So, I don't want to rock your reality too hard with a headline like that, especially during a week when we're already experiencing some...changes...here in the U.S. of A., but I'm going to try a slightly different approach to the Geeky SKAturday feature in 2025. I still plan to post songs I like, along with some nerd content that fits a bizarre assumption I insist on maintaining, that people are out there playing a ska-themed RPG. However, this year I'm also trying to do a better job of staying up on new music in the realm of ska and ska-adjacent genres (made easier by the efforts of those who make easily searchable Spotify playlists and regularly post updates on Reddit), so I'm going to focus each week on a new (or fairly new) release.
And the RPG content...for that, I'm going to try to take some themes from the music that I share and connect them to lore and mechanics from a specific ska-themed RPG campaign I'm building. In this setting, many ska bands are also time-traveling protectors of multiversal order. Please...just roll with it. The hope is that by some number of weeks into this "project," there will be something kinda-sorta-playable put together. (And, I will be continuing the trend of adding new sounds to the toolbox of the upbeat spellcasters known as Rudies...)
The Gamblers, from their Facebook page. (Facebook is still okay to use, right? I can't keep up anymore...)
SO...for the first installment, I want to look at the UK band known as The Gamblers, an early reggae/trad ska outfit started by Mark RSK from the Oi! band Booze & Glory (who have also done some reggae stuff, I believe). Earlier this month, they released a fun ode to classic reggae called "Boom! Boom!" Enjoy...!
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So, how does this tie into rolling dice around a table and playing out a "ska story?" I'm glad you let me ask!
I think the best place to look is in this song's unabashed faith in the power of reggae. Here's the chorus:
And we don’t need here any noisy riffs No screaming voices, push 'em off the cliff We just want Laurel, Desmond and Toots Heavy beat and the bovver boots So shake your hips to this reggae tunes Walkin' bass and the bam bam booms
I am, in general, a fan of the sentiment that there is a specific sort of power to be found in a genre of music. And we see this for all sorts of styles...the idea of harnessing the power of funk, or of metal, or maybe most classically, of rawk. It's silly but it's fun. And that's something that would be nice to capture in a tabletop game...a hopeful (and arguably naïve, but I'm good with that) belief that a style of music can be a force for good in the world. For our heroes, the dropbeat and the skank, and all of the history and hope they carry with them, power the "magic" they harness.
Oh, and maybe even their time travel capabilities...! I'm still working that out, but I think the organization that protects the timestream will be called the Soundsystem Khrononaut All-Stars, maybe with a logo looking something like this...
I'm not completely sold on Soundsystem in the name yet; I like the sound (heh) of it and the nod to ska culture, but I'm trying to figure out how much it feels like cultural appropriation to be used in a silly RPG setting like this. If not that, they'll probably be something like the Sentinel Khrononaut All-Stars, since they are the multiverse's protectors.
And then maybe smaller patches can be worn by each agent of SKA, with an icon indicating their department/specialty. Like for Communications, it could look like this...
And the possibilities are pretty much endless. I could see these being something like R&D, Intelligence, and Security.
And that's all for this SKAturday...have a great weekend, all!
I spend a fair amount of time...a lot more than anyone probably should, to be honest...thinking about elemental philosophies in games, beliefs, and esoteric pursuits. I am certainly no expert (far from it!), but I think my history as a tabletop gamer has naturally led to this as a sort of obsession. After all, I was pulled into gaming by the Pokémon TCG, have become a hopeless lifetime devotee of Magic: The Gathering (even during stretches where I don't get to play it at all), and lately have put a lot of thought into traveling around in a fantasy cosmology.
Plus, I'm a functional scientist myself. It kind of feels like I'm meant to ponder such things. In fact, the appeal of working out a sensible and symmetrical elemental system in my mind is probably similar to the drive a lot of physicists have in their search for a theory of everything. If I were smart enough to fully comprehend both general relativity and quantum mechanics, I might spend my showers trying to merge them in my brain. But I'm not, so that shower time is spent thinking about how MTG's colors interact with Pokémon's types. And the result, so far, is this work in progress...
I'm thinking this is a broad overview of the Inner Planes, the sources of elements and energy that give rise to the physical world. There are still Outer Planes of various philosophical persuasions that are filtered through these elements to create our experience of the universe. On the wheel so far, you'll find the colors of MTG, some Pokémon types (video games and card game may be represented separately, since they do differ in a way that reduces the number of types for the TCG), most of the Duel Masters civilizations, a couple of World of Warcraft classes (using their Hearthstone icons), and one stray aspect from the Star Wars: Unlimited TCG. The Ravnican guilds whose color combinations fit the wheel are also represented, in part because I think it's cool how the Boros logo echos Pokémon's Fighting symbol, and how Dimir and Psychic share an eye in their icons (plus the colors kind of work!).
