snowynight

Weekend Cooking: Oyster Pie

2026-05-16T05:19:59Z

Make a puff-paste, in the proportion of a pound and a half of fresh butter to two pounds of sifted flour. Roll it out rather thick, into two sheets.

Butter a deep dish, and line the bottom and sides of it with paste. Fill it up with crusts of bread for the purpose of supporting the lid while it is baking, as the oysters will be too much done if they are cooked in the pie. Cover it with the other sheet of paste, having first buttered the flat rim of the dish. Notch the edges of the pie handsomely, or ornament them with leaves of paste which you may form with tin cutters made for the purpose. Make a little slit in the middle of the lid, and stick firmly into it a paste tulip or other flower.

Put the dish into a moderate oven, and while the paste is baking prepare the oysters, which should he large and fresh. Put them into a stew-pan with half their liquor thickened with yolk of egg boiled hard and grated, enriched with pieces of butter rolled in bread crumbs, and seasoned with mace and nutmeg.

Stew the oysters five minutes. When the paste is baked, carefully take off the lid, remove the pieces of bread, and put in the oysters and gravy. Replace the lid, and send the pie to table warm.

From: Directions for Cookery, in its Various Branches by Eliza Leslie (1840)

comments

30 Characters for 30 Tabletop RPG Challenge (Pt4)

2026-05-10T14:42:57Z

We Eat Roses to Grow Thorns: Thief (they/them)

( They don’t like to be seen. We realize they were here longer than anyone else expected, but we can’t know for how long. )

Kassandra King: Devil's Dice: Kassandra King

( You are a hard-boiled detective, and you're about to make a deal with the devil. )

Fabula Ultima: Neela, The Imperial Magitech Engineer on the Run

( One day I'll return and triumph with my invention )

Brighter World: Ash the runewright

( Magic is life. )

Heartbreaker: Robin Fallstar the storyteller

( Do you want a story? )

Magical Kittes Save the Day: Tiny the dreamer cat( Magical kitties )

comments

Weekend Cooking: Tapioca Pizza with Caramel Sauce

2026-05-09T04:19:25Z

Ingredients:

( Read more... )

comments

Character Backgrounds for a (nonexistent) tabletop rpg

2026-05-07T11:40:16Z

Inspiration: You Cannot Play This TTRPG Jam

Soul Collector:

You start your journey to collect soul fragments to restore the soul. Perhaps it's for a lost loved one. Perhaps it's someone you feel obligated to. You won't rest until you finish your quest.

( Read more... )

Frontline Therapist

You are always at the front with your clients. It's just a natural extension to go into your client's mind to heal them.
( Read more... )

Dream Agent
You have a mission: to enter your target's mind to retrieve important informaation, to counter psychic war fare.

( Read more... )

Exorcist
Some people's obsession and unfinished business are so strong that they trap themselves and sometimes others in their psyche. You go into their psyche to set them free.

( Read more... )

Realm Scholar

You travel across the astral realm for knowledge, prestige and tenure. Dream is just another frontier.

( Read more... )

The Lost

You have no idea why or how long you are trapped in this nightmare. You have to find your way out before forever lost.
( Read more... )

comments

30 Characters for 30 Tabletop RPG Challenge (Pt3)

2026-05-06T06:49:29Z

Breathless: Lilian Pak the Park Ranger (she/her)
( So it is better to speak / remembering / we were never meant to survive. )

Tunnel Goons: Vret the Goon

( Wanna arm wrestle? )

Durf: Evan the bard
( Fortune! Smile on me! )

Cairn 2e: Light the reluctant guard
( I just want to scrap by )

comments

30 Characters for 30 Tabletop RPG Challenge (Pt2)

2026-05-05T04:59:18Z

Mausritter: Willow Burley the Worm Wrangler

( Brave mouse adventurer )

Lasers & Feelings
Sparks, enginner of the Intersteller ship Raptor

( To go where nobody has gone before )

Princess With a Cursed Sword: Princess Ayym (she/they)

( I can't rest until I return the sword to its proper place )

Kala Mandala: Igobiwa the happy of Clan Ashu

( Everyone's business is my business - with payment, I'm a professional meddler. )

comments

30 Characters for 30 Tabletop RPG Challenge (Pt1)

2026-05-05T04:37:25Z

Troika: Dagrun the Astronaut: "Damn it! I'm an astronaut , not an orc!"
( "You are told you are an orc because you arrived here through a 'magical mishap.' No one believes that you aren't an orc, but are an astronaut of the most powerful nation on your world. Or maybe they simply don't care." )

Mork Borg: Eldar the Forlorn Philosopher: "So many riddles..."
( You once thought that cold analysis might tame Fate itself, now that dream of reason has decayed to shifting madness and only the cold remains. )

comments

Music Monday: Edgard Varèse - Ecuatorial

2026-05-02T03:07:49Z

comments

Music Monday: Fools Garden - Lemon Tree (Official HD Video)

2026-05-02T02:36:29Z

comments

Six for Sunday: Pink/purple books

2026-05-01T08:51:47Z

comments

Weekend Cooking: Rice Tart

2026-05-01T08:33:23Z

To make a rice tart. Take a quarter pound of rice and cook it in water and take a few almonds and pound it all together well and beat eggs into it. And when it is almost finished baking, then pour hot fat on top, then it will form a hard crust, so that it becomes good.

