The Power of Counts-as

We’re in a new golden age of hacks, fan supplements, and indie games. The options we have for gaming are staggering and it feels like there’s a packet or zine out there waiting for you that will cover anything you want to do in a game. I’ve had conversations with friends and hobbyists about how these rules documents can help support narrative gaming by injecting additional flavor and options into games we already enjoy. Content creation is the zeitgeist and many of us feel the need to emulate the output of people on social media, defaulting to supporting narrative play by creating more documentation. In that, I think we have lost appreciation for one of the most basic and primal of all tools a narrative wargamer has; taking one thing and using its rules to represent another.

Guest Article: The Cult of the Mushroom God

By Bonespoon (https://bonespoonminis.io/)

For NEMO 2025, I wanted to put together a new warband (because I don’t have enough warbands, of course) and I wanted to use these cool old metal goblins I had traded for at a oldhammer meetup in New Jersey. Thus The Cult of the Mushroom God was born!

Shaman Gutrot was a well-respected night goblin wizard, a pillar of the community, but had a strong predilection towards madcap mushrooms. After one particularly vicious mushroom trip, he fell into a coma for seven weeks. On his journey, he was granted a vision- Gork and Mork are not two separate beings, but truly are just two sides of one beautiful, mushroomy being- the Mushroom God. Awaking from his coma, the shaman rushed to spread the good word. Quickly condemned as a heretic, he was driven from the World’s Edge mountains with a small band of followers. Seeking power and resources to spread the gospel of the Mushroom God, the warband has wandered the Empire, finding themselves on the edge of the City of the Damned...

Guest Articles

 Over the last year, I've received a lot of submissions for Portcullis Magazine. The limitations of 26 pages of print have kept me from being able to include a number of them due to their length, color needs, number of pictures, or because they overlapped too much with an existing article. Recently, ideas for submissions began to come in for Portcullis 3 and I found the same thing happening again. What a waste! Our community is doing so much great stuff and it feels really fucking silly not sharing something cool because of printing logistics. 

I am opening up the Portcullis blog to guest articles so these submissions have a home. I'll also be accepting Portcullis submissions year-round at portcullismagazine@gmail.com from now on. If you have an army you want to showcase, new rules for a game you love, a tactics article, painting tutorial, battle report, or anything tabletop related you'd like to have featured in a future zine or guest post, I am waiting to read what you've got!