Chris Gardiner

@chrisgardiner

Narrative Director at Failbetter Games. He/him. Our titles include: Fallen London, Sunless Sea/Skies, and Mask of the Rose. Opinions are mine, so there.

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Chris Gardiner@chrisgardiner· 15d

/ blessed silence descends

A screenshot of my muted words list on Bluesky, which now contains “Odyssey” and “Nolan”. This says more about my own irritability than anything else.

Chris Gardiner@chrisgardiner· 18d

ALL SHALL LOVE ME AND DESPAIR!

A photo of the Stonetop roleplaying game: two solid hardbacks encased in a slipcase that looks like a megalith.

Another angle on the essentially megalithic Stonetop RPG set.

The cover of one of the Stonetop books: it's a classy grey marble effect, with a small, discreet black and white illustration of a standing stone being struck by a bolt of white lightning.

A couple of interior pages from the Stonetop RPG.

Chris Gardiner@chrisgardiner· Jul 7

My go-to on this topic has always been Terry Pratchett:

So, instead, I give tips on how to be a professional boxer. A good diet is essential, of course, as is a daily regime of exercise. Pay attention to your footwork, it will often get you into trouble. Go down to the gym every day – every day of your life that finds you waking up capable of standing. Take every opportunity to watch a good professional fight. In fact watch as many bouts as you can, because you can even learn something from the fighters who get it wrong. Don’t listen to what they say, watch what they do. And don’t forget the diet and the exercise and the roadwork.

Got it? Well, becoming a writer is basically exactly the same thing, except that it isn’t about boxing.

A quote from Terry Pratchett, in A Slip of the Keyboard: Collected Non-Fiction

Chris Gardiner@chrisgardiner· Jun 8

Hey I wonder if Hasbro’s AI Optimus Prime will quote Tony Benn, as he does in in canon.

Three panels of a Transformers in which Optimus Prome is being dragged away by guards after Megatron has declared himself ruler of Cybertron. Prime is paraphrasing an interview with left-wing British politician Tony Benn as he says: “MY FRIEND'S NAME WAS MEGATRON AND HE HAD THREE QUESTIONS! THREE THINGS HE SAID YOU SHOULD DEMAND TO KNOW OF ANY POWERFUL INSTITUTION! QUESTION
ONE: IN WHOSE INTERESTS DO YOU EXERCISE YOUR POWER? QUESTION TWO: TO WHOM ARE YOU — JUST LET ME FINISH — TO WHOM ARE YOU ACCOUNTABLE? AND THREE—OOF! AND THREE! HOW CAN WE GET RID OF YOU?”

Chris Gardiner@chrisgardiner· May 26

I got fridged! TYPICAL of a COMIC BOOK WRITER.

An excerpt from the linked session wrote-up from Kieron Gillen’s Scions playtest about the competing heirs to a galactic empire in the wake of the emperor’s death. It recounts the tragic death of my character when I missed a session, and reads: “ Aurix arrives, carried by Livia the Connected. He's dead.
He has been murdered by the Saint Warmaster out of rage for Ikarion's new position. The universe cannot have two Warmasters. The Saint says he'll kill anything dear to Ikarion. [IKARION WEEPS FOR HIS LOST BROTHER, BUT THEN: FIGHTS!]

Chris Gardiner@chrisgardiner· Apr 17

Wyrd Science is *so* great. The new issue has a fantastic interview with Lee Gold, editor for the entirety of Alarums & Excursions‘ incredible 50-year run, and a *gorgeous* history of RPG zines… done in the style of a hand-cut, monospaced physical zine! shop.wyrd.science/products/wyr...

A photo of Wyrd Science’s interview of Lee Gold

A double page spread of Wyrd Science’s lengthy article on the history of TTRPG zines, which has been put together to look like an old 80s zine complete with cut-and-pasted images and titles, and monospaced typed font.

A photo of Wyrd Science’s interview with the creators of the Doomsong TTRPG.

The cover of issue 8 of Wyrd Science, slowing a psychedelic skull sprouting with neon mushrooms.

Chris Gardiner@chrisgardiner· Apr 13

This dude needs to play more Shenmue.

Chris Gardiner@chrisgardiner· Mar 22

Ah, it’s the weekend — I will play a relaxing Board Game! Three hours later: what the fuck have I done?!

A photograph showing every inch of my large kitchen table covered in approximately 4000 little sorted decks of cards, piles of tokens, multiple boards and laid out cards, plus about a dozen miniatures, and bags of dice. Kingdoms Folorn is a lot of board game.

Chris Gardiner@chrisgardiner· Mar 17

Has anyone coined the phrase “the Scarlett Johansesonification of videogames” yet?

