Meadow of the Witch-Hares

In 2023 I started keeping track of all the books I read in a year using a table in my notebook, as I read a lot of books and often forget what I have read through in a year. I now collect data like how long it takes me to finish books, whether I finish them at all, page counts and so on. It is satisfying to see the numbers improve but I'm reflexively hateful toward goal-setting, so self-help isn't the aim of the exercise, I just want to remember what I read each year and maybe read a bit more each subsequent year. 2025 was a difficult year full of setbacks, but it was pretty great for books! Here are some of my favourites, with honourable mentions at the end for books I liked but can't fit into a category. THE BOOK THAT MOST SURPRISED ME A View Across the Valley Stories by Women from Wales c.1850-1950 Edited by Jane Aaron ISBN: 978-1-909983-88-5 I picked this one up whilst on holiday in North Wales. I always love a short story collection (I'm particularly fond of the Ta...

  The Meadow of the Witch-Hares has lain fallow for too long. Flu has tore through the nation and posts have died overripe on the proverbial vine. Worst of all, the foul gait of Christmas lurches Bethlehem-ward to be born... I had a couple of posts in the pipeline that I ended up deleting as they felt insubstantial and hard to write. This ruleset is definitely slight but the point is to try and get my ego out of it and to get something on the page. I felt quite proud of the Selkie Class post but I was embarrassed by how little traction it got. I'm well enough to write again and I've let myself get out of practice so here: read these rules and get a good chuckle, if you run it that's a bonus. Here is a ruleset for running a Christmas Movie-themed one shot. It IS a surprise so do not tell your players what the game is called. Simply say it is a ruleset for playing a rom-com and rom-com adjacent Christmas movies as a TTRPG. The comedy of the game is having these silly Christma...

 Hello again! It's been a while, I've been writing a submission for a zine called 'Neuromyths' on the subject of neurodiversity and mythology. It's a short story called 'Changelings' and I'll link it and drum up a commentary when everything is in place, but for now I'm going to share a player class and monster stats all to do with Selkies! Selkie Hedge Mage, by Larry MacDougall for Magic: The Gathering WHAT IS A SELKIE? Selkies are mythological creatures from various folklores around the UK, but they tend to be particularly associated with the island of Orkney off the coast of Scotland. The tale I have heard (there are numerous variations) goes like this:     Once upon a time, there lived a lonely fisherman. He had no crew, no friends, no family. He would go out onto the sea in his one-man coracle and catch fish to feed himself, sometimes taking the extra haul to the market on the other side of the island, but never staying longer than his business d...