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7 Nerdy Things You Need in Your Life: Fields' Shelfie

7 Nerdy Things You Need in Your Life: Fields’ Shelfie

Nerds on Earth editor Papa Nerd Clave is great at building people up, helping them feel special and important. He’s constantly sharing things he loves and encouraging us to share the things we love.

Whether you’re slogging through a stressful time in your life or sitting on top of the world, we all have things that we love that provide an escape or otherwise keep us grounded or centered. So as is…

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7 Nerdy Things You Need in Your Life: Sam's Shelfie

7 Nerdy Things You Need in Your Life: Sam’s Shelfie

Since this is my first article (both ever and for Nerds on Earth) I figured I would start with that most popular of internet articles: the numbered list!  The amount of nerdy toys and games are to the point where no one nerd could possibly experience everything that catches their attention. So rather than focus on what’s new and cutting edge in nerddom, I chose to focus on some of my favorite…

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7 Nerdy Things You Need in Your Life: Brandon's Shelfie

7 Nerdy Things You Need in Your Life: Brandon’s Shelfie

It’s the first week of November, and here at Nerds we’re cranking out some love for the nerdy stuff we’re into. I suppose it’s my turn to wow and astound you with all the nerdy things in my orbit that I dig of late. Here goes!

7 Nerdy Things You Need in Your Life

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Gaslands

What it is. Gaslandsis a miniatures racing game that uses 1:64 scale…

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7 Nerdy Things You Need in Your Life: Davery's Shelfie

7 Nerdy Things You Need in Your Life: Davery’s Shelfie

One of my favorite things is nerding out with my friends about our hobbies. We’ll periodically get together either face to face or online and have Nerd Show-n-Tell. But, until my current deliveries (Kickstarter is a hell of a drug) get here, I’ve already shown my IRL friends all the stuff they’re missing out on. So now I’m going to show it to you, Internet friends. 

Now I recognize that when it…

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What to Listen to this Weekend: The 5 Best RPG Podcasts

What to Listen to this Weekend: The 5 Best RPG Podcasts

There is a glut of great RPG podcasts out there for nerds. So many, in fact, that it’s hard to know where to begin! But we’ve got you. These five podcasts are the best of the bunch, and should be at the top of your weekend listening list.

Tune in to hear what you’re missing!

What to Listen to this Weekend

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The Glass Cannon Podcast

What is…

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Against the Aeon Throne: A Great Way to Get Started with the Starfinder RPG

Against the Aeon Throne: A Great Way to Get Started with the Starfinder RPG

The Starfinder team is doing something just a little different with the latest Adventure Path storyline for the Starfinder roleplaying game. They are only telling half a story.

I’ll explain. Paizo Publishing–the makers of both Pathfinder and Starfinder–is perhaps best known for perfecting the Adventure Path model, a method they use to tell a story across six floppy-backed books that will allow…

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Its Competitive Cryptozoology in Cryptid from Osprey Games

Its Competitive Cryptozoology in Cryptid from Osprey Games

Tucker: What are we playing tonight, Mike?

Me: A game called Cryptid.

Tucker: What is a ‘cryptid?’

Me:  Fantastic beasts like La Chupacabra, Sasquatch, Nessy; that kinda thing.

Timmerman (entering my home): What’re we playing?

Me: Cryptid.

Timmerman: Oh, sweet! Like Big Foot and Loch Ness?  That sounds awesome.

This is verbatim the discussion that erupted upon my announcement at my weekly game…

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Masque of the Red Death From IDW Games is All Party, No Plague

Masque of the Red Death From IDW Games is All Party, No Plague

And now was acknowledged the presence of the Red Death. He had come like a thief in the night. And one by one dropped the revellers in the blood-bedewed halls of their revel, and died each in the despairing posture of his fall.

Perhaps this spoiler alert comes a bit late, but that’s how Edgar Allen Poe’s “Masque of the Red Death” reaches its conclusion. The quote also sums up the crux of the…

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Want to experience the full history of roleplaying games? Look no further than the Alexandria RPG Library

Want to experience the full history of roleplaying games? Look no further than the Alexandria RPG Library

While wandering through the Indianapolis Convention Center in search from a bit of relief from the ever present Gencon crowds, I stumbled upon a treasure trove of roleplaying history. Shelves and Stacks of books in an unassuming side room inexorably drew me in.

I had discovered Alexandria.

More specifically, upon spending some time with Chief Librarian David Carnahan, I had stumbled upon the Ale…

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Raiders of the North Sea is unquestionably one of my favorite board games. So when I heard that designer Shem Phillips was releasing a follow up, I was immediately interested.

That followup is Architects of the West Kingdom, a game that has broad similarities with Raiders of the North Sea, yet is undoubtedly a wonderful game in its own right.

Architects of the West Kingdom

Architects of the West Kingdom is about…uh, architects. You are building things in a kingdom and you place workers in order to collect clay, wood, marble, gold…you know, there are a LOT of resources in this game and I’m there for it. The variety of resources and the villagers cards that allow for some wheeling and dealing with those resources, gives each turn a ton of options without ever being overwhelming.

