MartinRalya.com has been online since 2009, and has included a blog since 2012. Over the years, the focus has shifted back and forth between blog posts and static pages. When I last overhauled the site, in 2020, the focus was solidly on blog posts. A single-column layout with a discreet hamburger menu made sense, since […]
New year, new look Read More »
This past Monday, my kiddo expressed an interest in playing D&D. I’ve been preparing for this moment my whole life. We talked about D&D, and what that meant — because if Lark had a specific edition in mind (like 5e as seen on a livestream, for example), I wanted to run that. But the brief
An awesome day: Starting an OSE Godsbarrow campaign with Lark Read More »
Today is Yore’s 10th anniversary! I wrote my first blog post here on August 28, 2012: Reading Appendix N: The project, the appendix, and the goal. 10! Years! That’s longer than my time blogging on Gnome Stew (just shy of 8 years) or Treasure Tables before that (just over 2 years). Hell, it’s almost longer
10 years of Yore, and dusting off proto-Godsbarrow ideas from 2013 Read More »
I’ve set Twitter aside and decamped to Mastodon (specifically, the dice.camp instance), where you can find me as @martinralya. Returning to Twitter during the pandemic made me realize three things: I miss the social connections and serendipitous path-crossings and discoveries that social media can be good at facilitating. I miss Google+ a great deal. As
Mastodon is the new Google Plus (I hope) Read More »
Today marks a year since I started working on Godsbarrow. It’s been a consistently fun process, and even when I’ve banked my creative fires I’ve still done something to make forward progress every single day. You can find links to all of my Godsbarrow work, loosely organized, on the Godsbarrow handbook page. Here’s my first
A year of Godsbarrow worldbuilding Read More »
Work on my first proper multi-region map for Godsbarrow continues apace. All of the settlements and roads are in place, I’ve tweaked a bunch of coastlines and island shapes and whatnot, and the center third has its mountains, fields, and most of its forests done. I also dialed the white back by 90% in the
WIP Godsbarrow poster map, 13th anniversary of this site Read More »
Writing yesterday’s post about banked fires and leaving countries partially unmapped made me realize how much I’ve thought about this stuff over the past several months, and how non-obvious some of it might be to anyone outside my personal flesh-prison. I’m sort of mapping Godsbarrow the least efficient way possible . . . but stitching
Godsbarrow: Why not create a world map first? Read More »
In 2020, I became a miniature-painter. Prior to February, I was a guy who sometimes painted miniatures and generally didn’t especially enjoy it. But this year I painted more minis than I had in my 30+ years of sporadic painting prior to 2020 — almost twice as many, in fact. So I’m still a beginner,
My 2020 in miniature painting Read More »
Picking up a second-wave Indomitus box marks the first time since I got into 40k minis that I’ve bought models outside one of my chosen factions. I know I could Ebay the Necron half of my set and plow those funds into Orks or Blood Angels, but I’ve been looking ahead to 2021 (much of
A strong contender for a third 40k army, Necrons, and a Yore milestone Read More »
I’ve been largely quiet here about news and the state of the world because this isn’t that sort of blog. It is, generally, my hobby outlet. I want it to be a place readers can come to find — again, generally — posts about RPGs, miniatures, Gunpla, comics, books, and all the other geeky joys
Black Lives Matter Read More »
