Blanche: The Rise of Grimdark Review

John Blanche’s biography!

Although John Blanche retired earlier this year, he is still quite busy. Case in point, he released another Voodoo Forest book titled Scions of Voodoo through Hollow Press. He agreed to be the feature artist for volume 6 of the digital magazine 28. On top of all of this, he worked with authors John Wombat and Ruth Moreira to have his biography written! This biography, titled Blanche: the Rise of Grimdark, was published by Wombat Wargames (December 2023). I am happy to say that we were involved in the creation of the book, albeit in a small way. Earlier this year, when exchanging emails with John Blanche, he mentioned that he was working on the biography and asked if we had some photos from the 2016 Pilgrym game and if we could share a few words about it. We excitedly obliged, reaching out to author John Wombat, who suggested that he would quote us in the final book, as well as include some of our photos of the event. Advance a few months forward, and in late November we saw that the book was being released on December 1st! Excited to see the final book, I ordered a copy from Amazon and promptly received it on December 2nd.

Vastarian: Battle Report 1 - the Breath of Organthus

Purpose. Divine Purpose. It was finally within his grasp again. He would not lose it this time. These last few years were not some cosmic joke taunting his faith (or increasingly, a lack thereof).

Vastarian: Logo update!

Recently we began an open invitational encouraging people to create Imperial Cults that are at war with each other on the cathedral world of Vastarian. We have now shown two of the cults that the planet harbors, the Church of the Red Athenæum and a faction of Spyreheads. We also talked more about how the setting came about on our podcast, Dragged into Turbolasers. Although Adam already designed a basic logo for the event, featuring a lighthouse that has been used as a watermark in most of the Vastarian images, we wanted to also have a text-based logo. When considering this, we quickly thought of the incredibly talented graphic designer and miniature artist Weirding Way. We reached out to him about the project and he agreed to help us! Fitting to the INQ28 theme, he created the logo using a typographic kitbash, scanning letters from a book on early book printing type, with the V being an A modified from an 18 century Norwegian title page!

Dragged into Turbolasers 105: What is the Vastarian Open Invitational?

In this episode we are joined by Bill Ford, host of Mordheim 2022, to talk about the Vastarian: Dreams of the Pious Open Invitational we recently started on Between the Bolter and Me. We describe the Vastarian setting, and how it is filled with warring Imperial cults, each certain their own ideology will usher in a new age of prosperity for the Imperium. We talk about how Mordheim and Inquisitor influenced the setting and how it offers a way to continue to expand the Church of the Red Athenæum, after Iron Sleet’s Pilgrym event. We also talk about how the writing of Thomas Ligotti shaped aspects of the setting, as well as make some musical suggestions to put you in the right mindset for diving into the setting yourself!