. It seems it’s been a good quarter, as the list is longer. And, certainly, it’s all been good. Mononoke is the only thing I don’t recommend, but it’s still worth a look:

Frieren — Now somewhere between a third and a half through the second series of Frieren, and it is living up to expectations.

Witch Hat Atelier — I’m now about a third of a way through a second viewing of the series as now the guys are watching it (this would be Smudge’s third time through). It is well worth the second go around, as it is a great production.

Primal — Finished off the first season. All the way, it has been a great production, with good writing, good animation, good art direction. But, it hasn’t really been my kind of thing. However, the last episode, and its cliffhanger got me, and we will need to get season 2 sooner rather than later.

Sparks of Tomorrow — Okay, I got a little scared that this was going to be another Moonrise—all production, no writing—but it’s being good. A steampunk world that’s reaching for electricitypunk. Generally, lots of fun, and the opening credits are basically operating as a prologue for the episode, which is nicely done. On the other hand, all the characters are a ball of desires and impulsiveness turned up to 12 (they went right past 11).

Re: Zero — Recently started the most recent season with Smudge, and we haven’t gotten far yet. We dealing with the tower of the sage, and it’s obvious that he was from Earth as well, other mysteries await, no doubt.

Ascendance of a Bookworm — Finally getting started on part 3 with the guys, and we’re only a few episodes in. A surprising strong point of the series is how it can switch primary casts around, and still keep being interesting with good characters. Myne has now moved into noble society, leaving behind a second cast of characters for another new set, but it still works.

That Time I Was Reincarnated as a Slime — Me and Smudge are catching up on this one again. We’ve just gotten the time loop episode for Chronoa. So, in the middle of the story, but it’s definitely a climatic moment, and being interesting, if super-powered.

Campfire Cooking in Another World — Just recently hit the end of season two of this. It is surprisingly fun. Don’t watch while hungry.

Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? — Recently finished watching series five. Overall, it had a good plot, and was a good story, but I’ll stick with saying I prefer the parts that delve (ha ha) into the nature of the dungeon itself.

Demon Slayers: Infinity Castle (I) — Finally got to see the first half of the final Demon Slayers storyline. …It’s not really enough to carry a movie, much less two. That said, it is well done, and I’m happy to have seen it. I just wish it wasn’t so needlessly drawn out.

Pokemon: Horizons — We’re just getting going in season three of Rising Hope. It continues to be good enough. The real through-plot is the strong point, and there’s been some real growth, especially with Amethio, but we’ve only had one episode with him so far. Still, I expect it will have a good conclusion.

Mononoke: Phantom in the Rain — Recently had a free night, and watched this movie; I haven’t seen the series, but Smudge has. Now, it is beautifully done, but there’s lots of problems. First, the writing isn’t really there. The plot is very loose, and it just kind of dissolves into an action scene to wrap up without really feeling like its really coming to a conclusion. Also, on a “me” level, it was painful to watch. There’s a constant filter over everything that doesn’t move when anything else does, and there is a constant barrage of fast cuts through the entire film. One, or both, tripped off the ‘error correction’ that my vision is centered around and gave me a headache. And without that, I usually find that kind of fast aggravating if it continues for long.

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Render Unto Ceasar

by on September 24, 2026 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Books

Augustan Rome, without Augustus. That is, he is conveniently out of town for the entirety of the novel, which involves portions of Roman high society and government. And we do have a number of historical people here, I think including all the three people of power we see in the book. (The entire bit with the lampreys is from history.)

Money matters, as presented here, are entirely from history as well. High ranking men needed to give expensive entertainments and do expensive public projects. They also got involved in private projects that could easily go wrong. The land speculation that ends up driving part of the plot of the book is also fairly typical.

Rome itself is shown well, and you get to see bits of life there, comfortable homes, run-down insulae, traffic with rules keeping big cargo wagons out during daylight, temples, small shrines. It’s a good mix, all in service to the plot, which itself goes many places.

Enter an Alexandrian. Our main character is in the business of money, investing in shipping concerns and the such, helping good flow through the interconnected world of the Ancient Mediterranean. He has recently inherited a fairly large debt that he could absorb if needed, but the money is owed, and he journeys to Rome to collect. And that simple fact sets off a novel full of intrigue, violence, and romance.

It is also worth looking at at Hermogenes through a non-neurotypical light. His bedrock motivation is that the Romans should be following the rules they themselves espouse, or else the Empire is built on nothing more than the fiat that Augustus is determined to sweep away. Along the way, he manages to be friends with many people, because he does care, and is practiced at observing people. Rules are not the end-all of a bureaucrat, but rather what gives structure to business and politics so they may be fair.

I’ve yet to be disappointed with a Gillian Bradshaw book, and this is no exception. There is so much more here than I have touched upon. This isn’t pages of empty prose and happenings, it is a very dense book with a lot going on at different levels.

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