Dave Dawkins (D. Harrigon)

@golgaloth

Rich, fascinating stories, board game designs, and random thoughts, graciously provided by David Dawkins. I write Fantasy and SciFi under the pen name D. Harrigon. Books available everywhere. #Writer #Writing #BoardGames #Fantasy #SciFi

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Dave Dawkins (D. Harrigon)@golgaloth· 23d

Hit the halfway point on the final book of my series of novellas. Very exciting, and one character has died already (I'm not telling you which). Meanwhile, book four is up on #Kickstarter, pop along and check it out. Reviews coming soon. #books #writing #reading #bookstodon #AmWriting #bugs #ants

The stark, black cover of Desolation: The Hollow Drum works in contrast with the bright, crimson writing and single, stylised image of a severed ant head.

Dave Dawkins (D. Harrigon)@golgaloth· 23d

Does your character's outfit allow them to easily conceal a weapon? #WritingPrompt #AmWriting #writing #WritingCommunity #barbie #rococo #clothing

Hooped skirts and many frills, a parasol and long, extravagant hair. All highly suspicious on these smiling women.

Dave Dawkins (D. Harrigon)@golgaloth· 24d

#BoardGames this weekend! . The Oregon Trail - five minutes of nostalgic fun, a really crap game. . The Guild of Merchant Explorers - trail building done right. . Fresco (pictured). Haven't played this great game in ages. . Finished with San Juan. Cracking little card game version of Puerto Rico.

Mixing red and purple paint does not make pink. Otherwise these colourful pigment cubes and meeples combine to make an excellent visual treat.

Dave Dawkins (D. Harrigon)@golgaloth· 25d

It's okay. They've managed to tap the tank behind a fence. #tank #Tasmania #history #writing

A very large tank behind a very flimsy fence.

Dave Dawkins (D. Harrigon)@golgaloth· 25d

Books. Get HBO programming ten years before everyone else.

Dave Dawkins (D. Harrigon)@golgaloth· 26d

Overused tropes. Finishing each other's sentences is not the only sign that two people get along, or know each other well. What other indications can you think of? #writing #AmWriting #WritingCommunity #Character #funny #Cats

Two cats on top of a fence climb over each other in passing. The greet each other familiarly, "Mornin' Sam." "Mornin' Ralph."

Dave Dawkins (D. Harrigon)@golgaloth· 27d

Someone points out something really obvious. Your characters are stunned. #WritingPrompt #AmWriting #CatsOfMastodon #writing #WritingCommunity

A cat looks down at a microphone someone is holding. "Sir, are you aware that you are a cat?" The cat looks up, surpirsed.

Dave Dawkins (D. Harrigon)@golgaloth· 27d

Had to finish this quickly last night before it left Xbox Game Pass. It was a fun dungeon hack and puzzler with a fantastic mountain hiking theme. You'd have to play it to understand. Grab a copy if you can. #gaming #DungeonsAndSkiPants #games

A woman dressed for hiking, but carrying a sword, sits on an Alpine mountain.

Dave Dawkins (D. Harrigon)@golgaloth· 29d

FREE BOOK! This is the first chapters of all my books, free, no sign-up, just download and read away. storage.googleapis.com/mailerlite-u... #books #reading #booksky #SciFi #Fantasy #supernatura

Many bottles containing colourful liquids sit on a series of shelves. The plaque in front of it all reads: The D. Harrigon Sampler.

Dave Dawkins (D. Harrigon)@golgaloth· 29d

Girls don't want boys. They want a Mountaineer's axe from the Muromachi period in Japan c14th. Discuss. #Japan #writing #Axe #history #mountains #research

An axe with a distinctly pink hue and heart shaped holes in the middle of the blades to add lightness.

Dave Dawkins (D. Harrigon)@golgaloth· Jul 12

In the past, board games were variations on chess or roll-and-move. These days games still borrow mechanics, but there are better mechanics to steal and tweak. . What's your favourite game that doesn't feel original, but is still great fun to play? #BoardGames #Gaming #TabletopGames #chess

A giant chessboard in a part. The white king has been replaced by a white dog, who is a very good boy and going great.

Dave Dawkins (D. Harrigon)@golgaloth· Jul 10

Art is bought and sold at many levels across a society. Who's buying art in your world? #WritingTips #WorldBuilding #art #writing #ttrpg #dnd #GameDev #WritingCommunity

People stampede past a homeless man lying on the curb to look at an exquisite painting of a homeless man lying on the curb.

