Bundle of Holding has been doing some Halloween-themed bundles none of which have really interested me but let's review again.

The Nightmares Underneath ($10)

An OSR horror-fantasy game. This small bundle includes Nightmares Underneath RPG, Dungeon Full of Monsters (a megadungeon for Labyrinth Lord with conversion advice for NU), City of Poison (3 small dungeons as a themed incursion for NU).

OSR does make it more appealing for adapting to GURPS. But my current experience in running Basic D&D is that I want more rules than what OSR games give you.

Ghastly Affair ($10)

"…tabletop roleplaying game of Gothic and Romantic Horror in the decadent, disastrous age of Marie-Antoinette, Napoleon, and Lord Byron."

"…familiar terms and concepts of Old-School roleplaying games, but with a modern twist. Just roll under the rating of an Ability on a 20-sided die…"

Ghastly Affair Player's and Presenter's Manuals -
4 supplements
6 locations - each is form-fillable guide to define an adventure location

Maybe one campaign book in the bundle.

Tentacles 7 ($25+)

Hodgepodge bundle.

Stealing Cthulhu - adapting Lovecraft's stories and ideas into your campaign.
Far Horizons Co-Op Guide to Cults - GM advice for cults
Eldritch Tales: Lovecraftian White Box Roleplaying - OSR-based 1920's Cthulhu RPG.
Lovecraftesque Second Edition - "Card-based, GM-less collaborative storytelling"
Legacy of Cthulhu - "rules-light, dread-heavy standalone RPG"
Rise of R'lyeh - "standalone RPG built on the Year Zero Engine"
Cthulhu Dark + Fairyland - rules light Cthulhu + a scenario

RPGs are nice but supporting adventures are better and this bundle is heavy on the first not the second.

Cthulhu Reborn ($21+)

"…presents nearly two dozen Mythos investigations in many eras from the open-license Cthulhu Eternal tabletop roleplaying game line…"

"Compatible with your favorite Lovecraftian percentile-based systems, the Eternal open rules set, based on Mongoose Legend and the Delta Green RPG"

This one looks interesting mostly because it's compatible with Call of Cthulhu so I'll write it up separately.

Vampirella Sinks Her Teeth Into Comics Bundle from Humble Bundle includes a bunch of stuff from previous bundles so wonder how much is new to me?

$1 Level

• Vampirella Omnibus v1: The Dynamite Years (OWN) — this is Vampirella (2010) v1 to v3 + Annual 1 & 2
• Vampirella (2019) v2: Seduction of the Innocent — I have v1 from a previous bundle so this is new
• Vampirella: Valentine's Day Special (2021) — new to me

$10 Level adds

• Vampirella (2019) v1: Seduction of the Innocent (OWN) — as I mentioned I have this
• Vampirella: Mindwarp #1 — of a 5-issue mini-series
• Vampirella: Fairy Tales
• Vampirella vs Reanimator #1 (OWN) — this is part of a 4-issue mini-series
• Vampirella vs Dracula #3-6 (OWN)

I'll note that these levels suck as each level has prequel stuff that is in the next higher level.

#18 Level adds

• Vampirella vs Dracula #1-2 (OWN)
• Vampirella (2010) #1-11 (OWN) - these issues already included in Omnibus v1, what a rip-off
• Vampirella (2014) v1: Our Lady of Shadows (OWN)
• Vampirella (2017) v1: Forbidden Fruit (OWN)
• Vampirella Strikes (OWN)
• Vampirella: Southern Gothic
• Vampirella and the Scarlet Legion (OWN)
• Vampirella: Prelude to Shadows (OWN) — prelude to Vampirella (2014) v1: Our Lady of Shadows
• Vampirella: Masters Series v3 to v8 (OWN 4 of 6) — Don't know why v1 and v2 not in this bundle, then again a previous bundle only included 5 of the 8 volumes
• Vampirella: Feary Tales
• Vampirella Archives v3 and v4 (OWN) — again mystifying why v1 and v2 not in this bundle
• Vampirella 1969 (OWN)
• Vampirella (2016) Hollywood Horror #1-6 (OWN)
• Vampirella (2019) #1 (OWN) — already included in Vampirella (2019) v1: Seduction of the Innocent
• Vampi Omnibus v1
• Legenderry Vampirella v1 (OWN)

To sum it up the new stuff is

Vampirella (2019) v2: Seduction of the Innocent
Vampirella: Valentine's Day Special (2021)
Vampirella: Mindwarp #1
Vampirella: Fairy Tales
Vampirella: Southern Gothic

• Vampirella: Masters Series v5 & v7
• Vampirella: Feary Tales

Vampi Omnibus v1

Probably still some discount for $18 but I hate rebuying stuff and I hate that this bundle has redundant content. I'll probably just get the $1 level.

