Hooks & Rumours #2

What ho! After a week of no internet chez Wyrd our connection to the outside world has been restored and we're back with Hooks & Rumours' difficult second newsletter. The good news is not spending all day on social media meant I had some time to work on the new Wyrd Science logo. Whaddya think?

Still a couple of tweaks I want to make but I think it's a step up. Who knows, we might even do some t-shirts. Sadly the week off social media also made me incredibly aware of just how dependent we are on it to shift magazines, which is pretty depressing for multiple reasons but hey let's not bring the mood down just yet...

Anyway, before we get to the good stuff, a reminder that we still want your letters for our next print issue, due out in September. So, do please send all your diatribes & diatribulations to letters@wyrd.science before the middle of next week for a chance of getting in there. And on that note let's see what else has been of interest of late then...

John x

Secret Passages Detected

A few weeks ago we made some pompous noises about using the incredible reach and power of the Wyrd Science brand, you know what with us being the world's leading print magazine about tabletop games that is made in Belgium and published in the UK etc etc, to help others who are trying to keep print alive.

Well, I'm very glad to announce that as part of this we've just added the rather fun Secret Passages to our store. Launched last year, Secret Passages is a true love letter to the games we grew up on, and across their first three issues you'll find features on HeroQuest, Fighting Fantasy, Vampire the Masquerade, Mordheim, Blood Bowl and all kinds of other stuff that should tickle the amygdala. We have all three issues in at the moment (also available in one bundle), plus a reminder we also have a handful of copies of the latest issue of the wonderfully gutter punk Glaive too.

And, as ever, if you're looking to do your own zine or magazine and want to chat then please drop me a line anytime. Together let's fill the world with wonder, or at least scrappy zines made with lots of heart and almost no commercial sense.

Save vs. Apathy

Ok, onto the rest of the tabletop world. Sadly it seems that all is not well at Rascal right now with talk of death spirals, departures and the site having around a year max left in the tank. It's a situation I can well empathise with having spent much of the last 3 or 4 years trying to keep things going here whilst posting the kind of end-of-year accounts that usually only successful Hollywood films whose actors are on a profit share aspire to. Anyway, looking at how similar sites servicing much larger industries are faring (that is badly) I very much suspect that if Rascal were to fold you wont see anything similar replace it for some time, if at all. So, like all things, if you want it to exist, use it or lose it.

Diamond Dawgs

It's not just the media who have their backs up against it at the moment. You've probably noticed that several of the larger RPG publishers have been having a rough time of it of late with the likes of Paizo announcing sweeping cuts in an effort to stay afloat. The main cause of this was the collapse in January 2025 of Diamond, one of the largest distributors in the US working with comics and RPG publishers, who decided to essentially make off with millions of dollars worth of stock that had been entrusted to them. Anyway, after lengthy negotiations it appears a deal may have finally been reached allowing the likes of Paizo and Green Ronin to access their books again and hopefully start to put this unfortunate scenario behind them.

The World Is Not Enough

Heroically pointless worldbuilding
by u/Wyrd_Science in rpg

For all my moaning social media does occasionally deliver the goods. Inspired by finding some remarkably unnecessary notes for what had variously been a novel/comic/TTRPG/gamebook I was working on a decade ago, I asked the people of Reddit and Bluesky for their own examples of pointless worldbuilding. Dear reader I was not dissapointed. If you want to feel better (or worse) about all the ridiculous rabbit holes that being into RPGs has led you down over the years then I really cannot recommend enough getting the kettle on and settling in to enjoy all the glorious madness people confessed to here.

Words Against Wizardry

Long time residents of this parish will know we have more than soft spot for the writing of Alec Worley and this week he's kindly thrown up a roundup of his pieces from over the past couple of years covering all things Sword & Sorcery. Lots to dig in to here and enjoy, from an apologia for the much maligned Hawk the Slayer to interviews with some of the new kids on the block. Marvellous.

Summer Screams

Goblin Archives and friends are hosting the Liminal Horror Summer Jam, starting today (or at least the day I wrote this) and going on until, I believe, Halloween which somewhat stretches the concept of summer but I guess we'll allow it. Anyway we've gone on about Liminal Horror many, many times in the past and it's one of those RPGs that comes with lots of support for creators, so why not have a crack at crafting something weird and horrific for it. Who knows, it might take your mind of all the weird and horrific stuff going on outside your window.