Chris Gardiner@chrisgardiner· Mar 15

I just have these ones – don’t get to play super-often.

Chris Gardiner@chrisgardiner· Mar 7

I can’t get enough of @karlkerschl.bsky.social’s Death Transit Magpie. Standalone sci-fi stories about a freelancer charged with seeing the stranded souls of the dead to the afterlife. Beautiful art inspired by manga classics. Crisp, tight, emotive stories that still find room to breathe. Gorgeous.

The cover of issue three of Karl Kerschl’s Death Transit Magpie comic showing the main character, Marie, and her rival, Magdalena.

A page from Death Transit Magpie issue 3, showing Magpie conducting a deep see search and encountering the stranded ghost of an oil rig worker.

Chris Gardiner@chrisgardiner· Feb 27

If I’ve learned anything from Levi Roach’s ‘Empire of the Normans’ it’s that under no circumstances should you say to some Normans: “Hi lads - having a bit of a problem, would you mind helping out?” bcos in 10 years you’ll lose all your bishoprics and have to learn new French words for anything nice

A picture of the cover of Levi Roach’s Empire of the Normans.

Chris Gardiner@chrisgardiner· Feb 27

Dude, *pigeons* learn faster than you.

A quote from a Guardian article, reading “ Second, Starmer did not give any indication that he intends to change the way he governs.”

Chris Gardiner@chrisgardiner· Jan 27

It is *possibly* my favorite book. I thiiiink most of the FL writing team have probably read it. I know Nigel Evans, who wrote a lot of early FL, had.

An old, somewhat battered, 1924 hardback edition of G. K. Chesterton’s “The Man Who Was Thursday” with a burgundy cover

Chris Gardiner@chrisgardiner· Jan 17

Oh my god. Reading this made me emit an anguished wail of grief for a past that never happened.

Text reading: “In the 1960s, L. Sprague de Camp even considered hiring Leigh Brackett to write new Conan adventures, but went with Lin Carter instead. Oh, what
might have been…”

Chris Gardiner@chrisgardiner· Jan 17

Leigh Brackett was so goddamn cool. (From an excellent essay on her by @corabuhlert.bsky.social in issue 7 of the @newedgeswordmag.bsky.social magaizine.)

Text reading: “ Mother and daughter had a difficult relationship. Mrs. Brackett was a petite and feminine woman. Leigh Brackett was very much not that. She was tall, athletic, something of a tomboy, and permanently at odds with her mother about how a young lady ought to behave. At one point, her mother asked Leigh why she didn't write nice stories like those appearing in Ladies' Home Journal. Brackett replied, "I wish I could, because they pay very well, but I can't read the Ladies' Home Journal, and I'm sure I couldn't write for it.”

Chris Gardiner@chrisgardiner· Jan 11

Will someone please come round and inflate my cat.

My cat, flopped on his tummy on a bench, like a white and ginger pancake.

Chris Gardiner@chrisgardiner· Dec 3

Our boiler broke at the weekend, and our house was FREEZING. But a very nice man called Barry from British Gas came around and fixed it. Anyway today I got a text asking for feedback on Barry, and possibly I shouldn’t reply to these things while still loopy on painkillers from root-canal.

A screenshot of a text exchange with British Gas. Their message reads “Thanks! To help us improve our service please let us know the reason for your scores by texting us some comments”

And my response is: “Barry was friendly, clear, informative and efficient.”

“And he made our boiler work again, restoring heat and personal hygiene to our ancestral home. No longer does the winter chill gnaw at us. No longer do our taps disgorge ice-water. Winter is again banished to the ‘outside’ where the bad things
dwell.”

“We love Barry.”

Chris Gardiner@chrisgardiner· Aug 18

Just remembered seeing Eternals at the cinema, and when Starfox appeared in the post-credits scene the row of teenage girls behind me abruptly LOST THEIR FUCKING MINDS. I was thinking, "Wow, I never knew Starfox had such a young & passionate following!" Readers, Starfox was played by Harry Styles.

Chris Gardiner@chrisgardiner· Aug 5

It was inspired by Jan Neruda's 'Malá Strana Stories' and Jenny Odell's books 'Saving Time' and 'How to Do Nothing' as well as a recent family bereavement, and my longstanding love of Fallen London's Clay Men, [3/4]

The cover of ‘Malá Strana Stories — a Week in a Quiet House’: a book containing some of Jan Neruda’s stories about daily life in Prague’s Little Quarter in the 19th century.

The cover of Jenny Odell’s book ‘Saving Time’.

