An Overview of the Lord Darcy Stories

I’ve just fininished re-reading the Lord Darcy stories in my collection. For those of you who have not read them, they are set in an alternative world where Richard Plantagenet survived his crossbow bolt wound in 1199 but was changed by his brush with death, gave up Crusading and devoted the rest of his life (twenty years) to ruling England and its feudal fiefs. He outlived his brother John (who still died in 1216) and was succeeded by their nephew Arthur. Arthur’s direct descendant rules as John IV.

The Dream

This was first published in a semi-prozine almost three decades ago:-

Dating The Deep Future

Those who study the past have a number of radioactive-decay dating methods at their disposal. As we look further and further into the past , longer and longer lived radionucleides become useless for dating purposes until for dating rocks from Earth’s earliest days we require the billion year half-life of potassium-40 or the 4.5 billion year half-life of Uranium-238.

It is possible that GMs may be running campaigns so far in the future that even these become useless. This article considers whether this could happen and, if radioactive dating is needed, what alternatives might exist in those distant times. The titles of eras 5 & 6 have been borrowed from Steven Baxter’s “Deep Future” as has the relevent timescale.

Review of “Jericho”

I watched the last episode of Series 2 of “Jericho” on ITV4 on Wednesday night (5 November). Ended on a cliff-hanger again. If you’ve not watched it, brief summary of the story so far now follows:-

The Rise and Fall of the Kentish Empire

This is the second article on the Anglo-Saxon period of English history for role-players. It should be noted that the term “Kentish Empire” was never used by the Anglo-Saxons or by modern historians; however, since King Aethelbert did persue what can only be called an expansionist policy and did earn the title “Bretwalda” for himself, I feel it appropriate to use the term “empire” to describe the Kent of his reign.