Dave Dawkins (D. Harrigon)@golgaloth· Jul 10

For the all fans of #UKPol our there. #StarWars #Andor #CountBinFace

The scene from Andor but Farage is being fingered by BinFace.

Dave Dawkins (D. Harrigon)@golgaloth· Jul 10

I'm on fire today! Over a thousand words this morning on the big fight at the end of the Desolation series, and bubbling with ideas for how to continue after lunch. It's great to be in the flow. #writing #AmWriting #books #Desolation #WritingCommunity

A young girl with the best Halloween costume ever. Dressed as a witch, with straw and cardboard flames around the hem.

Dave Dawkins (D. Harrigon)@golgaloth· Jul 8

How many women are there in your story? Why not more? #writing #AmWriting #WritingCommunity #funny #meme

A statue sits on a stone bench, one arm along the back, the other gesturing in front. A young woman has placed her vagina on top of the gesturing hand. The statue screams, "I'm alive!"
The Power of Vagina! It can make inanimate objects come to life!

Dave Dawkins (D. Harrigon)@golgaloth· Jul 7

Your characters don't have to start out cool. They can just end up doing really cool things. My Desolation series starts with a shrimp diver going to the library. Check out my latest #Kickstarter: www.kickstarter.com/projects/dha... #books #writing #reading #SciFi #steampunk #aliens #AmWriting

Your character may be cool, but are they 'Sigourney Weaver testing a flamethrower on the studio backlot' cool?

Dave Dawkins (D. Harrigon)@golgaloth· Jul 7

Theatre troupes in the past used to have a book of skits, from which they could construct plays on the fly depending on the audience, a Zibaldoni in Commedia del Arte. Do you have a book of snippets to pull from in your writing? #WritingTips #writing #AmWriting #WritingCommunity

A baseball diamond, with a London police box parked on it. Who's on first.

Dave Dawkins (D. Harrigon)@golgaloth· Jul 5

#BoardGames this weekend! What did you play? We had our local group meeting, so I got in some Seven Wonders, a couple of rounds of Aberration, Thunder Road, and (not pictured) Cats Knocking Things Off Ledges. Quick reviews in alt. #TabletopGames #games #gaming #BrettSpiel

Thunder Road. A lot of plastic cars on a cardboard map with some prominent red hazard tokens on certain spaces. This is a fun, merry-thrash game of dice rolling and slamming into your opponents. The new set means players are not eliminated as quickly.

Aberration. Carboard monsters in standees, with plastic heroes defending a village of yellow meeples. This has some interesting stuff in it and only runs a few rounds. I found it too frustrating to wind up the bag-building element to the point where we could be effective. I'm sure we could do better, but I'm not sure it's worth of the effort of learning how.

We just played the base game of Seven Wonders. This s my Gizah board with the four pyramid slots. I managed to pull off a win by filling this and getting some good purple cards to synergize with all the resource cards I needed to pull this off. Great classic game that should be in every collection.

Aberration. You get all these nice coloured token to take off and put into your bag, but then only draw a few so you can't activate the special areas on the board and give yourself a chance. And you only get to chuck in a couple before the game just ends abruptly.

Dave Dawkins (D. Harrigon)@golgaloth· Jul 5

Have you ever written a wedding into your stories? Or a story entirely about a wedding? Circustances with heightened emotions already built in are fertile ground for storytelling. #WritingTips #AmWriting #writing #WritingCommunity #horses #wedding

A magical carriage pulled by two, white stallions parked outside a church. The pavement under the stallions is of particular interest to people looking for fertiliser for their roses. "Let's face it, every wedding has a healthy dose of horse shit."

Dave Dawkins (D. Harrigon)@golgaloth· Jul 4

So, Clarice. Have the lambs stopped screaming? . Feel free to have a little fun this #Sunday and caption this yourself. . #Funny #floater #BlueSky

A pool for an animal at a zoo. It has clear glass so we can see under as well as above the water. A sealion float, its body vertical, head poking above the surface.

Dave Dawkins (D. Harrigon)@golgaloth· Jul 3

Off to play #BoardGames with my group, today! What should I take? A worker placement game, or some nice point salads? Hmmm. Decisions, decisions. #TabletopGames #gaming #games #BrettSpiel

A house has split open and many boxes can be seen through the crack. A sign that you may have too many Board Games.