Also, I stole that color wheel in the middle from here; let me know if it seems like gratuitous theft, please. I do think I like the hexagonal RGB+CMY skeleton for the wheel!
Okay, enough blabbing. If you have thoughts, criticisms, or suggestions, please throw 'em my way!
Look, Dad, all those philosophy classes are paying off!
Oh man, it's 2025! I guess I'd better get to blogging. I hope the new year has been kind to all of you!
I have some reasonably concrete goals for the year regarding stuff I want to publish. (And by publish, of course I mean put on the web so others can feed my vanity by downloading them.) I want to finally nail down my my own fantasy heartbreaker (the Monstrous Heartbreaker). I have a slash-and-dash fantasy racing game I'd like to solidify some rules for (playtest image below). There's even a D&D-rules-adjacent baseball game that I might be able to present to the world.
Fr. Josh apologetically making a move.
And, of course, I want to continue the Monstrous Matters campaign, finalize a number of the rules, and bulk up the lore. So that's what the rest of this post is...
I've previously written a little about the detection of interplanar portals and the etherealite and fissure glow often associated with them. So...what are the some of the historical events that led to our current understanding? Here's a (very) quick primer...
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It all comes back to quantum physics…which is obviously a statement that’s much easier to write than it is to understand. The elucidation of quantum mechanics not only revolutionized the field of physics; it also gave rise to ideas outside of mainstream science that now allow the Monstrous Matters team to do their work.
In the 20th century, our understanding of interconnected planes, and the technologies associated with these connections, grew exponentially alongside research related to quantum theory. Originating with Einstein and Schrödinger’s description of spukhafte Fernwirkung (“spooky action at a distance”) in 1927, attempts to resolve the seemingly counterintuitive implications of quantum entanglement (summarized in the famed EPR Paradox, proposed in 1935) motivated many great thinkers throughout the rest of the century.
While attention was drawn away from quantum theory to focus on the practical needs of World War II, many scientists continued to explore these ideas on the fringe of the physics establishment. And just beyond that fringe, other physicists took on questions that they knew were unacceptable to the mainstream. Among these groups, a series of very clever efforts to maintain entanglement with annihilated particles allowed a small set of researchers to recognize physical planes existing alongside our own. For obvious reasons, these experiments have not been publicized.
While the history of recorded interplanar portals is quite extensive (and necessarily requires quite a few footnotes and qualifiers due to the disputed nature of many events), some of the most widely agreed upon breaches in the barrier between our world and others are noted here:
1904 - A series of atmospheric anomalies in and around Bloomsbury, in London’s West End, began to attract the attention of paranormal investigators. Many observers noted similarities to disturbances recorded around Oxford, England, in the 1860s. It wouldn’t be until 1991, however, that these were finally connected to etherealite and fissure glow (see below).
1930s - At the same time that quantum entanglement was gaining acceptance as a real phenomenon (although it wouldn’t be until the 1970s that the data supporting it would become unassailable through experiments on Bell’s inequality), paranormal researchers recorded a variety of environmental data in a rural area of Kansas, United States, where anomalies similar to those in the UK accompanied an extreme weather event.
1940s - Similar phenomena were observed in the English countryside, not far from London. Attempts to connect these events to previous observations in the UK, and the more recent occurrence in Kansas, were hampered by a hasty but unfounded determination that they were indications of Nazi efforts in physics or the occult (depending upon who you asked).
1985 - Radiation later determined to likely be fissure glow was detected in Brooklyn, NYC. Officials were limited in their ability to investigate due to the distraction of a rash of plumbing emergencies that occurred around the radiation's appearance.
At about the same time, mysterious events in Battersea, London, involving strangely dressed travelers in search of “The Mace of St. Cuthbert” were correlated with glow detected in the region. This occurrence begins the time period many refer to as the Golden Age of Interplanar Exploration.
1991 - Further observations in London, nearly identically matching those from early in the century, prompted portal researchers to put recent discoveries regarding the nature of etherealite and fissure glow to the test. Many of those involved would claim this to be the first case of interplanar connection to be confirmed soon after its occurrence. The success of paraphysical theories developed over the previous decade would hook many fringe researchers who had held out skepticism up until this point.