It’s all fun and games until someone loses an eye — People sometimes (very rarely, I must admit) ask: “How did Odin lose an eye?” Thing is, He never lost it: He knows perfectly well where it is. “Mythological realism” contains many elements where gods and godlike beings trade their body parts for power, or symbolically consume something that gives them…

What are the top 3 languages to master for a strong foundation in programming? — This was a question I got some five years ago. Now, I am a former programming teacher. While there is an element of tongue-in-cheek to this answer, I’m also quite serious. …

Is a city inside a mountain like in some fantasy works feasible? — Houses in rocks and small cities in cliff faces exist in reality, perhaps most famously in the form of the incredible rock houses and underground cities of Cappadocia.

Because they would. — Morpheus calls it the “desert of the real”. …

Stroll around the grounds until you feel at home — Formula and originality are antagonistic, but they are also sides of the same coin. Representing formula in an original way is an art, and it can be both entertaining and enlightening. An example, a template, can inspire. A parody can expose rote worldbuilding. Truly generic maps are hard to make…

Soviet’s counteroffensives in the Kursk campaign August 1943 — I was asked (on Quora) about how successful the Soviet counteroffensives in the battle of Kursk were, and expanded the answer slightly to the offensives in the rest of the summer and autumn of 1943. …

or, A Tale of Two Anders This little text was inspired by thread on Reddit about defining a minimal operational definition of what a roleplaying game is, which reminded me of a time when roleplaying was definitely performed, but possibly in a way that somewhat defied description and definition. Many…

This is one of the more common questions asked about WWII by laymen. It does seem like a straightforward question. But, to begin with, are we talking about one of the domains of strategy, like military strategy, or in strategic ability in general? Hitler Hitler undoubtedly made some major mistakes in…

Putting the ‘Ho’ in Horror, Unsuccessfully — Note: I couldn’t finish this one. I skipped along from where I stopped to the end to make sure I wasn’t getting the wrong idea, but no. The story is bad, the direction is bad, the acting is bad (some of the actors seem to have no idea how to…