The essential elements for building a world? I hesitated in using a $12 credit to buy this one. It’s short. Really short. Audible says, 4 hours and 42 minutes, and I tend to not spend my audible credits on anything less than 10-hours long. But I fell for their marketing and took the creative leap towards creating dazzling worlds of my own. I shouldn’t have used my audible credit for this book.   maybe the PDF is a better choice First, let’s talk positives. Everyone contributing to this book has serious RPG cred. There are essays by Keith Baker, Wolfgang Baur, David "Zeb" Cook, Monte Cook, Jeff Grubb, Scott Hungerford, Chris Pramas, Jonathan Roberts, Janna Silverstein, Michael A. Stackpole, and Steve Winter. The essays are good and offer solid, but rather vague advice. I think beginners will get more out of this than experienced world builders and game masters. Ray Greenley does a good job with the narration, but still comes off sounding like the friend with the pleasant voice...

Here's a little craft project I did that is only peripherally related to tabletop roleplaying games. Defiantly, fantasy related, just not useful for much beyond being a decoration. I picked up this sword and shield from wish.com. The shield looked larger in their pictures, but it's not in scale with the sword at all. I thought they were cool looking and for $3, I figured what the hell. I had no idea what I was going to do with them, but I like swords and I like lions. I thought maybe I'd stick them on the wall with the sword behind the shield or some such... I realized that wasn't going to happen when they arrived. So instead I carved a rock out of rigid pink foam and painted it up. Then I inset the tiny shield into the stone and hot glued it in place. I think the results look pretty good. The sword comes out of the stone. It's very Arthurian in that regard, only there's no throne of Britannia to be had. And it looks pretty good on the shelf next to my map of th...