iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Dave Morris @davemorris.bsky.social · 29/03/2026

Recently came across the very first planning map I drew 34 years ago for the Virtual Reality #gamebook series (now Critical IF). Nothing's forgotten. fabledlands.blogspot.com/2026/03/x-ma...

Planning map for the gamebook DOWN AMONG THE DEAD MEN.

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Dave Morris @davemorris.bsky.social · 24/03/2026

Textual analysis suggests Dickens may have written Barnaby Rudge with the help of the Analytic Engine.

First paragraphs of Barnaby Rudge, by Charles Dickens.

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Dave Morris @davemorris.bsky.social · 15/03/2026

Here's the flowchart for Down Among The Dead Men. Not the original (it was 35 years ago, I hand-wrote it on A3 sheets of paper) but a reconstruction whipped up by Claude Code so that we humans could focus on the fun task of converting the book into an app. #gamebook stormweavers.com/shop/

Flowchart of the gamebook Down Among The Dead Men.

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Dave Morris @davemorris.bsky.social · 14/03/2026

Down Among The Dead Men -- now available as an app. I love the sound effects! #pirate #gamebook stormweavers.com/shop/

Screenshot from the app version of the gamebook Down Among The Dead Men.

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Dave Morris @davemorris.bsky.social · 12/03/2026

And here's a manta car for you.

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Dave Morris @davemorris.bsky.social · 20/02/2026

Can You Brexit? Ah, but *without breaking Britain*. So you have to do a better job than Teresa May, Boris Johnson, and other shades from a nightmare past... #gamebook dogsandmunsters.github.io/Can-You-Brex...

Cover of the gamebook CAN YOU BREXIT WITHOUT BREAKING BRITAIN?

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Dave Morris @davemorris.bsky.social · 20/02/2026

Growing up in the Vulcanverse -- a #gamebook intro demo. sparkfurnace.com/wp-content/u...

Poster for the Vulcanverse open-world gamebook series.

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Dave Morris @davemorris.bsky.social · 15/01/2026

This may sound like someone we all know, but it's from a Fitz-James O'Brien story written 170 years ago. www.nybooks.com/articles/202...

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Dave Morris @davemorris.bsky.social · 14/12/2025

A pre-launch review of Whispers Beyond The Stars: "Modern #Lovecraft: sleek, eerie, buzzing with uneasy implication rather than melodrama [...] Every decision feels messy, weighty, and uncomfortably human." I'll take that. #Cthulhu #gamebook gamefound.com/en/projects/...

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Dave Morris @davemorris.bsky.social · 29/11/2025

Whenever I see this kind of thing I think of old men shouting at clouds.

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Dave Morris @davemorris.bsky.social · 31/10/2025

For #Halloween I summoned up "Dealing With Demons". amzn.to/438NQvf

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Dave Morris @davemorris.bsky.social · 14/10/2025

Nice to come across this at Orc's Nest... #BloodSword #5e www.orcsnest.com/blurber.asp?...

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Dave Morris @davemorris.bsky.social · 10/10/2025

Seems to be the thing now to hoist flags everywhere. Here's the only one I want to see.

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Dave Morris @davemorris.bsky.social · 01/10/2025

REH's "The God in the Bowl" as a #DragonWarriors #ttrpg scenario for the game's 40th anniversary. As to setting, take your pick between Nemedia or Legend. fabledlands.blogspot.com/2025/05/the-...

Illustration from the 1952 magazine publication of "The God in the Bowl" by Robert E Howard.

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Dave Morris @davemorris.bsky.social · 04/09/2025

"Afraid of what might be Hiding in the dark, hiding in the street And of what was following me." A song there for the Hounds of... er, Tindalos, #DragonWarriors #TTRPG style. fabledlands.blogspot.com/2025/08/echo...

Image of a "Hound" of Tindalos by Mike Franchina: https://www.reddit.com/r/Lovecraft/comments/6zdxta/hound_of_tindalos_by_mike_franchina/

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Dave Morris @davemorris.bsky.social · 01/09/2025

LORDS OF THE RISING SUN is currently on sale for two of your English pounds. I don't know how Amazon UK can afford to do it, but if you want to try #FabledLands, now is the perfect time. www.amazon.co.uk/Lords-Rising...

