Ricky Broome
@karanthir.bsky.social
Recovering academic who just can't seem to quit
Pinned
Ricky Broome
@karanthir.bsky.social
· Aug 11
I'm nothing if not self-deprecating.
And I'm not even that good at being self-deprecating.
And I'm not even that good at being self-deprecating.
Reposted by Ricky Broome
We’re two sales off making $10 from this sale!
Just noticed I must have ticked a box as our new issue is currently discounted on DriveThruRPG & only around £2 there
RPGs vs the Cold War!
Rick Priestley talks esoteric christianity & Warhammer!
Triangle Agency gets weird!
Castle Rat unleash the beasts!
Undaunted's war stories!
& lots more!
RPGs vs the Cold War!
Rick Priestley talks esoteric christianity & Warhammer!
Triangle Agency gets weird!
Castle Rat unleash the beasts!
Undaunted's war stories!
& lots more!
Wyrd Science (Vol.1, Issue 7) - Wyrd Science | DriveThruRPG
The award winning Wyrd Science returns for another exploration of the strange worlds and new horizons of tabletop games...
In this issue...
Roleplaying Games & the Cold War! What can they tell us ...
www.drivethrurpg.com
November 30, 2025 at 2:20 PM
We’re two sales off making $10 from this sale!
Reposted by Ricky Broome
November's North Sea dispatches from me
Early seascape photography, surprising scallop shells and Scandinavian flatpack homes
North Sea Dispatches #04
northseanexus.substack.com
November 30, 2025 at 8:51 AM
November's North Sea dispatches from me
Reposted by Ricky Broome
But thank you all for bearing with me on this alphabetical countdown - LITTLE KINGDOMS IS NOW OUT (or at least, it has been for a few days / weeks depending on where you are)
More info; www.pen-and-sword.co.uk/Little-Kingd...
Hope all readers enjoy!
More info; www.pen-and-sword.co.uk/Little-Kingd...
Hope all readers enjoy!
Little Kingdoms
Before England, Wales, and Scotland were created, before Alfred the Great and the Great Viking Army, before even a raid on Lindisfarne, the kingdoms that…
www.pen-and-sword.co.uk
November 30, 2025 at 1:06 PM
But thank you all for bearing with me on this alphabetical countdown - LITTLE KINGDOMS IS NOW OUT (or at least, it has been for a few days / weeks depending on where you are)
More info; www.pen-and-sword.co.uk/Little-Kingd...
Hope all readers enjoy!
More info; www.pen-and-sword.co.uk/Little-Kingd...
Hope all readers enjoy!
Reposted by Ricky Broome
£2.38 for the latest Wyrd Science?
And what's that? you can then get £2.50 off the print copy if you wisely think this would be nice to ostentatiously read in a coffee shop and have other people think you look pretty hot
seems like a pretty decent deal tbh
www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/5...
And what's that? you can then get £2.50 off the print copy if you wisely think this would be nice to ostentatiously read in a coffee shop and have other people think you look pretty hot
seems like a pretty decent deal tbh
www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/5...
Wyrd Science (Vol.1, Issue 7) - Wyrd Science | DriveThruRPG
The award winning Wyrd Science returns for another exploration of the strange worlds and new horizons of tabletop games...
In this issue...
Roleplaying Games & the Cold War! What can they tell us ...
www.drivethrurpg.com
November 29, 2025 at 4:09 PM
£2.38 for the latest Wyrd Science?
And what's that? you can then get £2.50 off the print copy if you wisely think this would be nice to ostentatiously read in a coffee shop and have other people think you look pretty hot
seems like a pretty decent deal tbh
www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/5...
And what's that? you can then get £2.50 off the print copy if you wisely think this would be nice to ostentatiously read in a coffee shop and have other people think you look pretty hot
seems like a pretty decent deal tbh
www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/5...