One And Done

Talking of game jams on Itch there is also apparently a One Page RPG Jam taking place at the moment too. I've only just heard about it as the great Zhu just posted his entry, the very fun (& grotty) looking Zone Trooper, which I have duly just grabbed and intend to have a crack at this weekend. There's still ten days left to go on this particular jam and over 200 games already submitted so dig in and find something fun or put pen to paper this weekend yourself or why not even submit your own one page banger.

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Dagon with The Wind

If you enjoyed Shannon Appelcline's feature in Wyrd Science 8 on the history of RPG zines (and I know a lot of you did) then you'll love this more in-depth dive into one zine in particular, Carl Ford's Dagon, a zine which, unsurprisingly, focused on all things Cthulhu.

Ennies Announced...

2026 Winners & Nominees – ENNIE Awards

ENNIE Awards

The winners of the 2026 Ennies Awards were announced at Gen Con and seeing as it's essentially the Smash Hits Poll Winners Party for goblins the results weren't exactly a huge surprise. Still, wisdom of the crowds and all that and the winners that we have dug into ourselves were all deserving of their laurels (I'm particularly enjoying Vaesen - City of my Nightmares at the moment and lets be honest any other result than a gold for Dolmenwood in the setting category would have been a crime), so well done to all, hopefully if anyone takes notice of it they'll shift a few more units.

A Fully Operational Twenty Sided Battle Station...

Talking of Gen Con, obviously there were lots of announcements made at the show, with at least one publisher even following that up by sending out a press release a few days later to those of us not there. Which was novel. Anyway, the big news was clearly Wizards announcement that having cornered 95% of the market, they really fancied taking a bite out of the rest and, as we assumed last newsletter, Dungeons & Dragons would be going the Magic The Gathering route with various Universes Beyond style tie-ups. As expected World of Warcraft will be the first and, catching us by surprise, a Star Wars 'season' to follow. Oh yes and Dark Sun is coming back, psionics, cannibal halflings and all, so that was something. Anyway for all that plus news from the likes of Free League, Paizo and a new 6th edition Vampire The Masquerade head over to Rascal.

Trench Notes

Josh Reynolds was always one of our favourite Warhammer writers, and one they should never have let go, so it's good to see him now writing fiction for Trench Crusade. Set in the hell ravaged region of the Carcass Front, the setting for the game's new campaign box, Four Days Dead is currently free to download, so get on that (also I had to just check my record collection to make sure I didn't already own several albums by Carcass Front as come on, if that's not a band name by the end of the year something is very wrong).

Cheap Thrills

Iain Mew's Super Chart Island remains totally undefeated as my favourite place on the internet to go "oh shit I remember that" in regards to budget 1980s computer games. Essential reading for old codgers like me and young pups who want to experience the thrill of an era where you could buy games on cassette from your local newsagent for around £1.99 and the industry was very clearly making it all up as they went along (like somehow even more than they are today).

It's Christmassssssssssssss...

I'll be honest I've been a bit, well very, slack at checking Kickstarter of late what with the proliferation of total slop on there but if you are in the mood for treating future you to something fun then there's a few days left to back Black Armada's Advent Adventures. Two advent calendars whose doors conceal neither chocolate nor pictures of donkeys but instead prompts for a solo journaling game. Go on, treat yourself, forget all about it and wake up to a nice surprise in, I presume, November just as Noddy Holder and chums return to fill another skip with cash.

Beyond The Rainbow Bridge

A somewhat curious (non) claim to fame of mine is that I once worked in a supermarket stacking shelves alongside Geoffrey Hayes, the presenter of children's TV show Rainbow. Poor bloke got a lot of stick for it from certain sections of the press but fuck that, he was out of work and did what he had to do at the time. It was just unfortunate for him that meant sticking tins of beans on shelves in the company of LSD addled teenage goths. Anyway, I was reminded of this by the sad news that Ronnie Le Drew, the hand behind both wonderfully obnoxious gobshite Zippy and various goblins from Labyrinth recently passed away. RIP my man, a huge thanks for all the weirdness you injected into our childhood.

Pictish Trail - Life Slime

Considering he's released some of my favourite dreamy leftfield pop songs and I once put him on at 93 Feet East in London I've been stupidly slow to check out Pictish Trail's new album Life Slime. Still, I've hopefully made up for that over the past few weeks by both having it on solid repeat and now pointing you in its general direction. Anyway, if gentle psychedelic pop is your thing I'd very much suggest you give Hold It and Another Way a spin, as that should give you a pretty good idea of what he's about here.

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