This site is mainly for the Dungeons & Dragons (D&D), Cthulhutech, Call of Cthulhu, Star Wars, and Warhammer 40,000 RPGs (abbreviated to wh40k by most gamers: Dark Heresy, Rogue Trader, Deathwatch). I helped develop an RPG called The Secret Fire, and I’m heavily involved in Edinburgh’s Open Roleplaying Community (ORC) and run the website there as well. The pages on this web site contain resources for tabletop RPG gamers, such as settings, monsters, house rules, new magic, rules and other material, as well as background on the Mandragora setting (including rules for creating a Mandragora PC for D&D). Most of the material can be found in the wiki area of the site.

My very first gaming experience was with the Fighting Fantasy gamebook called Starship Traveller, a Christmas present. After that I was hooked, and blew most of my pocket money on them. I moved into other gamebook series: Golden Dragon, the Sorcery! series, and Joe Dever’s Lone Wolf books. I also dabbled in the Choose Your own Adventure series, my favourite being Horror at High Ridge, a surprisingly dark entry in the series.

In the back of the books, references to a roleplaying game called Dungeons and Dragons were often made, sometimes in the author’s biography too. It wasn’t until I got to high school that I was introduced to RPGs. At the time, the teaching unions were frequently on strike, meaning no out-of-school activities. I noticed that at one point that there had been a Dungeons & Dragons club.

A year later, the strike resolved, the D&D club started on Mondays straight after school. It only lasted an hour but it was the best we could get. The first game I ever played in was Traveller, and after that I was hooked. I became acquainted with a number of gaming magazines: Warlock, White Dwarf (which my local newsagent kept for me), and the Adventurer. 2000AD also released a gaming magazine called Diceman, where you played a comic book hero such as Judge Dredd in an RPG/Choose-your-adventure-style-storyline. In Diceman were a number of adverts for small metal figurines called miniatures from Grenadier.

A number of my classmates also collected miniatures, and I asked where I could get them. I wound up visiting a long-gone shop called Gamesmaster on Edinburgh’s Forrest Road. My first purchase was a Nazgul on Winged Beast, a £5 investment that seemed like a lot. Like a complete newbie I thought could do a great job of painting it with enamels. What a mess. Years later I did repaint them both! I still have a number of the Grenadier 25mm miniatures. They are actually very good quality – I’ve still got Orcus, some Barbarians, and a Tsin Dragon.

The first proper game I got was as a birthday present – it was Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader. Suddenly, I had a whole new game to play… and I wasn’t the only one. A number of the Monday gamers had heard of it, and suddenly we were playing battles between space marines and Orks. I was in 3rd year at this time and I was pretty much free to do what I wanted. Virgin had an RPG/miniatures section, where I bought more miniatures and games like Dungeonquest, which I still own. I was playing during the holidays in a Dragonlance campaign. Another games shop called Macs Models also opened and they had a LOT of stuff.

The year after, everything changed. This was when the gaming boom kicked off. There were loads of companies, loads of games, and now less time to play. Ordinary and Standard grade exams meant actual study. I wasn’t happy at school and life wasn’t much fun. Gaming was pretty much an escape. I was still playing Dragonlance and WH40k, but by now was also playing Warhammer FRPG, Middle Earth RolePlaying (MERP) and Call of Cthulhu. These were mostly played at friends’ houses.

When Games Workshop opened their shop in the Royal Mile on a chilly November morning, my friends and I made our pilgrimage – we were all still at school and it was when we queued for hours with money-off coupons clutched in our sweaty little paws. I bought Adeptus Titanticus and Realm of Chaos: Slaves to Darkness. At this time, we were also playing Space Hulk, Talisman and Space Marine/Adeptus Titanicus when we weren’t RPGing, as well as playing Warhammer 40,000 (or wh40k) .