From: Das Kochbuch der Sabina Welserin (1553 Augsburg Germany)

comments

One shot adventure: The Book Collector's Fury

2026-05-01T08:26:55Z

The rivalry between the two rich book collectors in the town is legendary. They will stop at nothing to one up the others. Now one of them has just got a rare book and is about to show it off publictly. Their rival is hiring you to steal it, but trouble is brewing.

Characters:
1. The proud new book owner, your planned target
2. The rival book collector, your client.
3. Your target's assistant
4. Your client's valet
5. Your client's tired elder child
6. Your client's younger child

Complication:

1. ...is a cultist and wants to use that book to summon an otherword deity.
2. ... plans to elope with their forbidden lover... after taking a huge sum of money.
3. ...makes your job more difficult by making additional request/counter offer
4. ... is possessed by a rival deity and is trying to destroy the book and anyone in their way.

comments

List of tabletop RPG with unusual premises

2026-04-29T11:20:18Z

Come On In: "a role-playing game about a grisly murder case that rocks the small coastal Louisiana town of Bon Soleil and unravels a conspiracy that cuts into the depths of the night.". Inspired by True Detective

Nyx : "role-playing game, set in a darkened realm of sleep and dreams. It is an interpretive game, wherein the strange setting is only just barely glimpsed, like a dream half-remembered when one wakes from slumber. It is up to the players and the Dream Master (DM), to interpret the vague setting details as they see fit, and form a vision of Nyx wholly their own."

Left Coast: a role-playing game about a science fiction writer in California, who struggles as the weirdness from her novels spills into real life. One player is ‘the Author’. The other players control all the supporting characters in the Author’s life. Each of her friends, family, fans and nemeses has a secret that puts pressure on the Author. They might also be part of the conspiracy that's invented as you play.

My Daughter, Queen of France (link to the free pdf): a game where a character ("Shakespeare") asks his friends to help him figure out why he and his dauther had a falling out

You Will Die In This Place: a survival-horror tabletop dungeon crawl RPG framed as the reconstruction of a lost and unfinished indie game, pieced together from fragments of notes, design documents, and personal reflections.

Stille Nacht (Silent Night): a GMless game about a ghost played by the facilitator speaking with a group of villagers in 1720 Germany, one of which killed them. Free

Lacuna Part I. (second attempt): "Sinister secret agents with shadowy employers and mysterious pasts. A bizarre landscape built from six- billion human minds. Arachnid-headed beings that guard a war-torn borderzone. And all the worst that Mankind has to offer, stalking the alleys and crumbling buildings of a place called Blue City.

Is it a dream? Is it a nightmare? Or is it just a game? And are you already playing?"

Sea Dracula: where you play funny animal lawyers prosecuting case in the nonsensical Animal City’s highest court. Players dance off to resolve conflict,

Trapped In A Cabin With Lord Byron, the RPG exactly as the title says. Free

Don't Rest Your Head: where you play insomiacs which insomnia gives you superpower but also traps you in a dangerous surreal city

comments

Music Monday: Erin LeCount - ALICE (Official Music Video)

2026-04-25T05:34:44Z

comments

Music Monday: Loreen - Tattoo (Official Audio)

2026-04-23T04:24:37Z

comments

Weekend Cooking: Salmon en Papillotes

2026-04-23T04:15:32Z

Cut some slices of salmon into cutlets the right size for serving, make paper cases to fit them, then cover each slice with the following mixture: two tablespoonfuls of salad oil beaten with the yolk of an egg, one teaspoonful of parsley chopped, one shallot chopped, and one anchovy (all these must be chopped as finely as possible), a half-saltspoonful of salt, and a grain of cayenne; mix, spread on the fish, envelop each piece in a well-buttered case, fasten up (by pinching the paper well), and bake half an hour. Serve in the papers.

From Choice Cookery by Catherine Owen (1889 New York)

comments

Never Describe the Sky as Azure by Philip Metres

2026-04-23T04:04:04Z

unless it’s made of stone.

لاجورد Lāzhward

migrating from Persia,

smuggled from Farsi

to Arabic & thrown

like a wingless bird

across the sky-dark sea

until its version

spills from English mouths.

Lapis lazuli.

O trap of beauty,

you are a fiction ...

Exhausted at day’s end

of an oven-summer

I duck out of the house

into the truth of twilight

blue: no other name

than azure, azure,

and no other home

the color of this sky

struck above this earth,

no path to heaven

except through this dirt.

comments

Thursday Quotables

2026-04-23T02:58:35Z

“In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since.

"Whenever you feel like criticizing any one," he told me, "just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had.”

