Author: Eppu

World of Warcraft Gets Cozy with a New Housing System

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For a while, there have been rumblings that World of Warcraft characters will get a new home base of sorts, perhaps a little like garrisons in the Warlords of Draenor expansion. This new system has been dubbed housing.

In a news article “A First Look at Housing” from February 2025, Blizzard describes some of their design priorities: customization (adjusting the widest possible range of features in your house), ability to socialize (unlike garrisons, player housing is supposed to encourage interacting), and longevity (like pet battling or transmog, it is here to stay).

In addition, it’s designed to scale with the player’s interest, namely spending as little or as much time as you want on housing. However, they didn’t yet say whether it’s possible to skip entirely. If, as it’s likely, there will be introductory quests to unlock housing, it should be a simple matter to just not do anything house-related.

I mean, I am one of those geeks who will want to dive in right away and fine-tune things to my heart’s content. But not everyone cares about the same kinds of gaming. (I’m still miffed at Blizzard trying to force pvp on all players. Nope, that won’t happen; I refuse, and if it means I won’t see some of the story or get certain rewards, then I won’t. Anyway.)

To begin with, Alliance will apparently have one housing zone (inspired mainly by Elwynn Forest, with some Westfall and Duskwood sprinkled in) and Horde another one (inspired by Durotar, its coastline, and Azshara), with “more possible places to live in the future”.

It’s still unclear how the system will work exactly. For example, how players will access their zones and the houses within has not yet been revealed. What we do know is that “[y]our houses are also shared amongst your Warband with your different characters being able to come and go” regardless of faction, and that “[h]ousing rewards are also shared across your Warband”. But does that mean we can have, say, multiple Horde houses and no Alliance ones at all? They do use a plural in your houses. Or are players limited at launch to one on the Horde and another on the Alliance side?

It seems there are also two decoration themes, one dubbed folk (which looks a little more Alliance-flavored) and the other rugged (more Horde style). Whether we’ll be able to mix and match items between the themes is still unclear, though. It’s reportedly been confirmed that players will be allowed to mix and match aesthetics.

Blizzard Azeroth Beautiful Sample Bedroom

The ability to visit your friends’ or guildmates’ houses sounds fabulous. But in addition to housing zones, there are also neighborhoods, which are instanced and can be either public or private, with room for 50 houses. That raises more questions—what about houses within a public neighborhood? (Or private, for that matter.) Is just anyone able to walk right in, or will there be some limits at the plot boundary (like in a real-life town)? Will we be able to name our private neighborhoods? Or houses? What will happen to cities—will everyone just decamp to housing zones when not conducting, say, auction house business, visiting a barbershop, or training? Can we pull out mounts in housing zones? Will there even be a reason to visit an auction house in a city, if your mount can provide for you?

Currently decoration edits are divided into two modes, basic and advanced. While the basic mode allows you to quickly place items in a, well, basic order, the advanced mode barely restricts you: the post “A Look at Housing Interior Design” from March 2025 says that “[i]nternally using this, [Blizzard] employees have taken bushes and made them into garland [sic] for their fireplaces, constructed a boat’s prow from a bed, or made paint buckets into small spice racks for their kitchens.”

There’s a short compilation video of some work-in-progress customization options:

A place in Azeroth of your very own by World of Warcraft on YouTube

Looks absolutely fantastic! Even if all of the assets might not work exactly like this in the final version, it looks like there will, indeed, be a massive amount of details you can tweak, from floorplan to moving windows to placing objects on top of others to adjusting some of the colors, and more.

Another fantastic (literally!) feature is that the house interiors will not be limited by the exterior footprint. (Think of the mage tower in Stormwind.) Apparently the inside can also follow a different style than the outside, but more than that we do not yet know.

I find this concept of player housing very exciting! I’m tracking the release info, so I’ll know when to block time off in my calendar and what real-life events I might have to work around. At the moment there’s only speculation, though. The most specific I’ve seen so far is prior to the next expansion (WoW: Midnight) maybe around mid-December, while “winter 2025” is confirmed but still aggravatingly unspecific.

It’s currently also unclear whether players will be required to purchase Midnight in order to access housing.

Ohwell. As long as it’s actually a good system, I can wait. But it would be a treat to get to play in new housing over the Christmas break, wouldn’t it?

Of Dice and Dragons talks about games and gaming.

Tiny Baskets out of Local Materials

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Artist Suzie Grieve harvests materials from the local woodlands and fields in the Lake District, U.K., with a focus on the weeds and invasive species, and weaves baskets out of the fibers. And they are very neat and beautiful:

Instagram Suzie Grieve Miniatures

The twist? Some of her baskets are not just neat and beautiful, and they’re not just small, they’re tiny. T I N Y!

Instagram Suzie Grieve Tiny leafy basket
Instagram Suzie Grieve Two Tiny Baskets

Even if these baskets were of a more typical size, they would be impressive: the careful selection of materials to create stripes from naturally different colors, the planning and placement of patterns to create a pleasing whole, and the high quality of the work.

Then you shrink everything down to mere millimeters and centimeters, and the challenge grows larger. MUCH larger! I’ve done enough small-scale sewing to comprehend some of the challenges involved when scaling down the size of a project.

This is seriously impressive work requiring skill, imagination, and dedication. Kudos!

Found via Colossal.

Images by Suzie Grieve on Instagram: Miniatures. Tiny leafy basket. Two baskets.

In Making Stuff we share fun arts and crafts done by us and our fellow geeks and nerds.