2025-11-09: Changed my mind and bought the whole bundle.

Sat Oct 18 2025

Sleep 0200 to 0330 (1-1/2 hours)

• Last night we played Gloomhaven and got one scenario in. It was a survive 10 turns in a medium-sized room scenario with lots of spirits but CSr got out a volcano ally with ranged retaliation 2 and killed most of them while three of us had healing to keep it alive.
• Tonight was DDO and we tried Belly of the Beast which you have to run along an acid river and swim in acid and damage amazing a lot. We couldn’t quite do it at R2 so we’ll try again at R1 or Elite.

Sun Oct 19 2025

Sleep 0900 to 1500 (6 hours)

• MLS Playoffs will be free for Apple TV subscribers. Last year it was “rest of the season and playoffs free” which meant you could go back a month and watch games you couldn’t watch before. That was a lot of MLS watching for me so this year it’s more reasonable.

Mon Oct 20 2025

Sleep 2130 to 0130, 1400 to 1700 (7 hours)

• Received my notice that I am no longer in Medi-Cal but still qualify for Covered California and have until Nov 30 to enroll.
• GM Daniel Naroditsky died yesterday. Sad news.

Tue Oct 21 2025

Sleep 0300 to 1200 (9 hours)

• Designers & Dragons: Origins BackerKit ends Nov 20. It’s $200 for physical copies (4 hardcover books + slipcase). $80 for PDF + at-cost PODs if you want printed. Looking at other DTRPG products I’m guessing at-cost POD HC about $50 each, at-cost softcover color about $35 each. In the end no savings if you want print.
• Vortex’s bill for last Oct 06 visit is $563 for preventive maintenance on the door closer. Which they did do not exactly with my permission. At least we know that PMs are expensive and probably not worth it as replacing the door closer is like two PM visits. It does make me not want to use Vortex any longer since R&S Erection seems to do the same jobs well enough at cheaper prices.

Wed Oct 22 2025

Sleep 0200 to 1030 (8-1/2 hours)

• C3+S Dinner. We got delivery from Golden Wok. Cheap but tasty Chinese comfort food.

Thu Oct 23 2025

Sleep 0730 to 1345 (6-1/4 hours)

• Steph extended Netflix for another month. CSr said she wanted to watch a show coming out this month, though hopefully a show that drops all its episodes at once.

Fri Oct 24 2025

Sleep 0430 to 1030, 30m nap. (6-1/2 hours)

• Got a call and someone leaving a voicemail. On my Mac it showed a popup and live translation of the voicemail being left. Very cool. Phone still in sleep mode so it didn’t even ring. BTW was a spam call.

Grandmaster, Popular Commentator Daniel Naroditsky Tragically Passes Away At 29

Some chatters were reporting this on Nemo's Monday morning stream. In general people are quick to pass on sensational news without double checking even if that one source is reputable. Chess.com put out that release the next day after checking with more sources and it's a nice tribute.

I remember first seeing Danya as a guest on Alexandra Botez's channel, back when she was still attending Stanford and Danya was also a student there. They did some commentary stuff together and maybe some other stuff but just like Alexandra, Danya showed quite a bit of charisma.

Later on he starts his own Twitch channel doing collabs with various chess streamers including Alexandra and later BotezLive (lots of Botez Sisters vs Danya in various odds matches and he always took dodgy bets and was a graceful loser including doing dances and impressions). Danya tended to stream late in the night and played a lot of bullet chess, being one of the top players on Chess.com.

One night after a raid we saw that he was raising money to move to Charlotte. ChessBae94 and I donated about $1000 together which I think made me a VIP in his channel. And although for the most part I didn't watch his channel much he'd often greet me if he saw me in chat.

Danya became a fantastic commentator for Chess.com, traveling to different countries for big tournaments. He also was a member of the Charlotte Chess Club and helped them do events and such. I've always seen him cheerful and upbeat and not angry.

We're not sure how he died and people are speculating a bunch, perhaps with good reason but also inappropriately in my mind. For now remember he was a great person, a great content creator, and a great chess ambassador.

This time let's pick one product from each of the first five pages of the ranked by popularity search.

The Bride of Pendle (CoC 7e, $19 regular, $13 sale) - A long (132 pages, 16+ hours gaming) adventure set in Lancashire 1922. This is an independent product published under Chaosium's Miskatonic Repository.

