Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Marsh Davies

@marshdavies.bsky.social

2.8K followers 1.9K following 860 posts

Writer & illustrator. Former head of creative writing at Mojang. Making horrid TTRPGs about cursed pies, hogmen and worse. https://teethrpg.itch.io/

teethrpg.itch.io

Posts Media Videos Starter Packs

Pinned

Marsh Davies @marshdavies.bsky.social · Sep 18

Our roleplaying game:
- squirms with aquatic awfulness
- invites revenge upon King George III
- has diagrams explaining how wind works
- is now funded
- still won't pay my bills (but YOU could change that, maybe)

Please ameliorate my financial terror by backing:
www.kickstarter.com/projects/149...

An advert for GOLD TEETH: "A grotesquely comic tabletop roleplaying game about piracy and occult horror in a cursed corner of the Caribbean." The picture of the book looks nice. Desirable, even.

3 27 78

Marsh Davies @marshdavies.bsky.social · 54m

Can I finish making this book before Microsoft render computers as a concept completely untenable? It's a tight race!

Tom Warren @tomwarren.co.uk · 3h

This is the future of Windows. Microsoft wants to rewrite Windows to turn computers into AI PCs that you talk to. It's now bringing AI features to all Windows 11 PCs today, in a bid to convince you to talk to your PC and let AI control it. Full details 👇 www.theverge.com/news/799768/...

Microsoft wants you to talk to your PC and let AI control it

Copilot Voice and Vision are now rolling out.

www.theverge.com

1 5

Marsh Davies @marshdavies.bsky.social · 2h

Naomi is reliably a good 5-10 years ahead of everyone else's thinking: this will be an essential read. Pre-order it! And, while you're at it, maybe buy her last novel, The Future, which predicted much of our current moment down to individual headlines (while also being an absolute banging thriller).

Naomi Alderman @naomialderman.bsky.social · 20h

my new book is out ONE MONTH TODAY. like all authors I am going to be going on & on about it, & encouraging you to pre-order

I do actually think this topic is genuinely important, I want to grab everyone by the lapels to tell them

but, you can mute: #dontburn

www.penguin.co.uk/books/469677...

Don’t Burn Anyone at the Stake Today

What’s the most useful thing you could know about your own life? In this era-defining book, developed from her groundbreaking Radio 4 essay series, Naomi Alderman turns her boundless curiosity and in...

www.penguin.co.uk

1 6

Reposted by Marsh Davies

Edward Delandre @dedart.bsky.social · 22h

I did another one for spooky season, I am not painting trees ever again by the way
Oil painting on panel 18"x14"

8 230 1.3K

Marsh Davies @marshdavies.bsky.social · 3d

EEEE! EEE! EEEEE!

Cropped illustration-in-progress featuring an enraged monkey in a bicorn hat, crushing a banana.

Reposted by Marsh Davies

NearlyKnowledgeable @g0blinegg.bsky.social · 4d

I adore this ghost ridden land 🦇

#ghosts #Shropshire #paranormal #Folklore

2 20 180

Reposted by Marsh Davies

Sardonicus @sardonicus.eu · 4d

George Mackley’s wood engraving The Deserted Farm, 1952

a road crossing a narrow stone bridge, a broken tree, still with leaves, and a larger house by the road side

2 29 160

Reposted by Marsh Davies

Nick Harkaway @nickharkaway.com · 4d

I feel people may not have liked the idea of telling the government what they did with their time.

waltydunlop @waltydunlop.bsky.social · 4d

Job occupations, from an 1881 census. Every one of these sounds like something a sorely provoked Captain Haddock would should at someone in times of heavy stress.

13 27 140

Reposted by Marsh Davies

Bloody Mary (mirror entity, not cocktail) @marygillis.bsky.social · 8d

The plot of the next Simpsons movie should be the kids at Springfield Elementary digging up a time capsule that was buried 40 years ago and realizing they're the same children who buried it because their world hasn't aged in 4 decades.

23 230 1.3K

Marsh Davies @marshdavies.bsky.social · 5d

Tremendous time podding this one. Also: if you're a fan of Obra Dinn or Her Story, don't sleep on Mind Diver (@minddivergame.bsky.social) - classy info-game stuff with an artful use of photogrammetry!

The Crate and Crowbar @crateandcrowbar.bsky.social · 5d

Pod! @cjpt.bsky.social @matronboy.bsky.social and @marshdavies.bsky.social discuss what the f Silent Hill f is about, and then take a cathartically large dump on Alien: Earth. Plus other fab games: Sword Hero, Jump Space and Mind Diver!

crateandcrowbar.com/2025/10/10/e...

Thumbnail for Episode 452 of the Crate and Crowbar, entitled "Bog-Muppet Territory" and featuring screenshots from Jump Space, Alien: Earth and Silent Hill f.

4 4 11

Marsh Davies @marshdavies.bsky.social · 7d

His comments on Rupert Murdoch's media empire and its coarsening of discourse and subjugation of politics are enormously prescient. He did have hope though, back in 1994, that it could all be turned around. I wonder if he'd still think that.

Marsh Davies @marshdavies.bsky.social · 7d

Extraordinary 1994 interview with Dennis Potter, recorded in anticipation of his imminent death. Melvyn Bragg only gets a couple of questions in, but Potter's off - on TV, God, the corruption of the press and politics, sex, past, present - buoyed along by champagne, cigarettes and liquid morphine.