I left school and began my wilderness years as it were. I still gamed, picking up AD&D, Werewolf and West End Games Star Wars RPG, selling a lot of my miniatures – in fact, nearly my entire gaming collection. I also played the Palladium RPG, Rifts, various homebrew games and the original Dungeons and Dragons. I also played Pendragon which I have never grown fond of. Mac’s Models closed, Virgin dropped its RPG section and gaming went into decline. It was getting harder for my old group to get together. We had jobs. Or university and college. Weekly games became monthly ones – folk couldn’t always make it. This lasted nearly 10 years – much of my collection was sold off on eBay.

About three or four years ago, I heard of the Ottakar’s Roleplaying Club (as ORC was called back then) and the Black Lion gaming shop. I never seemed to have the time to go, being a lazy git. The release of Dungeon & Dragons 3rd edition rekindled gaming interests along with the Harry Potter franchise, Eragon books, World of Warcraft etc. – both the fantasy genre and being a gamer were cool again! Three years ago I finally got myself in gear and went along.

Nowadays there’s a little less time. Over the years I’ve played in quite a few games from other systems. Here’s some capsule thoughts:

• Shadowrun is OK. It gets a bit bogged down in the tech though, usually at the expense of character development.
• Pendragon is tiresome.
• Star Wars Saga is OK, but d6 is better!
• Early versions of D20 aren’t exactly inspiring.
• The Babylon 5 setting is great, the RPG less so.
• Cthulhutech. Great setting.

More About Me

I’m 37 (I actually have to think about that now!) years old and currently resident in Edinburgh. I’m interested in most kinds of games, psychology, ancient Roman history, writing, and sci-fi and fantasy. I’ve played a wide variety of tabletop role-playing, board, and war-games, from Dungeons and Dragons to Warhammer 40,000. I rarely war-game these days as it costs way too much and I’ve nowhere to keep the miniatures! Other areas of interest include media technology – I received my HND qualification from Stevenson College in Audio-Visual technology, and my “official” resume can be requested by using the contact form below.

My Miscellany

Okay, these are some of my slightly daft observations, comments, and favorite quotes. You know, the silly bits that wouldn’t really look right elsewhere on the site. I’m not sure anyone ever reads this sort of thing, but still…

Favorite Quotes:

• “D’oh!” - Homer Simpson
• “That which does not kill me makes me stronger.” - Nietzsche. The guy was the first (depressingly) pragmatic thinker.
• “Let’s split up.” “Good idea. We can do more damage that way.”- Peter Venkman (Bill Murray) to Ray Stanz (Dan Ackroyd) in the movie Ghostbusters.
• “Oops” – Tasslehoff Burrfoot in the Dragonlance series.

Favorite Books:

• The Prince – Niccolo Macchiavelli. Frighteningly practical political thought – and it works.
• Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien, but the bloody appendices are a pain to wade through.
• The Shadow over Innsmouth – HP Lovecraft. No matter how many times
  I read that story it gives me the creeps.
• Any Dark Elf book by RA Salvatore.
• The Inspector Rebus series from Ian Rankin, set in Edinburgh.
• Brian Lumley‘s Necroscope series.

Phrases I hate hearing…

• “You’re a nice guy, but…” Man, I can’t count the number of times I’ve heard that. There shouldn’t be a BUT!
• “It’s your round.” Pint glasses are great unless you’re the one carrying  several of them through a crowded bar.
• “Life is like a box of chocolates.” Yeah, right. Some bastard has always scoffed the soft centres…
• “What’s the worst that can happen?”

Things I think are pointless:

• Philosophy degrees – what’s the POINT?
• The satellite shopping channels.
• Reality TV.
• Hollywood remakes. WHY remake the “Wicker Man”?

Cities outside the UK I’ve visited:

• Las Vegas
• Prague
• Rome
• Tokyo
• Vancouver

If you would like to contact me, please use the form below.

Comments or questions are welcome.

Please do not use this form to send Unsolicited Commercial Email (UCE). I am not interested in SEO placement or the like.

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