Hullo

Historic
Medieval
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Links
Bye

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The Power Fantasy Volume 3: The End Of History hits comic shops today. It’ll be in book shops next month at some point – the listings say the end of April, but they arrive when they do, I suspect. So head to your comic shop – either online or physically, and grab a copy.

I think it’s a banger, and reviews have been fountains, and the fanbase really engaged with it. Here’s Sktchd summing it up in this week’s column…

This arc is a mind bender, a mind blower, and a good example of why some people should just mind their own business, all while being an unreal showcase for the prodigious talents of one Caspar Wijngaard. If you’ve been ultra trade waiting The Power Fantasy, i.e. waiting for just the right moment to get onboard, this is it. Go to the store. Buy the first three trades. Immerse yourself in its glory, because what comes next is going to be bananas. It’s so good.

We concur. We conceived these three trades as a movement, and could have ended the series here. It’s just great that it all exists now.

If you want to know more about The Power Fantasy, I just updated the binding site.

I’m also going to be releasing this trailer on the socials later, but as you’re sweet, you can have an early look.

Shush, etc.

When it’s online later, would appreciate passing it around – or just the binding site. With three trades out, which actually form a complete narrative unit, it’s a great chance for people to jump in and explore it.

Have I said the first TPF trade is going back for a second printing yet? I forget. It is, which was a great chance to update the indicia jokes.

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I found time to write an actual GM tips article for Mythic Bastionland, over at Old Men Running The World. As several folks have noted, while it’s very much that article, it’s also an explicit pitch for a way of playing and also a critical analysis of the game and what it does, and what I did with it. I was happy with it.

I basically use the player-Oaths of the game as a structure for what GM does, saying things like…

Protect The Realm

The realm is the heart the game and, first and foremost, you must protect its integrity. Know the big picture to start with, and increasingly fill in its details. Once conceived, it exists. The primacy of the players’ actions is reliant on having a real environment to interact with. If a world changing event happens, you need a world to have been changed.

Honour The Seers

Your seers are the dice. Your seers are the spark tables. Your seers are the enigmatic sentences of the game. Do not consult them idly. When you consult them, honour the results. What the seers have told you is as real as anything else.

Seek the Myths

You have to seek the myths, because they are from outside the realm. The Myths are written in short, evocative statements. It’s only through interpretation (honour the seers) and contextualisation (protect the realm) they can enter play in a meaningful way. The world exists, and then the Myths arrive to distort that.

...and then happily yabbering on with all the anecdotes from the game I couldn’t fit into the review.

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While TPF issue 1 will be next months’s script club, this one is Uber: Invasion #1.

If you want details of Script Club, it’s here. In short – every month, I send you a script (or similar length of material) and you pay $5. It goes towards the costs of running the Newsletter, and is much appreciated.

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• Bundle of Holding is doing Scion 2^nd edition – which I’ve not played, but I did write the introduction fiction for the main manual, which is very much the sort of nerdy bucketlist item I have. It’s a story about the Apple of Paris, but told with an Iphone. Of course it is

• Jay Dragon’s 7 Part Pact is approaching crowdfunding, and she’s doing really interesting design journals about the journey there. I had no idea how she could have even started working on a game as much of a beast as 7 Part Pact, but now I know, or at least part 1 know.

• Another good Mindless One Newsletter, which has something for everyone in. I think I included it for its history of British comics reaching 2000AD, which showscases some of those early covers, which are just plain startling objects. I look at these, imagine being a 10 year old and starring at them, and imagining my brain slowly melting.

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I’m finishing writing this on a train on the way into London. Some comics folks are in town, so I want to show my face, before getting a later train back. Bath is (trains willing) an hour twenty from London. My house is 20 minutes from the station. Thanks to the Elizabeth Line, most the standard London pubs are 20 minutes from Paddington. As such, going in and out is actually pretty feasible – plus a little hour twenty train for a little work or reading. Train work is some of my favourite work, if I can fall into the rhythm of it.

Chrissy was away for a few days, getting back last night, so I was solo with Iris, which is fun. I changed up the banana pancake recipe and can make cheese sauces without actively panicking, so I basically could provide her everything she needs. Workwise, I wrapped a draft of the next issue Caspar needs, and moved onto writing a new thing this week. I finished the zero draft before heading out, and I’m waiting on a final page count on the issue before I nail it down completely. It feels good – I want to have another look through the artists’ work to see how they approach and handle certain things before I push panelling one way or another, but it seems solid. It’s a bunch of characters I’ve never written before, and I can already see which ones are more natural than others. Surprising no-one, the smug smartarse know-it-all seems most solid. There’s also a weird Bluey reference. I have no idea if that’ll reach the page. I’ll certainly try.

That I have been productive has meant more space for other things – the I pulled the basics of the TPF trailer on Monday afternoon, though I’ve been noodling with it ever since, and now that it’s going online, I can see the text is too wide, but it’ll do for now. I’m sure we’ll do another release of it when the book reaches trades. I’ve also been writing a bit more of The Scions – I want to actually write all the basic content before it next hits the table, so I’m not just winging it. It’s not a huge amount of work, but it’s work I want to do. Ideally, I’ll wrap and post this in time to write a quick take on my Tyrant of Badab riff. I’m very into the new model.

However, as we do have a little time, let’s do some music chat. I mentioned the club-night last time, which was a chance to drop some relative recent obsessions. The last few years have left me out even more out the loop than usual – a friend who is without kids and only slightly younger was horrified that I hadn’t had enough time to listen to the new Robyn (I have now). But I’ve spiralled out from Sarah Gordon’s playlists, I’ve gone down a hole, and basically found myself listening to a certain strain of stuff from the last four years.

On Headphones.

This is stuff is mostly not stuff which I can play before the Watershed. For example, Ashnikko’s Itty Bitty (Where she is so sad that she wants to wear a skirt that displays her genitalia) and Daddy (Ironically, an extremely poor record for a Daddy to play in earshot his child). Thot Squad’s Hoes Depressed (Don’t worry, they’re medicated). The Dare’s Girls (About how he likes a great variety of girls, and very specific LCD Sound system songs). Kim Petras’ Slut Pop (Self explanatory). That kind of thing.

Thankfully, some of it is fine. Actually going deep on Charli’s Brat was overdue, and some of which is Iris-friendly, but girl, so confusing probably deserves an essay on its own. The song which actually made me want to write this, and the current hyper-obsession, is Magdelena Bay’s Death and Romance. It’s been a while which I’ve had a song which I would instantly have slid into the Wicked + the Divine playlist – the title alone would do it, and the only non-Iris friendly part of it. It’s the sort of song whose lush-duvet production means I recognised about three words in the whole song, even when looping it. It was weeks into listening until I even spotted the actual “Death and Romance” title drop, and figured it was time I should actually look up the lyrics instead of just luxuriating.

I didn’t actually play it in the club night. Maybe next time. Which – eek! – may be for the 20 year anniversary of Phonogram.

Sorry to end a newsletter with a jump-scare.

Speak soon.

Kieron Gillen
Bath
26.3.2026