Whereas Raiders of the North Sea has a brilliantly simple starting mechanic (you’d place a worker, then you’d take a worker), Architects of the West Kingdom allows you to place a single worker, but you get oodles of them.

The more workers you place on a board position, the more resources you get from that position. But it’s not all collection. There is a Black Market and a Virtue track, meaning one of the “levers” in the game is balancing just how on the up-and-up your Architect is.

The only time you lose a worker is when you decide it’s your time to build a building. There is more I could explain; there is a lot going on in Architects of the West Kingdom. But everything plays together smoothly and–although there is added complexity in this game–the game plays on a difficulty level just one our two dials higher than Raiders.

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I’m a Shem Phillips fanboy and that certainly doesn’t change with Architects of the West Kingdom. I thoroughly enjoyed and hope it is the beginning of a new trilogy, much like Raiders of the North Sea. The artwork is again by The Mico and it is again wonderful. The components are top notch and the rule book is crystal clear.

I’ve already gotten good play from the game and I suspect I’ll get a lot more, largely due to the fact that it includes a great solo mode. The game includes a deck of cards that allows you to play against an “AI” that works incredibly well.

I highly recommend Architects of the West Kingdom for anyone who likes medium weight worker placement games. You can pre-order it direct from Renegade Games Studios (their website includes a great how to play video and a downloadable rulebook), from Amazon, or better yet, ask for it at your FLGS.

[Disclosure: Renegade Game Studios provided Nerds on Earth with a copy of Architects of the West Kingdom in exchange for an honest review.]

Architects of the West Kingdom: The Newest Board Game from Designer Shem Phillips Raiders of the North Sea is unquestionably one of my favorite board games. So when I heard that designer Shem Phillips was releasing a follow up, I was immediately interested.

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Top 7 Scariest Horror Movie Monsters of All Time

Top 7 Scariest Horror Movie Monsters of All Time

Earlier this week I dropped my Top 7 Horror Movie Villains on you, distinguishing them from the baddies that follow below by stating that at one time they had been or are human.

The entries below have never been human. They’re straight up monsters, aliens, entities, and even animals. Their lack of humanity often makes them all the more scary, though there is certainly an argument to be made for…

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The Fortunes Untold Podcast: Episode 4

The Fortunes Untold Podcast: Episode 4

Episode 04: Demon Hunters pt. 1 (Subscribe on iTunes) ———-

Do you have a leprechaun stuck up in your tree? Do you think that sinkhole off of I-30 might actually be a Hellgate? Would Santa Clara be perfect except for all the damn vampires? Then you need The Brotherhood of the Celestial Torch.

They’re not the police. They’re not the army. They’re Demon Hunters.

This week Chad, Davery, and Andrew…

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An Introduction to Locke and Key: A Fantastic, Lovecraftian Horror Comic

An Introduction to Locke and Key: A Fantastic, Lovecraftian Horror Comic

We write about comics frequently at NoE. So most of the time, when someone throws out an idea about an older comic or series, someone will chime back: “Yeah, we have already written about that.” 

So I was stunned to discover that we have never written about Locke and Key.

Locke and Key: A Fantastic, Lovecraftian Horror Comic

Typically, horror just isn’t my genre. There is a long and respected…

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Top 7 Horror Movie Villains to Give You Nightmares

Top 7 Horror Movie Villains to Give You Nightmares

Halloween no longer feels like a single date on the calendar.  The whole month of October is full of discount candy aisles at megamarts, haunted house attractions (many opening their doors on October 1st), and a significant increase in featured horror movies on television and our preferred digital streaming services.

And while that’s not all bad, it’s not exactly all good.  Not all horror movies…

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Review of Pathfinder Horror Adventures: Bringing a Fright to Your Gaming Table

Review of Pathfinder Horror Adventures: Bringing a Fright to Your Gaming Table

The summer before my senior year of high school I was a camp counselor for a group of 8-year-old boys. To close our week, we’d take the boys to sleep overnight in teepees.

It was perfect for telling scary stories around the campfire.

I’ll never forget one of those nights. Most boys would get a fright, scream, then begin to laugh nervously as they realized I was pulling their leg. But the look on…

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7 Lessons D&D Players Can Learn from the 1e Fiend Folio

7 Lessons D&D Players Can Learn from the 1e Fiend Folio

A few weeks ago, Earth Nerd Clave called out in desperation for D&D help from his fellow ne’er do wells around Nerds on Earth Headquarters. He was exploring the origins of slimes and oozes, as one is wont to do from time to time. Being a South Carolinian, I was sheltering down for Hurricane Florence and had nothing better to do than to follow him down the nerdiest rabbit hole imaginable,…

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CROM! The coming of Conan the Cimmerian is finally upon us!

CROM! The coming of Conan the Cimmerian is finally upon us!

Announced earlier this year, Robert E. Howard’s Conan the Barbarian is returning home to Marvel Comics having spent the better part of the 21st Century at Dark Horse Comics. Marvel originally published Conan from 1970 to 2000. Dark Horse then won the license, and produced books through 2017.

After a year on the sidelines, Marvel promises a huge return for everyone’s favorite Cimmerian with a…