Dennis Potter - Seeing the Blossom

YouTube video by Mr. Braddock

youtu.be

1 10

Reposted by Marsh Davies

Rabih Alameddine @rabihalameddine.bsky.social · 7d

Rockwell Kent, "Moonlight in the Adirondacks", 1960, Oil on canvas, 24" x 36"

1 18 140

Reposted by Marsh Davies

Evan Narcisse @evnarc.bsky.social · 7d

Y'know, when people have asked me about my dream game, I've always said a runaway slave + Underground Railroad project or something set in or around the Haitian Revolution.

Someone somewhere is already taking this on and infusing the work with all the courage that the subject matter deserves.

Stephen Totilo @stephentotilo.bsky.social · 7d

SCOOP: Last year, Ubisoft cancelled an Assassin's Creed game set during Reconstruction. Was to feature a Black Assassin who, among other things, fought the rise of the Klan

Sources: Leadership nixed it over concerns re: U.S. political climate, backlash to Yasuke

www.gamefile.news/p/scoop-ubis...

Scoop: Ubisoft cancelled a post-Civil War Assassin’s Creed last year

Company leadership deemed the project too controversial for the moment, sources tell Game File

www.gamefile.news

12 110 560

Reposted by Marsh Davies

Harry Turtledove @hntdove.bsky.social · 8d

Here's your daily dose of weirdness for today!

Altered Calvin and Hobbes cartoon.

First panel. Calvin's dad says, "what story would you like to read tonight? Anything except..."

Calvin: "The Voynich Manuscript?"

Second panel. Calvin's dad, exasperated: "No! No Voynich Manuscript tonight!"

Calvin: "I want the Voynich Manuscript !"

Third panel. Calvin's sad: "Look, you know how the story goes! You've memorized the whole thing! It's completely unreadable!"

Calvin: "I want mysterious glyphs and symbols!"

Fourth panel. Calvin: "Wow! The story was different thatvtime!"

Hobbes: indecipherable squiggles

7 65 290

Marsh Davies @marshdavies.bsky.social · 8d

I desperately need to hear politicians saying this. www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vz0o...

Give me a single reason why Sora2 should exist.

YouTube video by Hank Green

www.youtube.com

1 9

Reposted by Marsh Davies

Chris Schilling @schillingc.bsky.social · 10d

Played Consume Me. Loved Consume Me. www.theguardian.com/games/2025/o...

Consume Me review - anything but empty calories

A teenage slice-of-life tale, an energy-management challenge and a satire of diet culture – this indie award-winner is a flavoursome treat

www.theguardian.com

3 59 250

Reposted by Marsh Davies

Marsh Davies @marshdavies.bsky.social · 10d

Here's one of the locations you will likely visit in GOLD TEETH, at a rather larger resolution than permitted by our newsletter. Unless you're on your phone, in which case Bsky has probably fucked it.

A map of Great New Plymouth. It's a port town - though the waterline has receded greatly, leaving an expanse of silt scattered with the wrecks of ships. Above looms an ugly grey fort and, beyond, the land rises towards a volcanic mountain range.

2 5 16

Marsh Davies @marshdavies.bsky.social · 10d

Superb thread about a sad pumpkin man.

Matt Thrower @mattthr.bsky.social · 10d

So today's Halloween newsletter from @lauraehall.bsky.social features this Japanese pumpkin monster and two intruiging tidbits about it - it's the only known image of this creature and it's from a *board game*.

So of course, I had to know more, which lead me down a really fun rabbit hole

1/x

Marsh Davies @marshdavies.bsky.social · 10d

Wow! I'm honoured! Big fan of what you've done with Mappa Mundi.

1 1

Reposted by Marsh Davies

P. Puck @peapuck.bsky.social · Jul 23

A witch opening a can of Fancy Bastard 🥫😋

2 69 400

Marsh Davies @marshdavies.bsky.social · 10d

This is so in my wheelhouse it might be the wheel itself.

Three Sails Studios @threesailsstudios.bsky.social · 10d

Gallows Corner is the next game from Three Sails Studios after the success of Mappa Mundi, our debut release.

But what IS Gallows Corner? What is a Peasants' Revolt RPG? This week, you'll find out. Today, we're talking setting!

The front cover of Gallows Corner - A Peasants' Revolt RPG.

A gallows and noose are silhouetted against a full moon. An ornate border of thorns and brambles extends around the edge of the cover.

2 1 7

Marsh Davies @marshdavies.bsky.social · 10d

A very sensible place to stop by. The Punchbowl's premier supplier of the things you most desperately need at prices you'll hate.

Marsh Davies @marshdavies.bsky.social · 10d

Also in the newsletter at a questionably useful resolution: this table to generate sea monsters. It even comes with serving suggestions!

A large table that you roll on multiple times to assemble the characteristics of your sea monster. The last column suggests how you might prepare it for dinner, e.g. "Lungs grated over a bed of fried chicken livers." Mmm! Finger-licking good!

Marsh Davies @marshdavies.bsky.social · 10d

2 5 16

Marsh Davies @marshdavies.bsky.social · 12d

♥️ An extra serving of lobscouse for this one, and don't spare the weevils!