Russ Nicholson illustration of samurai fighting on a castle staircase.

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Dave Morris @davemorris.bsky.social · 31/08/2025

A slight tweak to those #CthulhuMythos #DragonWarriors rules: I nerfed the scout a bit as DW assassins are hampered by lack of armor, and in 1920s America none of the characters are in armor anyhow. fabledlands.blogspot.com/2025/08/echo...

A 1930s private eye faces a Cthulhu-like entity in a dark alley.

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Dave Morris @davemorris.bsky.social · 31/08/2025

The oddest thing about looking at Can You Brexit? nearly ten years on is that even the parody versions of 2016's rightwing politicians seem a lot less crazy than most real-world examples today. www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1909905917

Spoof of the 2016 Vote Leave poster that claimed (mendaciously) that Turkey was about to join the EU.

Spoof of the 2016 Vote Leave claim that leaving the EU would mean an extra £350 million a week for the NHS. The lying fuckers.

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Dave Morris @davemorris.bsky.social · 30/08/2025

This from The Economist, which used to employ subs.

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Dave Morris @davemorris.bsky.social · 26/08/2025

This year is the 40th anniversary of #DragonWarriors #RPG. Must say that back in 1985 I imagined a very much brighter & more inclusive 21st century than the one we've now got, but that being the case here's some 100-year-old darkness. (The fun kind.) fabledlands.blogspot.com/2025/08/echo...

Joke cover for a Cthulhu Mythos variant of the Dragon Warriors RPG showing a female private eye shooting at a tentacle-faced monster on the streets of 1920s New York.

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Dave Morris @davemorris.bsky.social · 28/07/2025

“We were playing a fifty foot jet up the face of a tall City warehouse and thinking of nothing at all. You don’t think of anything after the first few hours. You just watch the white pole of water lose itself in the fire.” - William Sansom www.english.cam.ac.uk/bbcshortstor...

Painting: A House Collapsing on Two Firemen, Shoe Lane, London, EC4

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Dave Morris @davemorris.bsky.social · 16/07/2025

Two pictures worth all the words.

Chart showing how ignorant most Americans are about US foreign aid spending.

Chart showing the ~1 million people who will die in 2026 because of cuts to US foreign aid.

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Dave Morris @davemorris.bsky.social · 13/07/2025

#REH's "The God in the Bowl" as a #DragonWarriors #RPG adventure. #Conan fabledlands.blogspot.com/2025/05/the-...

Barry Smith cover for Conan the Barbarian #7: "The God in the Bowl".

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Dave Morris @davemorris.bsky.social · 13/07/2025

Having all five Vulcanverse gamebooks available in hyperlinked Kindle and PDF editions at a total price of one paperback still isn't good enough for some folks!

A 4chan message begging for free copies of gamebooks on DriveThruRPG.

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Dave Morris @davemorris.bsky.social · 31/05/2025

Re-reading Rendezvous With Rama after a gap of 52 years, I'm struck at how there are now two very alien worlds there -- Rama itself, and the 1970s' idea of the early 22nd century.

Artist's impression of the interior of the alien spacecraft from the novel Rendezvous With Rama.

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Dave Morris @davemorris.bsky.social · 27/05/2025

Mary Anne Evans writing in 1860 might not have been surprised by cancel culture.

Abbreviated passage from The Mill on the Floss.

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Dave Morris @davemorris.bsky.social · 21/05/2025

"Cardinal Scriberi Nascosto in Selentium sent the bowl to Great Schema Kalanthes in Tamor, rivalries across the schism of the Church being much more heartfelt than between wholly different religions." A No-Prize if you identify where the floor plan is from. fabledlands.blogspot.com/2025/05/the-...

Floor plan for RPG adventure based on "The God in the Bowl" by Robert E Howard.

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Dave Morris @davemorris.bsky.social · 19/05/2025

“It is a grisly thing. Too ancient to be holy." REH's "The God in the Bowl" as a #ttrpg one-shot. (I would have read the original story when I was about 12, the Marvel comics version when I'd just turned 14. Too ancient to be holy, that's me.) fabledlands.blogspot.com/2025/05/the-...

