A Grave Night on the Borderlands - A One Page Dungeon Submission!

Hail, Cromrades! Looking for a quick bit of fun around the game table? Well, you're in luck! Below is Luke's submission to this year's One Page Dungeon contest. This 'Borderlands' one-shot is system-agnostic, and is designed to be a spooky little investigation!

If you have an idea yourself, submit it to this year's contest before May 1st! Entering is free, and past years' submissions are collected and available via Shattered Pike Studio. These past compendiums are chock full of ideas, and you absolutely can't beat 'em!

A low-res image of the dungeon is below; you can download the free PDF here!

Season 9, Episode 1: The Initiation - Kull and Conan with Karen Joan Kohoutek!

Welcome back, Cromrades! We're excited to get rolling down The Road of Revisions, and we go big with our first episode! Here we tackle the roots of Robert E. Howard's brand of sword and sorcery by going deep with the Kull/Conan dichotomy, and we call in our friend and Howard Scholar Karen Joan Kohoutek to provide us with her insight into this topic. Karen authored an insightful essay comparing "By This Axe I Rule!" and "The Phoenix On The Sword" which was published on On An Underwood #5  July 22, 2018. Read that, and prepare for an epic exploration of these two stories!

The text analysis we discuss toward the end of the episode is below.

Fig. 1 - The Phoenix on the Sword - Most Common Words

Fig. 2 - By This Axe I Rule - Most Common Words

Fig. 3 - Most Frequent Words in "Axe" and "Sword" Combined. 

Fig. 4 - Frequent Word Pairs - Arrows Point to Second Word of the Pair, Increasing Shade of Arrow = Increasing Frequency of the Word Combination

Fig. 5 - Sentiment Scores by Section of "Axe" and "Phoenix"

Fig. 6 - Words Contributing Most Heavily to Sentiment Analysis in "Axe" and "Phoenix". 

One Things
Karen: Star Wars Celebration in Chicago!
Jon: Monster - The Zodiac Killer podcast
Josh: Joining The Appendix N Book Club Podcast for a series of episodes! Luke joined in for a discussion of L. Sprague De Camp's The Goblin Tower on Episode 41, Jon was up next for Conan The Wanderer on Episode 42, and Josh joined in for a Leiberian conversation about Swords Against Wizardry on Episode 43.
Also, we joined Trick or Treat Radio for Episode 350 and discussed The Head Hunter.
If you haven't subscribed to these great shows, you absolutely should!
Luke: Death Metal Gardening! Spring renewal, green growth, and renewal by raiding the soil's nutrients for your crops!

Growth and Graves

Next: A long-awaited story, and an old friend returns... 

"In Mitra's name what is in that chamber?"

Questions? Comments? Curses?

Email us! (thecromcast at gmail dot com)

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We're also on Stitcher Radio and Google Play!
Finally.... Call us! (859) 429-CROM!

Legal Mumbo-Jumbo

Our episode is freely available on archive.org and is licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ Themes by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0. 

Outro: "Steel and Silver" by Visigoth.  All music was obtained legally; we hope our discussion of this content makes you want to go out and purchase the work!

Bourbon & Barbarians, Season 3 Episode 2: Into the Lair of the Slobbertooth Kobolds!

Hile, travlers! We have returned with another episode of Bourbon & Barbarians!

Herein we begin in earnest a play-through of Luke's mini-module, entitled "Into the Lair of the Slobbertooth Kobolds." You can check out the module here, or if you are interested otherwise, check out the "One Page Dungeon Compendium 2018 Tenth Anniversary Edition." You can get our module as well 160 other dungeons for a meager $3!

Our episode is freely available on archive.org and is licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0. "Gnarled Situation" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Likewise Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ Our final track is "Warrior" by Wishbone Ash from the Argus album. All music was obtained legally; we hope our discussion of this content makes you want to go out and purchase the work!

Questions? Comments? Feedback? Email us! (thecromcast at gmail dot com)

Season 9 Story List - The Road of Revisions

The planning is finished and it is time to walk down another road!

Here we go!

Season 9 – The Road of Revisions: An exploration of Robert E. Howard’s revised works, as edited by him and others.

