Weekly Briefing from the North Texas Apocalypse Bunker, 12/22/23
Winter Solstice Edition
The entire staff here at the North Texas Apocalypse Bunker would like to wish all of you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Also: Blessed Solstice, Festivus for the Rest of Us, and for my North of North American constituents, Happy Boxing Day.
I’m going to call it right here and throw in the red and green checkered towel. I tried, I really did, but despite my best efforts, Christmas isn’t coming for me this year. Oh, I’ll be in it, to be sure. With two families and two households to get to in the next ten days, I won’t miss a thing. It’s just that, while I’ll be in and amidst Christmas, Christmas won’t be in me. Not in my heart, at least. I miss get a little down the front of my shirt, and it will most assuredly stain whatever I’m wearing, but it won’t trickle into my heart. We’ll try again next year.
The only thing I’m really looking forward to now is making black eyed peas for New Year’s Day. I got no feedback on sneaking a peek at my recipe, so I’m assuming the rest of you are covered. No matter. Mine will be better than yours. I know it, and you know it.
A Little Good News
It took a lot longer than I’d anticipated, and way longer than I planned. But Ogre’s 11 is now a physical object that you can hold in your hands. It’s also a digital file you can throw onto a tablet or some other screen you use to read pdf files.
This was supposed to be two 48 page ‘zines. 11 fantasy heists you can throw at your gaming group. Notes and options for making it a larger campaign. It’s all there. It was supposed to be small, fast, punchy. Then The Company that Shall Not Be Named (Hasbro? Hastur? Yeah, that’s no coincidence...) published their Keys From the Golden Vault D&D campaign book and…well, it’s better than Waterdeep: Dragon Heist, but it’s still not really a true heist campaign.
I took it upon myself to put my money (all of it, and then some) and my time where my mouth was. Instead of telling people my rules for running heists are better than what the D&D staff came up with, I’ll just show you (and by you I mean the people who backed the Kickstarter campaign). And that’s how this project took an extra twelve months to drop and ‘morphed into a 215 page book.
I don’t know that it’s perfect, but I can assure any gamemaster that wants to use Ogre’s 11 to run some heists in their game that it’s demonstrably better than the D&D books that purport to be heists. You can find the book in POD and PDF formats here at DriveThruRPG.
More Seasonal Offerings
My friends Jim and Lori had no idea that I have a small collection of King Kong ties—three, to be exact, including a couple of spiffy numbers given to me by my old friend Scott Cupp. I don’t know where they found this, but it’s a King Kong tie that I don’t have, and it’s glorious. Thanks, y’all! It’s the bee’s knees!
Longtime friend of the Bunker Lindsay and her family brought us a lovely poinsettia today, and this was the marvelous homemade ornament that came with the plant. I was not prepared for it, and I started bawling and had to leave the room. It was so thoughtful and I love it, but man, those grief trip wires are the worst. Next year, it will hold a place of honor on the Plaza’s main lobby Christmas tree (not to be confused with the hallway Christmas tree, which is already festooned with Star Wars stuff).
Rusty Burke
I wanted to end this update with a somber bit of news. My friend and mentor, Rusty Burke, took a serious fall last Saturday and he hit his head on the pavement and knocked himself out (they think). He’s currently in the ICU at a trauma hospital in DC, where he is sedated and intubated until they can assess what, in fact, happened. He has two subdural hematomas that have thankfully not increased in size, which they say is good. All of his organs and bodily functions are working normally, which they also say is good. Nevertheless, it’s a head injury, and it’s serious, until it isn’t. Right now, everyone is waiting, and it may be a while before we know anything.
If you are a Robert E. Howard fan of any stripe, then you know Rusty, or at least, know of him, and you likely know how highly he is regarded by all of us Howardists and Howard-Heads. He has always been the biggest cheerleader for bringing people into Howard Studies; generous with his time and always encouraging to new and old fans. He continues to be someone whose approval I routinely seek for anything REH-related that I might write, even though he’s told me many times that he can’t critique my work anymore because he knows me and can hear my voice in his head when he reads whatever I send him.
We are all gut-punched by this turn of events, and I know that Rusty and his wife Shelly and all of his friends and family would appreciate whatever prayers, blessings, lit candles, moments of silence, or sacrifices to Crom that you could spare this weekend. We are all pulling for Rusty to wake up and have a swift and uneventful recovery, and any/all positive vibes you can throw into the universe can’t possibly hurt.
One Last Thing…
If you’re traveling, please drive safely. If you’re spending time with friends and family, enjoy their company. This is all the stuff we sometimes take for granted and Christmas is one of the few times a year that we get to tell people we love them and have it not be weird. And if you’re flying solo this year, by choice or happenstance, take it easy.
Season’s greetings, y’all.
Merry Christmas! Your post was a wee bit on the Grinchy side. Maybe re-watch a Christmas classic movie? Like Die Hard, maybe. You know it's not Xmas until Hans Gruber takes a dive off of Nakatomi Plaza.
Anyhow, maybe Santa will bring you a nice bib.
Happy Solstice/Festivus/Christmas/Holidays to you & yours, and congrats on the book coming out!