When I think of Osprey Publishing, I think of military history. Specifically, I think of their huge, beautifully illustrated series detailing military uniforms and equipment for specific regions, unit and time periods (Angus McBride of MERP fame illustrated quite a few of them during his career). So when I heard Osprey was producing RPGs, I […]
Swordthrust
Climb into the Titan’s brain and fight his dreams!
Dragon 175 (November, 1991). Cover by Jennell Jaquays. A rare miss for me — I generally like her work and she had some kind of painting breakthrough in the early 90s that pushed the needle from “generally” to “almost always.” I like the idea and I like the creepy angel-faced ship, but the composition doesn’t […]
Dragon 174 (October, 1991). Cover by Kevin Ward. Halloween, obvs. I was going to say I like everything but the elves, but starking at it, nah, the elves are fine. Not a super exciting cover, but still a good one.
Desert Moons of Karth (2021) downplays the usual horror of Mothership in favor of embracing spaghetti western vibes. There are still horrors, of course, but there is a lot of other stuff in this ambitious zine and it is nice to have the variety pack of flavors for a change. There’s a lot of inspiration […]
Ian Yusem’s Meatgrinder (2021) is a continuation of The Drain (2020)…which…crap, I don’t think I have posted about that yet. OK, so The Drain takes place on a colony ship where prisoners are trapped in a never-ending war. Tasked by their corporate jailers to retrieve an artifact in exchange for their freedom, the zine takes […]
What We Give to Alien Gods (2021) is quite the zine. Again, as with most Mothership scenarios, the basic building blocks will feel familiar — anomalies, ruins, a stranded survivor, horrible monsters — but their configuration here feels entirely new, unsettling and unfathomable. It is also, for all its beauty and intrigue, a little difficult […]
Look at that cover. Man, it is so pretty. Seems a shame to get murdered by something so pleasing to the eye. The rough outline of Earth Above (2021) matches up with a lot of other Mothership scenarios. There is a facility of some sort — in this case a mining operation — that the […]