CthulhuTech: The Shadow War Player's Handbook ($25 regular, $17 sale) - "cosmic apocalypse in the near future"
CthulhuTech: The Shadow War Game Master's Guide ($20 regular, $14 sale) - This is the current edition of CT released back in July and so far only the two core books and a QuickStart are out.

Monsterhearts 2 (PbtA, $11 regular, $7 sale) - "Monsterhearts 2 lets you and your friends create stories about sexy monsters, teenage angst, personal horror, and secret love triangles."

What Was Left To Rot (Mothership, $20 regular, $14 sale) - "As hardened criminals, you were bound for a life sentence in the galaxy’s deadliest penal colony, until a transport crash maroons you in a crater caught by a deadly fungal infection." 48-age Mothership sandbox adventure.

Call of Cthulhu kind of dominates this category so I could have easily picked five CoC products.

Sat Oct 11 2025

Sleep 0700 to 1515 (8-1/4 hours)

• DDO. We did two quests. House of Broken Chains at R3 and died a lot. Almost TPK’d in the last room though there’s a resurrection shrine you can run to if you were running out of the room when you died (or maybe even in the room).

Sun Oct 12 2025

Sleep 0230 to 0930 (7 hours)

• Took a shower. Went to Popeyes for chicken (it’s been almost six months so my reward points were going to expire). Lucky’s for a few things — it’s quite a bit more expensive than Safeway though that’s not cheap either nowadays.

Mon Oct 13 2025

Sleep 0215 to 1145 (9-1/2 hours)

• Stormy day. A couple of brief power outages.
• Went over reserve study, deferred a bunch of stuff, fixed some numbers. Working with our RS company to update it.

Tue Oct 14 2025

Sleep 0115 to 0515, 1115 to 1500 (7-3/4 hours)

• Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow released on Steam. This is the old version I guess with a few fixes to make it run on current Windows 10/11 and has not on Steam before (the other games are already on Steam). I have the other games (on Steam) and will probably buy this ($6 on sale) to complete the set.
• A few seconds power outage at 16:29.

Wed Oct 15 2025

Sleep 0430 to 1230 (8 hours)

• I did no coffee over the weekend and now I’m trying out two mugs in the morning, no coffee after 1500 to see if I can sleep better. Last night Nemo streamed from Beijing midnight to 0400 which is why I went to sleep late.

Thu Oct 16 2025

Sleep 1100 to 1530 (4-1/2 hours)

• Shannon’s next series of books launching on BackerKit next week. Designers & Dragons: Origins.

Fri Oct 17 2025

Sleep 2300 to 0400, 0915 to 1315 (9 hours)

• Apple is the Exclusive New Broadcast Partner for Formula 1 in the U.S. All content available with regular Apple TV subscription and some content free for everyone. F1 is like one race every other week so not a huge time commitment.

Pendragon: Classic Edition Kickstarter is a reprint of 1st edition, released in 1985.

• Pendragon Boxed Set - I think like for CoC reprint box is 2" deep to accommodate the extra stuff in this KS.
• Nobles Book - supplement
• The Grey Knight - campaign
• Tournament of Dreams - book with two adventures
• The Pendragon Campaign - 76-page version, the 5E version is 430 pages so it's grown tremendously

All the PDF for $50, though I suppose since this is a reprint you'll get the current PDFs. For print (+PDFs) it's $100 + shipping so that doesn't seem too bad.

Although I do love Pendragon I have no nostalgia for early editions. I think Shannon ran a 3rd or 4E campaign and I tried to run a 5E campaign.

For these Chaosium reprint editions I only bought Call of Cthulhu because I wanted a 1E version even if it was a reprint and most of the stuff in that KS I didn't own.

So in the end I'll skip this KS.

Eclipse Phase 2E Bundle from Bundle of Holding, "the game of transhuman techno-horror survival". I remember that this game has great art and came out about the same time as CthulhuTech which is broadly similar in my mind.

This is a set price bundle for $18.

Eclipse Phase 2E Corebook
Quick-Start Rules
Rules Primer - 2 page reference

Adventures

Router Case Files
Xenovore
Overrun

Mini-Adventures (individual encounters, each 2 pages)

All That Glitters
Better on the Inside
Body Count
Grinder

Mini-Supplements (2 to 4 pages each, some are mini-adventures)

Binge
Divided Intentions
Hypercorp Heist
Firewall Scratch Space Random Inventory
Motifs: Signature Transhumance Looks
Unbodied

This is pretty much everything in the 2E line except

Condensed Players Guide - 112 page excerpt from the core rules

Character Options - 152-page supplement
SCUM Character Pack - 2 characters from the SCUM board game (free download)
Flexbot Confidential - 11 page supplement
Mind the WMD: Resleeved - 32 page adventure
Multiplicity and Synthesis - 14 page supplement

Of which I guess Character Options and Mind the WMD are the two actual omitted supplements.

