Month: November 2021

Gaming Thursday: Broken Lands

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My gaming group and I are getting ready to return to the Broken Lands, a campaign some of us had started many years ago that unfortunately ended soon thereafter as the main GM and another player had drop out.  Back then we ran the campaign in FATE, but this time I’m shifting us to using Cortex Prime with some hacks to bring a few more FATE-like elements into the game.

Also back then I, no surprise, made a character sheet for our game.  This time around we’ll likely be keeping most of our records in our shared OneNote instead, especially since we’ll be mostly remotely gaming… But, do you think THAT would keep my completely non-obsessive and totally healthy character sheet design mania at bay?

Of course not!  What fun would that be?  And so:

I’d probably tweak it some more, but given the uncertainty as to how much use it would actually get, this is probably a good place to leave it for the moment.

(As an aside, I am a bit enamoured with Cortex Prime right now, there’s a bunch of nifty aspects to it, and it is one heck of a wide and extensive toolbox.   I’m looking forward to seeing how it plays out at the table.)

Architecture Monday

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There’s something that I quite like about this train station in Dinan, France.  Built in 1879, it’s got this interesting mix of old school form, art deco-ish ornament, and some clean lines of modernism, all wrapped up into one.  And check out that rotated clock tower – you don’t see that very often!  Complete with ornamental bas-relief bells and a spare but bold design of the clock itself.

The delight continues inside too… check out that serious corbelling of the ceiling in the corners, at the base of which is a light?  Now that’s neat.  And the classic map along the upper band, with art-deco touches beneath.

I learned of this station through an adjacent new welcoming platform which is in of itself interesting.  A wood lattice canopy “supported” at one end by two earthen forms (one conical, one more amorphous) that recalls the medieval construction the region is known for.   Also with bonus trees that grow up and through the canopy above…

What a glorious assemblage!  Old and new, in many senses of the words, brought together to serve the rails.

La Garre de Dinan, old station designed by Georges-Robert Lefort and new canopy by Fouquet Architecture Urbanisme.