The cover of Jenny Odell’s book ‘How To Do Nothing’

Chris Gardiner@chrisgardiner· Aug 5

I wrote this month's subscriber story for Fallen London – the first one I've written in apparently NINE YEARS. It's an intimate story set on an eccentric, quiet square about how routine can trap us; and how isolation makes us vulnerable to our demons. (With a bonus adorable beetle.) [1/4]

An image of a statue of a bald, long-coated man sat on a grey bench. An elaborate bouquet of mushrooms has been placed in his lap.

Chris Gardiner@chrisgardiner· Jun 29

GM: What do you roll on your stealth test?” Player: “…partial success.”

What is almost certainly my ginger cat Pippin PERFECTLY CONCEALED under a blanket thrown over a chair, except for his enormous fluffy striped tail sticking out of it, the dope.

Chris Gardiner@chrisgardiner· Jun 13

Pippin: never knowingly not a disgrace.

My white and ginger cat Pippin, sprawled on his back and splaying his tummy everywhere like an absolute floozy.

Chris Gardiner@chrisgardiner· Jun 12

I absolutely love the flippable format of this book from @newedgeswordmag.bsky.social Two novellas back to back! It’s a joy. This is the luscious hardback, but there’s softback & digital too. And the stories are *fantastic* – rich, characterful, gripping. newedgeswordandsorcery.com/product-tag/...

Chris Gardiner@chrisgardiner· Jun 8

Yolf.

A screenshot from the trailer for Mandrake, the just-announced game from Failbetter Games. It shows an enormous chonky hairy cat-like creature with wide staring eyes sitting in a tree. A dialogue window is shown underneath, which identifies it only as “Horrifying Creature”. It is saying “Yolf.”

Chris Gardiner@chrisgardiner· May 8

Hey, @abeewords.bsky.social – behold THE WORLD’S BIGGEST PILE OF HORSESHOES as authoritatively claimed by a very convincing little sign when you drive into the village.

A really big pile of horseshoes. Seriously it’s massive. It’s just located in a tiny village next to an old forge, by the side of the road.

Another shot of the massive pile of horseshoes. It must be like 12 feet high or something. It’s quite slim, the horseshoes kind of hooked together. You could have the world’s best gane if jenga with it.

Chris Gardiner@chrisgardiner· May 3

It came! It’s… it’s so beautiful… 🥹

A freshly unboxed copy of Tune & Fairweather’s ‘Grace-Given’ book in the mythology of Elden Ring. It’s a huge gorgeous hardback like something you’d find in a forgotten library, in a velveted slipcase.

The cover of the book, which is a cream colour, and embossed with branch-like tracery. In the middle, as if framed through a window, is a knight mounted on Torrent, the steed in Elden Ring.

The title spread inside the book, featuring a black and white illustration of the huge swords staged into the earth that mark the sites of battlefields in the game.

A chapter spread with “part 3: History and Ideology on the right page and an ink knotwork illustration of the Roman numeral II on the left.

Chris Gardiner@chrisgardiner· Apr 27

Highest possible recommendation for @juniba.bsky.social & Aditya Bidakar’s magnificent graphic novel “The Fables of Erlking Wood”. A sequence of intricately interwoven fairytales that collectively tell a sometimes-haunting, sometimes-charming story of guilt, loneliness and hope. A complete delight.

Juni Ba and Aditya Bidakar’s beautiful graphic novel, The Fables of Erlking Wood.

A full-page panel of the Erlking, antlered, mantled in black and red, perched on a crooked stone.

A two page spread showing four double-width panels in which the Fox, one of the main characters in the book, crosses a series of grim World War II battlefields.

A full-page panel showing the Fox and another character. The Fox is claiming that they are crossing the very spot where he slew the last giant. The other character doesn’t believe him. But beneath their feet, in the earth, taking up most of the page, are the bones of a giant, an axe lodged in its skull.

Chris Gardiner@chrisgardiner· Apr 24

On one hand, the sigh I emitted upon seeing this ad was so deep that my entire soul fled with it, and has passed beyond the circles of the world. On the other, the tagline “Finally a mug that’s as smart as you are” is such a blistering excoriation of anyone who backs it that maybe it balances out.

A Kickstarter ad for, and I am not making this up, the “worlds first AI-enhanced mug with pixel display”. It shows a steaming white mug with a pixel readout on the side that says “166 degrees F”. Kickstarter have slapped a “product we love” label on it for some ungodly reason. Below is the tagline “Finally, a mug that’s as smart as you are.” It’s the satirists I worry about. We’re just not leaving them any space to work with, you know?

Chris Gardiner@chrisgardiner· Apr 12

Man, Journeys in Middle-Earth is *such* a good game. The app-generated map and events is a lot of fun, and mean it varies each time you play. But the character building is so satisfying as well – building the perfect skill loadout over the course of the campaigns feels great.