Seems like a worthwhile bundle.

2025-10-31: corrected contents after I bought and downloaded.

Sat Oct 04 2025

Sleep 0200 to 0400, 1000 to 1200, 1615 to 1815 (6 hours)

• Gloomhaven -CSr. Turns out Beast Tyrant (which we’ve never played before) causes our game to lock up — after choosing cards and then starting the turn it shows initiatives at the top but not the monster initiative cards. It’s not locked up as you can move around the board and examine figures but after a few minutes it still didn’t show initiative cards. We tried it a couple of times (each of us hosted once) and tried it with a simpler scenario (the one we were playing had like a dozen figures at start).

Sun Oct 05 2025

Sleep 0330 to 1230 (9 hours)

• DDO. Playing Saltmarsh on R1 with lvl 6 characters and it’s a bit tough. I should play older lvl 3 quests as they tend to be scaled for PCs with less cool equipment.

Mon Oct 06 2025

Sleep 0530 to 0815, 1245 to 1800 (8 hours)

• Vortex came by this morning to take a look at our front door. We want it to not have a mode where it can be locked open but instead door closer will always try to close door. Tech said that is not a setting and instead requires a new door closer, but we just replaced this one a few weeks ago. They’ll send us a quote and I guess we can discuss in next HOA meeting. Issue is that often (usually carelessly) leave the door locked open which then becomes a security concern.

Tue Oct 07 2025

Sleep 0100 to 0700 (6 hours)

• Vortex work summary emailed to me. I guess since they didn’t actually do anything they had to do something so the techs oiled the door closer and I guess we’ll get charged for that. Also their estimate came in for a new door closer, it’s $1300

Wed Oct 08 2025

Sleep 2330 to 0100, 0630 to 1245 (7-3/4 hours)

• RapidWeaver Classic crashes after global search results populate. Maybe that’s why it crashed earlier this week though I didn’t notice what I was doing. For now I can use BBEdit for global searches.

Thu Oct 09 2025

Sleep 0030 to 0730 (7 hours)

• Conference call with Stifel where we keep our HOA reserve funds. This is the other advisor linked to our account and he was a bit more explicit that it wasn’t convenient for Stifel to keep us around since we only buy CDs. And this time Marcyl on the call so she also convinced (before when she talked to the first advisor he either didn’t indicate that or she missed it). So now we need to look at where we should park our reserve funds.

Fri Oct 10 2025

Sleep 0030 to 1000 (9-1/2 hours)

• MW5 with DS hosting. We did four or five scenarios — they run quickly, about 10 minutes each, with another 10m or so doing upkeep and deciding what to do next.

Taking a look at how much money I have in bonds. Since I don't have any directly they will be in target year retirement funds.

JPMorgan SmartRetirement 2035 R5: $23.2k total of which 25.91% is bonds so $6.0k.
Vanguard Target 2035: $345.2k total if which 30.98% is bonds/US treasury so $106.9k.
BlackRock LifePath Index 2035 Fund: $17.8k total of which 34.8% is bonds so $6.2k.
Schwab Target 2040 Index Fund: $11.5k total of which 20.98% is bonds/US treasury so $2.4k.

Total $121.5k.

It'd be nice to have 2-5 years living expenses in bonds in case the market crashes. I haven't seen it crash for more than two or three years I think so you need enough stable funds to ride it out.

Last time I did monthly expenses (Jan 2024) it came out $4.5k per month + $1k for luxuries = $5.5k per month or $66k per year. So right hovering about 2 years worth of bonds and in six years when I can actually withdraw probably double that.

I guess my conclusion is that I don't need to redistribute my portfolio for bonds it'll take care of itself.

Current replacements for my Apple devices.

• Watch
• Current: Apple Watch Series 7, 45mm (Jul 2022) [$394 including tax]
• Current Replacement: Apple Watch SE3, 44mm (2025) [$279 + tax, about $307, no AppleCare]
• Here we go for cheapest Apple Watch which at this point is fairly good.
• Phone
• Current: iPhone SE 3rd gen (replaced Dec 2024) [$615 with AppleCare and tax]
• Current Replacement: iPhone 16e, 128 GB (2025) [$599 + tax, about $659, no AppleCare]
• Again cheapest replacement since even that is fairly good.
• Tablet
• Current: iPad Pro 10.5", 256 GB (Sep 2017) [$1202 with tax]
• Current Replacement: iPad mini (2024) + Smart Folio [$558 + tax, about $614, no AppleCare]
• Alternate: iPad Air 11" 128 GB (2025) + Magic Keyboard [$868 + tax, about $955, no AppleCare]
• A smaller iPad would be nice which means a mini, but an Mx also nice so that an Air.
• Computer
• Current: MacBook Pro 14" M4 Pro, 24/512 (Nov 2024), 4 TB external SSD [$2235 with tax no AppleCare]
• Current Replacement: (Same) [$1999 + tax, about $2199, no AppleCare]
• M5 Macs coming out soon but for now I'm happy with my current MBP so I'd replace with same. I suspect M5 would not be much of an upgrade.