― F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

comments

Links: Different Ways We See the World

2026-04-18T05:09:20Z

I have no mind’s eye: let me try to describe it for you: With aphantasia, my mind’s eye sees only darkness, not images. It’s like missing a sense, and only imagination can compensate

Aphantasia: Why I cannot picture my children in my mind: Most people can picture images in their heads - the look of an apple, the appearance of their kitchen or the smile of their best friend - but not everyone can.

Living with hyperphantasia: ‘I remember the clothes people wore the day we met, the things they said word-for-word’ It’s hard to know what people can see in their own mind’s eye. But for Maddie Thomas there was no doubt: she had especially vivid mental imagery

A Brief 200-Year History of Synesthesia: Richard Cytowic, a pioneering researcher who returned synesthesia to mainstream science, traces the historical evolution of our understanding of the phenomenon.

Speaking of Psychology: What is it like to be face blind? With Joe DeGutis, PhD, and Sadie Dingfelder

Why Did We Think We Dreamed in Black and White?: In the 1950's, dream researchers commonly thought that dreams were predominantly a black and white phenomenon, although both earlier and later treatments of dreaming presume or assert that dreams have color. The first half of the twentieth century saw the rise of black and white film media, and it is likely that the emergence of the view that dreams are black and white was connected with this change in media technology. If our opinions about basic features of our dreams can change with changes in technology, it seems to follow that our knowledge of the phenomenology of our own dreams is much less secure than we might at first have thought it to be.

They’re in clouds, electric sockets and even on toast. Why do humans see faces in everyday objects? Human brains are designed to detect faces as quickly as possible, which can lead to the perception of ‘false faces’

Neural networks underlying visual illusions: An activation likelihood estimation meta-analysis

The weird way language affects our sense of time and space: The languages we speak can have a surprising impact on the way we think about the world and even how we move through it.

comments

Music Monday: Ambitious by Superfly

2026-04-18T04:16:35Z

comments

Six for Sunday: Blue/Green Books

2026-04-18T04:13:22Z

comments

Weekend Cooking: Rice Waffles

2026-04-18T02:04:44Z

One cupful of cold boiled rice beaten light with one cupful of milk. Add one tablespoonful of melted butter, half a teaspoonful of soda dissolved in a little of the milk, two eggs well beaten, and enough flour, sifted in with one teaspoonful of cream tartar, to make a thin batter. Beat thoroughly and bake in well-greased waffle-irons. Cream tartar and spices are practically certain to be pure when bought of a druggist instead of a grocer. (Not knocking the groceryman.)

From The Myrtle Reed Cook Book by Myrtle Reed (1916 New York)

From: wikipedia: Myrtle Reed (1874 – 1911) was an American author, poet, journalist, and philanthropist. She wrote a number of bestsellers, including Lavender and Old Lace, Threads of Gray and Gold, A Weaver of Dreams and even published a series of cookbooks under the pseudonym Olive Green.

comments

itch.io Charity bundle & mini-TTRPG list

2026-04-13T08:26:23Z

I. Spotlight:

TTRPGs for Trans Rights—Idaho: Buy 511 items for $5 to support TransAffirm Inc and Boise's The Community Center! TransAffirm Inc exists to expand access to life-saving resources, affirming care, education, advocacy, and community connection for transgender and gender diverse people in Idaho, especially those in rural and underserved areas. The Community Center (TCC) is devoted to the LGBTQIA+ and allied population. TCC is committed to uniting the LGBTQIA+ community through educational and developmental programs by providing resources to the LGBTQIA+ community. Offer ends in 17 days

Highlight includes:

A Visit To San Sibilia ($10): "a solo journaling game in which you roleplay a character chronicling their visit to the city of San Sibilia. The city manifests itself differently to every visitor." It has a strong invisible Cities vibe.

Rebels of the Outlaw Wastes ($15): "A rock-n-roll retro-dystopian tabletop roleplaying game fueled by stickers! IndieCade 2023 Nominee for innovation in Tabletop Design."

Anomaly Hunters ($10CAD): "a monster hunting tabletop roleplaying game, within which you play as the protagonist of an investigative reality TV show that tries to find weird creatures and get rid of them"

II.Tabletop RPG I have Read: Dimension Travel

Troika! : a surreal multiverse travel trpg based on the Fighting Fantasy gamebook 'system', Example character option: Fellow of the Sublime Society of Beef Steaks, Workshop Elf

Between the Skies is a cosmic fantasy game of travel and exploration across endless worlds. It has a massive number of tables to help you generate fantasy setting details. The first version is free on itch.io.

Disparateum is a trpg in progress that let you explore different worlds and dimensions through overlapping literal pieces of paper

comments

Music Monday: BABYMETAL - ヘドバンギャー！！ 15th Night Ver. (OFFICIAL)

2026-04-13T07:27:12Z

comments

Music Monday: BABYMETAL - from me to u feat. Poppy (OFFICIAL MUSIC VIDEO)

2026-03-13T10:03:13Z

comments