• The Initiation – "By This Axe I Rule!" vs "The Phoenix on the Sword" by Robert E. Howard
• The Extension – "The God in the Bowl" by RE Howard vs "The God in the Bowl" by L. Sprague de Camp
• The Inspiration – "The Striking of the Gong" by RE Howard vs "The Striking of the Gong" amended by Lin Carter
• The Adaptation – Representations of "Queen of the Black Coast" in Comics
• The Transformation – "The Black Stranger" by RE Howard to "Swords of the Red Brotherhood" by RE Howard  to "The Treasure of Tranicos" by L. Sprague de Camp.
• The Progression – "The Spears of Clontarf" to "The Grey God Passes" to "The Cairn on the Headland", all by Robert E. Howard
• The Weirdification – The Weird/Mundane Dichotomy of "The Fire of Asshurbanpal" by Robert E. Howard
• The Expansion – "Nekht Semerkhet" by RE Howard vs "Nekht Semerkhet" expanded by Andrew J. Offutt
• The Recapitulation – What can we learn from exploring the revisions of Howard’s work and comparing them to the original stories and fragments?

Oh, the places we'll go!

As you can see, our path takes us back through the Hyborian Age kingdoms, to the headland near Clontarf, and into territories yet unexplored by our merry band of pulp podcasters! We hope to learn more about Howard's writing process via his editorial efforts on his own writings, and the approach that others have taken to expand upon his ideas. 

We hope you'll join us! 

Questions? Comments? Curses?

Email us! (thecromcast at gmail dot com)

You know you want to follow us on Twitter!
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We're posting photos on the Instagrams!
Subscribe to our feed on FeedBurner!
Or, check us out on iTunes!
We're also on Stitcher Radio and Google Play!
Finally.... Call us! (859) 429-CROM!

Season 8, Episode 8: The Sowers of the Thunder with Rusty Burke!

This week, we reach the end of The Road East with Robert E. Howard's "The Sowers of the Thunder" (Read it on Project Gutenberg Australia). But we're not facing the end of another season alone! Our friend, Howard fan, and pulp scholar Rusty Burke joins us for this adventure! Get yourselves ready for the season finale!

One Things
Jon: The Dr. Death podcast.
Josh: Pandemic: The Board Game (continuing the medical theme)
Luke: Yes - Relayer (another record in the ever-growing vinyl library!)
Rusty: The Books of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin with art by Charles Vess.


Where do we go from here? Keep watch - another road is just over that horizon!


Questions? Comments? Curses?

Email us! (thecromcast at gmail dot com)

You know you want to follow us on Twitter!
Did you know that we're on Facebook?
We're posting photos on the Instagrams!
Subscribe to our feed on FeedBurner!
Or, check us out on iTunes!
We're also on Stitcher Radio and Google Play!
Finally.... Call us! (859) 429-CROM!

Legal Mumbo-Jumbo

Our episode is freely available on archive.org and is licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ Themes by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0. 

Outro: A selection from "Gates of Delirium" by Yes.  All music was obtained legally; we hope our discussion of this content makes you want to go out and purchase the work!

Season 8, Episode 7: The Blood of the Gods by Robert E. Howard

Welcome adventurers to the latest Cromcast! Today, we join el Borak as he searches a creepy cave for his friend Al Wazir. It's never that simple when it involves Borak though! There are raiders, greedy Brits, and a cave demon to stand in his way. Oh yeah, and the blistering heat of the desert!

This one has it all, revenge, madness, and camels! Tune in!!

One Things

Josh: The heavy metal band Hermodr 

Luke: The Joaquin Phoenix vehicle, "You Were Never Really Here" 

Jon: The DC Comics mini-series "Electric Warriors"

Next time: One last stop on the road east, read along as we cover "The Sowers of Thunder"! Plus... a special guest? Tune in to find out!!

Questions? Comments? Curses?

Email us! (thecromcast at gmail dot com)

You know you want to follow us on Twitter!
Did you know that we're on Facebook?
We're posting photos on the Instagrams!
Subscribe to our feed on FeedBurner!
Or, check us out on iTunes!
We're also on Stitcher Radio and Google Play!
Finally.... Call us! (859) 429-CROM!

Legal Mumbo-Jumbo

Our episode is freely available on archive.org and is licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ Themes by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0. 

Outro: "El Paso" by Marty Robbins (a tip of the cap to el Borak's hometown).  All music was obtained legally; we hope our discussion of this content makes you want to go out and purchase the work!