For the future:

• 2026 - replace iPad
• 2028 - replace Apple Watch
• 2030 - replace iPhone
• 2032 - replace MBP

Maybe unrealistic as an 8 year replacement cycle means each device is obsolete (in Apple terms, which means no more support) by the time it's time to replace. And of course probably very underpowered for current apps.

2025-10-15: M5 announced. MBP 14" M5 (no Pro/Max models, I guess next year) so I think another MacBook Pro 14" M4 Pro, 24/512 as replacements is fine (and although I wanted a bit more memory because of the internals you can only go to 48 GB memory which is then too much). iPad Pro with M5 do that doesn't change my tablet replacement. Vision Pro M5 though for now it's too pricey to have as a fifth Apple device.

Sat Sep 27 2025

Sleep 0100 to 0845 (7-3/4 hours)

• Ex-WCBS Lunch at Harborview Restaurant where we’ve gone the last few times. We did have more people possibly showing up but then Greg W was a bit too ill (apparently his health is bad and he’s in a wheelchair) and a couple of others had to back out. Sort of the usual four with Jesse, Lonnie, Peter and myself. Lonnie and his wife went on a 111-day cruise around the world and he would not recommend as it got boring.
• Tonight we played DDO. For now each weekend we’ll do one night of DDO and one night of a different game.

Sleep (don’t remember probably about 0700 to 1300)

• We are having an election in November just for Proposition 50 which will do legislative (instead of independent) mid-census (redistricting is done after every census) redistricting to win more Democratic Party representatives in the House of Representatives. This is to counteract Texas doing mid-census redistricting to do the same for Republican Party. I guess most telling is I’ve seen lots of ads anti Prop 50 and I’m rather leery when he political money is all on one side.

Mon Sep 29 2025

Sleep 0345 to 1200 (8-1/4 hours)

• Realized that with my MBP M4 I can play two DDO instances fairly well — with my old MBP Intel the second instance running would make the first instance somewhat laggy. Reincarnated my alt character and will play with two characters at R1 and kind of depend on my main having three allies to carry him on quests.

Tue Sep 30 2025

Sleep 0530 to 1200, 1930 to 2030 (7-1/2 hours)

• Did my OS upgrades: macOS 26.0.1, iOS 26.0.1 and my old iPad has a 16.x upgrade. I’m indifferent about Liquid Glass. I suspect it looks better with a high density display. I use an external cheap monitor and although my iPhone SE3 is Retina it’s a small screen.

Wed October 01 2025

Sleep 0630 to 1030 (4 hours)

• C3+S dinner. Got delivery from La Petite Camille. CSr and I talked about the various BattleTech systems. MechWarrior Destiny RPG has a fairly cut-down version of BT but you still have 1/4-sized Mech sheets. There’s also a good fan mod that adds a few things to Destiny (e.g. rear armor).

Thu Oct 02 2025

Sleep 0015 to 0215, 0700 to 1215 (7-1/4 hours)

• After a couple of days with iOS 26 I change my mind and Liquid Glass looks nice on my iPhone SE3. I changed the background to Earth closeup which I think works better with the Liquid Glass app folders.

Fri Oct 03 2025

Sleep 0615 to 1230 (6-1/4 hours)

• DDO tonight since CSr is camping tomorrow. We did a couple of the City of Portals arc at R3.

Xcrawl Xtreme Dungeon Crawl Superbundle from Humble Bundle.

"Roleplay as a hero in a live-streaming-obsessed society where fame, power, and survival are always on the line."

This is basically

Xcrawl RPG (2004) plus adventures - this is the OGL version
Maximum Xcrawl RPG (2014) plus adventures - this is the Pathfinder version
Xcrawl Classics RPG (2024) plus adventures - the DCC version
DCC RPG plus a few anthology/magazine items that have Xcrawl adventures

Forty-four items for $30 and mostly adventures so that's nice. Some adventures are in multiple versions and I suspect only with updated stats.

I feel indifferent about buying this.

[RapidWeaver Classic crashed as I was finishing the first version of this entry. I didn't want to resist all the items again so you get the brief summary above.]