Reposted by Ricky Broome
Following a pleasant discussion with @maniagnosis.bsky.social, here’s my old thread on evidence for pre-Lindisfarne viking activity
Its miserable weather in the UK so how about some early medieval facts? I present a short dive into viking raids on England before the famous raid on Lindisfarne in 793
#VikingSky #MedievalSky #Vikings
#VikingSky #MedievalSky #Vikings
November 29, 2025 at 4:52 PM
Following a pleasant discussion with @maniagnosis.bsky.social, here’s my old thread on evidence for pre-Lindisfarne viking activity
Reposted by Ricky Broome
Delighted to be returning to the @imc-leeds.bsky.social in 2026 - quite a busy one this year, too! I'll be joined by my good friends @karanthir.bsky.social and @history-w-hilbert.bsky.social across 2 panels dedicated to the Early Medieval Frisians, perhaps a first for the IMC!
November 29, 2025 at 12:22 PM
Delighted to be returning to the @imc-leeds.bsky.social in 2026 - quite a busy one this year, too! I'll be joined by my good friends @karanthir.bsky.social and @history-w-hilbert.bsky.social across 2 panels dedicated to the Early Medieval Frisians, perhaps a first for the IMC!
Reposted by Ricky Broome
In this week’s @strangehorizons.bsky.social, one of my favourite pieces I’ve edited this year — on orientalism from Star Trek to Game of Thrones.
Photon Torpedoes Break the Space Muqarnas: SFF Audiovisuals and Anti-Muslim Violence,” by Tanvir Ahmed —
strangehorizons.com/wordpress/no...
Photon Torpedoes Break the Space Muqarnas: SFF Audiovisuals and Anti-Muslim Violence,” by Tanvir Ahmed —
strangehorizons.com/wordpress/no...
Photon Torpedoes Break the Space Muqarnas: SFF Audiovisuals and Anti-Muslim Violence
Dragon fire on white bodies is sad. Dragon fire on not-Muslim bodies is cheered on the screen. We ache when the scimitar prows of not-Muslim ships cleave through a white human captain’s ship. But b…
strangehorizons.com
November 28, 2025 at 9:24 AM
In this week’s @strangehorizons.bsky.social, one of my favourite pieces I’ve edited this year — on orientalism from Star Trek to Game of Thrones.
Photon Torpedoes Break the Space Muqarnas: SFF Audiovisuals and Anti-Muslim Violence,” by Tanvir Ahmed —
strangehorizons.com/wordpress/no...
Photon Torpedoes Break the Space Muqarnas: SFF Audiovisuals and Anti-Muslim Violence,” by Tanvir Ahmed —
strangehorizons.com/wordpress/no...
Reposted by Ricky Broome
From a workplace talk on AI™ and assessment design, I remember the substantive content less than the filler images of "university students." No extra fingers or hair bleeding into clothes, but they sat in classrooms while also wearing grad caps and gowns, totally normal human behavior. 1/2
It's also just distracting because usually the image has some weirdness to it, and it doesn't tend to add explanatory value. So if you're just adding them for ambience or to represent a generic concept, just use a regular picture.
I don’t know if anyone else notices or cares, but when I see a presentation in which the speaker uses obviously generated-AI images to illustrate their slides, it makes me immediately less confident in whatever other content they’re presenting.
November 28, 2025 at 4:56 PM
From a workplace talk on AI™ and assessment design, I remember the substantive content less than the filler images of "university students." No extra fingers or hair bleeding into clothes, but they sat in classrooms while also wearing grad caps and gowns, totally normal human behavior. 1/2
Rumours of my return to the IMC are true.
November 28, 2025 at 4:34 PM
Rumours of my return to the IMC are true.
Reposted by Ricky Broome
We’re hovering just below 50% funded so make my day and get us over the half-way mark, pretty please.
Secret Passages #3 is now live on Kickstarter, and I'm THRILLED to be joined by @jordansorcery.bsky.social for A Regrettable Mystery of Pyrates, a swashbuckling cosmic horror adventure oozing early #WFRP vibes.
