What My Little Boy Got Me For Christmas

We actually got some snow flurries in Montevallo, on Christmas day. The day after as well. No real accumulation, save for a tiny bit on Sunday, but the little bit of snow we received made it the closest I've ever gotten to a White Christmas.

One of my gifts also contributed to the White Christmas vibe!




I knew I was getting this, after letting my wife know that Brave Halfling was getting close to selling out of the 3rd printing of the Swords & Wizardry Whitebox Edition Box Set. She promptly teamed-up with my little boy and this is what Brisco got me for Christmas! I have a good son!



I love Mark Allen's illustrations on the box and booklet covers.



John recently reported that for 2010, he sold 540 of the Boxed Sets and 107 of the single volume print editions. The free PDF was downloaded over 3,000 times.


That Rocks! There's 540 little White Boxes, packed with Awesome, out there!

Dice!

I like the character sheets, but I think a large logo at the top would be a nice idea.

So, rulebooks, dice, pencil, character sheets and Matt Finch's Primer. I'm all set, baby! I think I might try to talk the wife into a Whitebox one-on-one game. :)

Happy Christmas! And I've Discovered the Krampus!

Holy Crap! Thanks to a few pictures posted by some old school bloggers yesterday, like this one (don't remember where else I saw them)  I was inspired to do some research and found out about Krampus! How the hell did I miss that one?  Religion and mythology, especially the weirder aspects thereof, is my thing.  Huh.

It's kinda bizzare, thinking I knew what Santa was all about and suddenly, after all these years, there's this whole nother side to the story. One which would be pretty damned nifty, to steal for a D&D campaign.

Apparently, old Santa used to make his rounds with a demon sidekick. Sometimes, the two were merged into one, but the whole dual-aspect manifestation seems to have been the more popular, by far. While Santa gave presents to all the good little children, the Krampus would beat the hell out of the bad ones.

I knew about Santa's pagan connections (him and just about every other Saint) and amused myself on more than one occasion by thinking of all the parallels between Santa and Satan: the two names of course, both are referred to as Nick, both wear red, Satan lives where it's very hot, Santa where it's very Cold like the Norse Hel, Santa gives you something for nothing, which Satan often promises to do, Elves are sometimes associated with evil, Santa draws your attention away from Christ...

But the Krampus? Hah!

"He knows when you are sleeping, he knows when you're awake, he knows if you've been bad or good, so be good for goodness sake!"

Far, freakin' out!

If anyone knows of a good source for further research, by someone without an agenda and who's not trying to save my soul, please do let me know.

Here's hoping everyone has a Merry Christmas! And that you've been very, very good...