Stephen Schwartz of Curiosity Gaming e-mailed to let me know about their new card game, Rivaling Royals of Europe, which recreates the power struggles among rivaling royal families, landed nobility, and the Churches of Medieval Western Europe.  Looks like fun!

I received an email from Stephen L. Schwartz, inventor of the strategic card game Royal Execution. “Set in the challenging Middle Ages, the object of the game is to build a faction of royalty and nobility from one or more lines of succession to capture the throne,” he explains.

The game is for 2 to 5 players, ages 8 to adult, and offers options for team play, role-playing, and historical scenarios. For more information, including a video, visit the official Royal Execution website.

Looks like fun! Thank you to Stephen Schwartz for sharing this.

… at least, it’s fun if you enjoy typing (I guess I’m easy to entertain). It’s a simple game where you race against other people to be the first to type a few sentences: TypeRacer

It turns out I can type up to 97 words per minute. I guess all this time at the keyboard is paying off.

Jeff Sypeck, author of Becoming Charlemagne, takes a look at how Dungeons & Dragons creator Gary Gygax (who died recently) helped to popularize history, fantasy, and geek culture:
“Behind bolted doors, talent and imagination…”

(I have played D&D, too. Actually, I was a very bad dungeon master, and my little brother was my much-suffering, frequently-dying victim — er, that is, he was a mighty warrior who bravely fought many battles. And died in most of them.)