The Risus Monkey is coming out of cold sleep to report on a new set of Risus rules over at the Risusiverse. The Ruminator has written rules for playing Risus with a deck of playing cards here. They are supposedly based on some old TSR game. To me, they greatly resemble the rules for one of my favorite games of all time - Castle Falkenstein! I've always had a thing for card-based systems, though I do confess that I have never had great success using one in play. But the idea of using cards seems rather cool. For certain settings and genres, like Deadlands or Falkenstein, they just seem to be especially appropriate.

Last Thursday's Risus Dragonspire game was about three times as long as usual, but it was a spectacular session. The party had an epic battle vs. a reanimated magelord and went on to gain the upper hand in a three-sided battle between them, an opposing party of mercenary adventurers, and an ancient white dragon. Much fun. I still need to post final updates, which may happen this weekend.

For the next few months, my efforts will then shift to the D20 Dragonspire game. Not that Risus wasn't working, but it was dreadfully hard to get anything done online. Hopefully, I can run some face-to-face Risus games once the holidays roll around. Until then, I will continue to noodle around with new Risus Monkey content, as my hellish schedule allows.

It feels like we're assymptotically approaching the end of our Risus Dragonspire. The update from the last session has been posted. Hopefully, we'll wrap things up this Thursday.

Dan Suptic strikes again! Check out his new post-apocalyptic setting: Dao Sheng. I'm thrilled to be able to host it here at the Risus Monkey, though you can also find it over at the Risusiverse. I love the setting and was imagining running something similar ever since I read S.M. Stirling's Dies the Fire. And if the setting isn't your thing, then maybe his new martial arts mechanics will get your attention.

It's going t0 be a slow month here at the Risus Monkey. I am busy beyond words with work, family, and my new (non- Risus ) face-to-face game. I'm still keeping tabs on Risus Talk, in case anything interesting comes up. And we still have Thursday Dragonspire games every few weeks or so. Hopefully, I'll have more Risus content when GenCon rolls around. I'm going to try to keep my primary blog (the Velvet Edge) up-to-date, so check there if you'd like to see what I'm up to.

On Thursday, we resumed our weekly Dragonspire game with a full compliment of players. We are drawing closer to the climax of this story arc, and characters are starting to spend their hard earned experience points. A brief episode update can be found here (see Session #14).

I mentioned that the bulk of the recent traffic on Risus Talk has concerned the start of the new Risus wiki. Without further ado, here's the plug for user contributions:

If and when my schedule opens up, I'd love to contribute something to the site. Already, Larry Bullock has moved most of his original material onto the site from it's current home. Guy Hoyle has also uploaded his new Anachroamerica setting, which is as close to an ideal Risus setting as one can imagine.