Dave Dawkins (D. Harrigon)@golgaloth· Jul 2

What about punctuation? Do you just go with commas and full-stops? Maybe stretch to the occasional emdash? Have you ever used a semi-colon or something a little more exotic? #Writing #punctuation #AmWriting #WritingCommunity

Merriam-Webster on Blusky: Wait, why does Oxford get one? We want a comma.
James Longhurst: Best I can do is the Merriam-Webster interrobang.
M.W.: Take us to dinner first.

Dave Dawkins (D. Harrigon)@golgaloth· Jul 2

Scale. Do you use scale in your writing? Something we're used to thinking of as a certain size, make it way bigger, or much smaller. Extend this to social concepts and mannerisms. That's always fun. #WWI #biplane #airplane #writing #AmWriting #WritingCommunity

A world war one biplane. No, seriously. This is the Siemens-Schuckert R.VIII Heavy Bomber, one of my favourite WWI planes. Higher than a house with a massive wingspan, in needed six engines to get it aloft.

Dave Dawkins (D. Harrigon)@golgaloth· Jun 30

Are you a "true gamer"? How many of these do you own? I have French, German and Italian (also Hanafuda Japanese cards). Tell me which country you're from/in as well. Also Interested to know what you think is the best design. #BoardGames #Tabletop #TabletopGames #cardGame #Europe #brettspiel

A map of the most common playing cards in each part of Europe. French cards dominate, with their Hearts, Diamonds, Clubs and Spades. Spain and most of Italy are dominated by Spanish cards: Cups, Coins, Clubs and Swords. Northern Italy and much of the Baltic use Italian Cards: a different variation on Cups, Coins, Clubs and Swords. Most of Germany and the old Austro-Hungarian Empire uses Balls, Hearts, Acorns and Leaves. The Swiss use Roses, Bells, Acorns and Shields.

Dave Dawkins (D. Harrigon)@golgaloth· Jun 29

New standard for measuring pocket size just dropped. #makers #sewing #feminism #dnd #ttrpg #gaming

A display for a shop at a convention. Yes! The skirts have *POCKETS*, holds over 200 dice.

Dave Dawkins (D. Harrigon)@golgaloth· Jun 27

I'm straight. But I mainly work in #theatre and the #arts . For #Pride #PrideMonth: is there's any LGBT+ representation in your #books? Cruel Provocations, yep: main Somebody Keeps Callin, yep: side Desolation, yep: secondary Check out my books: ororo-productions-bdd3bl.mailerpage.io/books

Think of me as the pole. I'm not part of the flag, but I am straight and I will support you.

Dave Dawkins (D. Harrigon)@golgaloth· Jun 26

We all like designing monsters, but have you ever included a ridiculously beautiful animal in your #WorldBuilding? (This is a papercraft art project design based around the Actias Luna Moth.) #monsters #writing #ttrpg #dnd #WritingCommunity #AmWriting #dnd #gaming #GameDev

A fake green and red moth, but beautifully designed as a tree ornament. The finish resembles the powdery look of moths, with feathery sections and a long tail to each wing.

Dave Dawkins (D. Harrigon)@golgaloth· Jun 26

What's your pet grammar peeve? That one rule you learned but everyone else still gets wrong? #WritingCommunity #writing #AmWriting #reading #books

so “T-Rex” isn’t just some pop culture shortening of Tyrannosaurus rex, it's actually a standard way of shortening the genus in a binomial, e.g. E. coli for Escherichia coli. Despite what movie titles or toy packaging or band names say, it should always be written as T. rex and not as T-Rex or T-rex or god forbid T. Rex. And it should be italicized, which should be clear to anyone reading this but not clear to you, Corythosaurus, because I am speaking aloud to you and I don’t know how to italicize my voice.

Dave Dawkins (D. Harrigon)@golgaloth· Jun 26

That golden goose meme just keeps on giving*. . . . . *see what I did there? #goose #meme #finance #funny

What matters is not the eggs. It is the Goose itself. True value:- The power to keep laying eggs.

Dave Dawkins (D. Harrigon)@golgaloth· Jun 25

Perhaps we'll get a new peace deal, soon. #trump #reflectingPool