Throw it some dubloons at www.kickstarter.com/projects/jdh...
#ttrpg #oldhammer
Throw it some dubloons at www.kickstarter.com/projects/jdh...
#ttrpg #oldhammer
Secret Passages #3: An Old School RPG and Oldhammer Magazine
Packed with interviews and illustrations, this is the third issue of a new zine exploring the tabletop games that raised us.
www.kickstarter.com
November 28, 2025 at 3:07 PM
We’re hovering just below 50% funded so make my day and get us over the half-way mark, pretty please.
Reposted by Ricky Broome
But who is to say an earthwork is a linear border? Who is to say the Pictish kingdom of Cé stopped at X point and went no further?
Long have people used such marks in the landscape to find little kingdoms, often uncritically; people, instead of place, ought to be prioritised, as they once were
Long have people used such marks in the landscape to find little kingdoms, often uncritically; people, instead of place, ought to be prioritised, as they once were
November 28, 2025 at 6:06 AM
But who is to say an earthwork is a linear border? Who is to say the Pictish kingdom of Cé stopped at X point and went no further?
Long have people used such marks in the landscape to find little kingdoms, often uncritically; people, instead of place, ought to be prioritised, as they once were
Long have people used such marks in the landscape to find little kingdoms, often uncritically; people, instead of place, ought to be prioritised, as they once were
Reposted by Ricky Broome
Did you ever wonder how the Early Medieval state worked? (And what it was ...?) - Here is my take on it. doi.org/10.1080/0304...
The Common Good: Military Service as Community Organisation in the Carolingian World
The Carolingian empire under Charlemagne (768–814) and Louis the Pious (814– 840) was a polity deeply shaped by war, or, more specifically, the organisation of warfare. Taking the – for its time – ...
doi.org
November 28, 2025 at 7:45 AM
Did you ever wonder how the Early Medieval state worked? (And what it was ...?) - Here is my take on it. doi.org/10.1080/0304...
Reposted by Ricky Broome
This week on the blog - are we thinking about Tang China all wrong? Fear not, a western medieval historian is on the case! #medievalsky #china
salutemmundo.wordpress.com/2025/11/27/b...
salutemmundo.wordpress.com/2025/11/27/b...
Balancing the Tang: Thoughts by an Outsider on Early Medieval China
I’ve recently had reason to be thinking about Tang China (618-907). The empire of the Tang is fascinating for an early medievalist whose normal stomping grounds lie in western Eurasia. This is in p…
salutemmundo.wordpress.com
November 27, 2025 at 2:45 PM
This week on the blog - are we thinking about Tang China all wrong? Fear not, a western medieval historian is on the case! #medievalsky #china
salutemmundo.wordpress.com/2025/11/27/b...
salutemmundo.wordpress.com/2025/11/27/b...
Reposted by Ricky Broome
@lollardfish.bsky.social has set in motion a positive social media trend urging authors to advertise their own book! too often it can feel like we do this too much, but perhaps it is never enough
Anyway, my new book! www.pen-and-sword.co.uk/Little-Kingd...
Anyway, my new book! www.pen-and-sword.co.uk/Little-Kingd...
Little Kingdoms
Before England, Wales, and Scotland were created, before Alfred the Great and the Great Viking Army, before even a raid on Lindisfarne, the kingdoms that…
www.pen-and-sword.co.uk
November 27, 2025 at 7:24 AM
@lollardfish.bsky.social has set in motion a positive social media trend urging authors to advertise their own book! too often it can feel like we do this too much, but perhaps it is never enough
Anyway, my new book! www.pen-and-sword.co.uk/Little-Kingd...
Anyway, my new book! www.pen-and-sword.co.uk/Little-Kingd...
