STOKING THE FIRES!
Hey folks, Stephen here! As stated in the welcome post before this one, Pops and I wanted to use this “Apprentice’s Corner” page for topics/interests that aren’t necessarily in line with DnD and/or traditional TTGs. We are also a pretty avid gamers (albeit not as hardcore as I personally used to be, not enough time in the day!), and major book/movie nerds, so this list will be VERY diverse but hope to get you all some good personal recs here, and open up the floor for other folks to do the same!
Books:
Kind of mainstream now, but The Stormlight Archives series by Brandon Sanderson, namely The Way of Kings are freaking INCREDIBLE books. Pops can confirm this for all that don’t really know me, but I usually stay away from anything popular and take pride in finding hidden gems and do things my own way, BUT I finally caved and read those and by far some of the best fantasy I’ve read. I started to read the Mistborn series as well, but the first book didn’t pull me in right away and swapped over to The Way of Kings and was hooked instantly, I’ve since given Mistborn another shot and am currently on Book 5.
I’ve always been a fan of the Redwall series, and have read through all of the books, probably 5-6x through. Definitely a different fantasy style from above or from most others but always have a soft spot for this series.
This one is a wild card and not really fantasy at all, but if you haven’t read anything from author Cormac McCarthy (No Country for Old Men, The Road, Blood Meridian) you absolutely should. His style has never been duplicated, and his stories stick with you forever. Not to mention, No Country for Old Men has been a favorite movie of mine for years, and McCarthy continues to influence tons of other books and movies mimicking this style (Hell or High Water is heavily influenced and is another amazing movie).
The last shout out here in a first of many is the obvious choice, H.P. Lovecraft, who was a pioneer in so many ways, invented genres that, much like his characters/monsters, couldn’t be comprehended until he took the leap to write about them. His stories are legend at this point, and his influence on literally all things Sci-Fi, Fantasy, even Pop Culture is immense. I’ve read all of his original works, some of the extended works by other authors and love them all.
Recently started to read the Vincent Temple Trilogy by Kate Haley. Recommended to me because its Cosmic/Lovecraftian themes, Book 1 is “Gateway to Dark Stars”, which so far is magnificent!
Movies/TV:
With a 2-year-old around, the TV doesn’t really belong to me, and in my office the TV is primarily used to play PS5 while I’m on my PC, but I do try to keep up with most movies at least in certain spheres that I love, namely Fantasy, Sci-Fi and Horror.
Horror:
If you haven’t seen Nosferatu, it’s definitely worth a watch, Robert Eggers rarely does wrong, I LOVED The Lighthouse (obv. because of the cosmic horror themes and just awesome style). If you haven’t seen The Northman, or The Witch by him, also great.
To expand on the Lovecraft praise above, there are TONS of Cosmic Horror movies I like, but I would say some of the better ones in recent memory:
The Void - absolutely oozes Lovecraft, but I would say its also very much a body horror movie, much like The Thing (which I also highly recommend) so if you’re not up for that maybe skip this one
The Empty Man - I perceive this movie as Lovecraftian, very cool movie
The Ritual - One of the best Netflix Originals I’ve ever seen, very awesome
Sci-Fi
Cautiously optimistic about the new Alien show on Hulu/FX “Alien : Earth”…well see! the original Alien is probably my favorite Sci-Fi ever made.
Don’t know if this is Sci-Fi or Fantasy tbh, and I don’t want to go too crazy here with how much I recommend but definitely would be a movie list from me or Dad without the original Universal Monsters movies, pretty much any of them, I think I love those movies more than any other piece of media ever made.
Close second to this would probably be a lot of the Godzilla movies, love the older ones, and Godzilla Minus One was one of the best monster movies I can think of from modern times, but I’ll bet most people have seen that and I want to drop a recommend here for one that most people I know haven’t seen, Shin Godzilla. It’s kind of a whole new telling of the monster from the legend Hideaki Anno, also known for TONS of other amazing works like Neon Genesis Evangelion, which is also spectacular.
Games:
There are TOO many to count that I would recommend, and have played, so just some greatest hits and what we are playing/want to play now:
Elder Scrolls Oblivion Remastered - (Like everyone else lol, and yes, it’s as good as everyone says it is 😂)
Diablo 4 - I know there’s tons of criticism of this game out there, but I love to min-max builds, roll new characters and level alts, and compete against my own performance from seasons past and like the combat/pacing. The game has come a LONG way in 2 years and may not have the endgame systems and massive amounts of content that POE has, but I think it’s got its own lane and is well on its way to being a staple ARPG. It fits with my more limited time I have to play games where I can play with friends (cross platform multiplayer - looking at you Dad! Let’s blast!) and also you can play most if not all content solo, which is nice since my schedule is so sporadic and doesn’t always line up with folks I party with. It’s a game that has all the content you allow yourself to engage with, but you don’t feel like you’re falling behind if you miss a season or 2, I haven’t played in 3 seasons and am having a blast in Season 8!
ARPGs have always been a staple in my game rotation, for a while Diablo 3 was the game. Then I got into PoE, I played that for a while but it is 100% a game you have to put a LOT of time in to get your “moneys worth”. Another good ARPG out right now is Last Epoch. EHG is a smaller studio, but their ability to take feedback and turn it into implementations is astounding. LE has made leaps and bounds since its been out. The combat for me personally isn’t on the level of D4 but I usually come back to LE from time to time when I’ve leveled multiple toons in D4 and have completed all I want to do in each season.
If there’s anyone out there playing D4 this season, just for the record I’m playing Stone Burst Druid, my alt will likely be a Barbarian utilizing the new changes to shouts that treat the ancestral ghosts as minions and want to build a minion/summons build around that. We’ll see (and remember, if you play broken op builds, your lame! jk….kind of)
Risk of Rain 2 - Always in the rotation, super fun rogue like game with a really cool style.
Baulder’s Gate 3 - The game that keeps on giving….on like playthrough 4-5 now, one of the best games of my generation, Larian Studios is world class, and if you like the gameplay and style of BG3 and want to try other games from them that in my opinion are JUST as good, Divinity Original Sin 1-2 are amazing as well!
From Software Games/ “Souls-Like” Games: I’ll be just another person to recommend any Souls Like game to you, especially Elden Ring which I consider the “Greatest Hits” of Souls Like games, but I will say my favorite is and always will be Bloodborne.
Sinking City Series - The first game was great imo, but was a smaller game with a relative cult following, a 2nd game just came out of nowhere, the devs are running a Kickstarter for it and I can’t wait for the next installment. Awesome style and setting, very Shadow over Innsmouth-ish setting with the gameplay of LA Noire. Very fun
EDIT: The Dishonored Series - I CANT believe I didn’t mention this initially, but Dishonored 1-2 are INCREDIBLE games, IMO the 1st game’s setting/aesthetic was absolutely amazing. I loved the subtle Lovecraftian themes, the semi open world sandbox style maps, the steampunk coastal setting with hints of black magic and mysticism was just so so good, not to mention the plague/rat mechanics, the character design of Corvo, and the walker mechs and all, just professional grade art and storytelling. LOVE these.
That’s all I’ll post for now; I could go on forever…but there is MUCH more to come! Please let us know by commenting below this post, OR by talking with us in our Discord about what you’re playing/reading/watching!