Barry (Windsor-) Smith's cover for Conan the Barbarian #7.

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Dave Morris @davemorris.bsky.social · 14/05/2025

In questionable taste? I thought so, but it may be as my wife said: "The Japanese are made of sterner stuff than we are."

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Dave Morris @davemorris.bsky.social · 12/05/2025

These are the words of the most powerful man on the planet. I think we should stop worrying about the #AI alignment problem, as we clearly haven't licked it in humans.

The President of the United States has the mind of a petulant toddler.

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Dave Morris @davemorris.bsky.social · 11/05/2025

Gemini 2.5 is multilingual and wants me to know it.

Text response by Google's Gemini 2.5 LLM.

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Dave Morris @davemorris.bsky.social · 04/05/2025

I hope they managed to include the line, "A man without hope is a man without fear."

The Kingpin musing on the lack of a corpse in Matt Murdock's apparent death by car crash. Comics page from "Born Again" storyline in Daredevil: https://www.cbr.com/daredevil-kingpin-no-hope-no-fear/

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Dave Morris @davemorris.bsky.social · 20/04/2025

Introduce yourself with your top 5 #TTRPG picks - Empire of the Petal Throne GURPS 4e Lyonesse Outlaws of the Water Margin Sagas of the Icelanders

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Dave Morris @davemorris.bsky.social · 16/04/2025

I find it hard to imagine how anyone's first thought at seeing this would be, "But what about IP laws?"

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Dave Morris @davemorris.bsky.social · 27/03/2025

Banjo Duel Daze: that mental exhaustion that sets in when you've been brainstorming with an #LLM for an hour.

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Dave Morris @davemorris.bsky.social · 25/03/2025

Why they're so opposed to #DEI in a single chart.

Chart showing Trump's net favorability by demographic (T-shirt version: male, young, white, uneducated).

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Dave Morris @davemorris.bsky.social · 25/03/2025

The hopes and fears of all the years... I love Mattia Simone's painting of the ominous conjunction of the Five Magi on the last night of the world. #BloodSword #gamebook #soloRPG www.edizionilibrarsi.it/store/produc...

Cover of Blood Sword book 5: ominous stars in the night sky above the ruined citadel of Spyte. Painting by Mattia Simone.

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Dave Morris @davemorris.bsky.social · 13/03/2025

Prat will do. Why waste words?

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Dave Morris @davemorris.bsky.social · 13/03/2025

If you live in a road with parking bays that are not demarcated for individual car spaces, you may find this useful.

Dozy Parker Award for car drivers who selfishly take up more than one space.

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Dave Morris @davemorris.bsky.social · 10/03/2025

"The most successful animated feature ever made anywhere." Pause to take that in. archive.ph/yVSql

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Dave Morris @davemorris.bsky.social · 05/03/2025

Substance abuse in the horror genre has been going on since at least September 1968. (#Eerie issue 17. Story: Bill Parente. Art: Ernie Colón.)

Closing panels from "To Save Face", a story in Eerie #17 (Sep 1968). A celebrity has used a beauty treatment that causes her skin to molt.

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Dave Morris @davemorris.bsky.social · 04/03/2025

The knight at the back isn't falling for it.

Medieval illustration. A priest is preaching to his congregation, but a knight is sceptical.

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Dave Morris @davemorris.bsky.social · 27/02/2025

That's exactly how I'd hold it.

(Screenshot from the Ealing movie "Hue & Cry".) A schoolmaster disgustedly holds up a copy of a comic called "The Trump".

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Dave Morris @davemorris.bsky.social · 19/02/2025

Chalk giants and the English New Weird -- a match made in heaven. (Or the pagan equivalent.) fabledlands.blogspot.com/2025/02/figu...

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Dave Morris @davemorris.bsky.social · 17/02/2025

A 1901 letter to the stalwarts of the Royal Mythological Society (British Museum basement, third door along from the broom cupboard). fabledlands.blogspot.com/2024/10/fant...

Letter to "the Royal Mythological Society" from Mirabilis: Year of Wonders.

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