Reposted by Ricky Broome
So, trying something new today. as our new issue is on sale at DriveThruRPG I just had an idea & added an extra file, a voucher with a code which will get you the price of the PDF (in fact a few pennies more) off at our store so you can upgrade to print for free & escape the tyranny of your screens
Wyrd Science (Vol.1, Issue 7) - Wyrd Science | DriveThruRPG
The award winning Wyrd Science returns for another exploration of the strange worlds and new horizons of tabletop games...
In this issue...
Roleplaying Games & the Cold War! What can they tell us ...
www.drivethrurpg.com
November 27, 2025 at 11:49 AM
So, trying something new today. as our new issue is on sale at DriveThruRPG I just had an idea & added an extra file, a voucher with a code which will get you the price of the PDF (in fact a few pennies more) off at our store so you can upgrade to print for free & escape the tyranny of your screens
Reposted by Ricky Broome
Secret Passages #3 is now live on Kickstarter, and I'm THRILLED to be joined by @jordansorcery.bsky.social for A Regrettable Mystery of Pyrates, a swashbuckling cosmic horror adventure oozing early #WFRP vibes.
Throw it some dubloons at www.kickstarter.com/projects/jdh...
#ttrpg #oldhammer
Throw it some dubloons at www.kickstarter.com/projects/jdh...
#ttrpg #oldhammer
Secret Passages #3: An Old School RPG and Oldhammer Magazine
Packed with interviews and illustrations, this is the third issue of a new zine exploring the tabletop games that raised us.
www.kickstarter.com
November 26, 2025 at 7:23 PM
Secret Passages #3 is now live on Kickstarter, and I'm THRILLED to be joined by @jordansorcery.bsky.social for A Regrettable Mystery of Pyrates, a swashbuckling cosmic horror adventure oozing early #WFRP vibes.
Throw it some dubloons at www.kickstarter.com/projects/jdh...
#ttrpg #oldhammer
Throw it some dubloons at www.kickstarter.com/projects/jdh...
#ttrpg #oldhammer
Dan Abnett's Eisenhorn trilogy. Funds will also be made available for tv spin-offs of every short story and the Ravenor and Bequin trilogies.
If you were a despotic president, what movie would you force Hollywood to make? I want to see Quentin's Star Trek movie or maybe Kill Bill Vol 3.
November 26, 2025 at 5:18 PM
Dan Abnett's Eisenhorn trilogy. Funds will also be made available for tv spin-offs of every short story and the Ravenor and Bequin trilogies.
Reposted by Ricky Broome
This is what Peak Male Performance looks like.
November 26, 2025 at 7:59 AM
This is what Peak Male Performance looks like.
Reposted by Ricky Broome
A second Thor's hammer find this year in Østfold (Norway)
November 26, 2025 at 1:23 PM
A second Thor's hammer find this year in Østfold (Norway)
Reposted by Ricky Broome
Just noticed I must have ticked a box as our new issue is currently discounted on DriveThruRPG & only around £2 there
RPGs vs the Cold War!
Rick Priestley talks esoteric christianity & Warhammer!
Triangle Agency gets weird!
Castle Rat unleash the beasts!
Undaunted's war stories!
& lots more!
RPGs vs the Cold War!
Rick Priestley talks esoteric christianity & Warhammer!
Triangle Agency gets weird!
Castle Rat unleash the beasts!
Undaunted's war stories!
& lots more!
Wyrd Science (Vol.1, Issue 7) - Wyrd Science | DriveThruRPG
The award winning Wyrd Science returns for another exploration of the strange worlds and new horizons of tabletop games...
In this issue...
Roleplaying Games & the Cold War! What can they tell us ...
www.drivethrurpg.com
November 26, 2025 at 4:08 PM
Just noticed I must have ticked a box as our new issue is currently discounted on DriveThruRPG & only around £2 there
RPGs vs the Cold War!
Rick Priestley talks esoteric christianity & Warhammer!
Triangle Agency gets weird!
Castle Rat unleash the beasts!
Undaunted's war stories!
& lots more!
RPGs vs the Cold War!
Rick Priestley talks esoteric christianity & Warhammer!
Triangle Agency gets weird!
Castle Rat unleash the beasts!
Undaunted's war stories!
& lots more!
Reposted by Ricky Broome
Welcome to a new series of posts titled Peeling Back the Leather where we will be interviewing folks from some small(ish) labels that are operating in the metal community. First up, the ever-resilient @fiadh.bsky.social!
https://loom.ly/5Vs81tM
https://loom.ly/5Vs81tM
Peeling Back the Label // Fiadh Productions
Welcome to a new series of posts run by yours truly titled Peeling Back the Leather (at least until I find a more clever name)
www.heavyblogisheavy.com
November 25, 2025 at 8:43 PM
Welcome to a new series of posts titled Peeling Back the Leather where we will be interviewing folks from some small(ish) labels that are operating in the metal community. First up, the ever-resilient @fiadh.bsky.social!
https://loom.ly/5Vs81tM
https://loom.ly/5Vs81tM
Reposted by Ricky Broome
a fun, free ttrpg set in the (legally distinct and free for use) warhammer 40K world where, instead of being a hulking space marine, you play as a downtrodden and oppressed space serf:
slowlorispress.com/post/8005714...
slowlorispress.com/post/8005714...
CHAPTER SERF
CHAPTER SERF is a tabletop roleplaying game and adventure, set in Warhammer 40K, where you play those hooded peasant weirdos you sometimes spot in the backgrounds of the art.
Full PDF downloadable...
slowlorispress.com
November 25, 2025 at 6:03 PM
a fun, free ttrpg set in the (legally distinct and free for use) warhammer 40K world where, instead of being a hulking space marine, you play as a downtrodden and oppressed space serf:
slowlorispress.com/post/8005714...
slowlorispress.com/post/8005714...
Reposted by Ricky Broome
Officially out in the Journal of Medieval History vol. 51.5, my article on the intersection of viking activity and the Icelandic conversion (c. 1000AD) and how religious concerns shaped saga conceptions of the viking past.
Víking Across Conversion: Depictions of Víkingar in the Sagas of Icelanders
Vikings commonly feature in the Íslendingasögur (Sagas of Icelanders). The words víking (the act of raiding) or víkingr (a raider) appear over 180 times across the forty-some texts of the corpus. H...
www.tandfonline.com
November 25, 2025 at 1:35 PM
Officially out in the Journal of Medieval History vol. 51.5, my article on the intersection of viking activity and the Icelandic conversion (c. 1000AD) and how religious concerns shaped saga conceptions of the viking past.
Reposted by Ricky Broome
Haven't received as many contributions as usual for this year's lists--could be many things, but one aspect is surely that our ability to get this in front of people is much diminished. If you know folks whose stuff should be on here, please suggest it! contingentmagazine.org/yearly-pub-l...
Publications by Non-Tenure-Track Historians
Since we began publishing in 2019, Contingent has published end-of-year lists of books and articles by non-tenure-track historians released in the past calendar year. To submit something for inclusion...
contingentmagazine.org
November 24, 2025 at 3:39 PM
Haven't received as many contributions as usual for this year's lists--could be many things, but one aspect is surely that our ability to get this in front of people is much diminished. If you know folks whose stuff should be on here, please suggest it! contingentmagazine.org/yearly-pub-l...
Reposted by Ricky Broome
Happy 16th birthday to my favourite edition of #WFRP - the third edition! The preview adventure "A Day Late, A Shilling Short" was released 23rd November 2009, with the Core Box Set following two days later. May it continue to be the most divisive version for years to come!
November 23, 2025 at 4:29 PM
Happy 16th birthday to my favourite edition of #WFRP - the third edition! The preview adventure "A Day Late, A Shilling Short" was released 23rd November 2009, with the Core Box Set following two days later. May it continue to be the most divisive version for years to come!