News on a Red Sonja Reboot

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If I ever heard of a Red Sonja reboot project, I must’ve immediately forgotten it, for the fate of movie projects is unknowable and often fickle, and that is multiplied for genre projects starring women.

Now, though, it sounds like Millennium Media’s Red Sonja is due for release later this year in the UK and Ireland. This version is directed by M.J. Bassett and written by Tasha Huo and Roy Thomas on the basis of Robert E. Howard’s original comic book characters. Matilda Lutz plays Sonja.

At this writing, IMDB doesn’t list much information and has only 10 photos for the production, including a poster.

IMDB 2025 Red Sonja Poster

Interestingly, IMDB also lists Roy Thomas as an uncredited writer for the comic book. Thomas’s latest big-name project is Deadpool & Wolverine.

I hazily remember the previous adaptation from 1985 starring Brigitte Nielsen. ‘Twas the time when there were so few SFFnal movies and tv series in the boonies where I grew up that you pretty much had to see everything coming your way if you wanted to see anything. If I recall, it was like the 80s Conan adaptations—Conan the Barbarian in 1982 and Conan the Destroyer in 1984—which is to say pretty campy, but attempting very, very, very earnestly to bring epic fantasy to screen.

Bassett’s version is filmed in Bulgaria and Greece, and reportedly will have a different tone from male-gaze versions of the character. While both of these details sound promising, and while I would love to see more genre projects led and directed by women, somehow I seem to doubt the movie will be released on the big screen here in Finland. We’ll see.

Image via IMDB

Release Date for the Murderbot Series Is Announced

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In a press release last week, Apple TV+ announced the release date for their Murderbot adaptation. Yay! (The last I blogged about the series wasn’t even a year ago, so the production is moving right along…! Anyway.)

The first two installments of the 10-episode series will be streamed on Friday, May 16. This double feature will be followed by new episodes every Friday through July 11, 2025.

They also released the first two photos of actor and executive producer Alexander Skarsgård as Murderbot, one with helmet on and the other with helmet off.

Apple TV Murderbot Skarsgard2
Apple TV Murderbot Skarsgard1

There really isn’t much detail in these photos; I wish there was a little more. Stylistically they’re not too far off of what I imagined on the basis of the books, except that Murderbot’s armor looks too flimsy. (Maybe they’ve written in a reason for that?)

This February’s press release also describes the series as a comedic thriller, which is interesting in itself. Yes, there are comedic elements, and yes, there is suspense and combat—in fact, I remember being flabbergasted when Murderbot exploded into action literally on page two of All Systems Red. I mean, it wasn’t a surprise that some fighting would be involved, but that quickly? It was an unusual attention-grabbing move to barely introduce your main character, never mind the world, before sweeping your readers into a fray with large hostile life forms with big teeth. Not to mention the trouble at the DeltFall survey site and the threat of EvilSurvey that steadily mounts through the book. Makes me wonder exactly which aspect, the comedy or the thrill, has Apple TV decided to focus on, or if both feature equally, whether they’ll be able to pull off a nice balance.

The IMDB entry for Murderbot reveals another two tiny tidbits: there will be a spaceship named Twodor and a named side character Venenek, neither of which appear in Martha Wells’s original writings. I’m sure IMDB will fill in more info as the release draws nearer.

One thing is sure: this spring will be a great time to re-read Murderbot. Not that there’s ever a bad time. 🙂

Images via Apple TV+

Three Years of War in Ukraine

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Today marks three years since the beginning of Russia’s needless and embarrassing three-day special operation war in Ukraine. I very fervently wish I had been wrong about the length of the conflict.

Flickr Oleksandr K IMG_6390

As a Finn, it’s a little bewildering to think that technically our neighboring country is at war, for the fighting is so distant, literally a thousand kilometers away. Or was initially; as the years have gone by, action has been inching closer.

For one, Ukraine has started striking at targets within Russia. The closest target facility to us (so far, I think) is in Ust-Luga on the Gulf of Finland (its seaport handling oil and gas has seen more than one drone hit). That’s some 200 km / 130 miles as the bird flies from Helsinki—not that far away, really.

Mapcarta Baltic Sea w Ust-Luga

For another, there’s increased harassment outside active conflict zones. The biggest change in our neck of the woods came after Finland’s record-fast NATO membership in April 2023. Russian planes have a long history of breaching Finnish airspace from time to time, either as a test or out of boredom, or I don’t even know why. That’s nothing new, and they’ve continued the habit. In addition, now we and our European allies are facing acts like suspected potential sabotage of undersea cables and other forms of attempted hybrid influencing—break-ins at water treatment plants or reservoirs, unidentified drone sightings, hacking of computer systems, instrumentalizing of migrants heading to the EU, incendiary parcels, and GPS jamming, among others.

Reportedly, this type of disruption has been called “cognitive warfare”. The feel I get is that at the national level this sort of pestering is largely seen as an attempt at provocation, an old tactic we have some experience with.

From my point of view, the conflict in Ukraine feels like a proxy war. Their ability to mount an effective defense keeps the rest of us on the perimeter of Russia’s ambitions safe—or if not safe, exactly, at least safer and at least for now. As awful as it is, I kinda want the war to go on longer, because it engages Russia’s forces and focus in one place; when it ends, they will again have the resources to plan “special operations” elsewhere. Continuing conflict gives us time to update our defenses and channel more help to Ukraine.

But at the same time, I definitely do not want the war to continue. It’s dreadful, and it needs to end, with Ukraine’s independence intact. Please and thank you.

Images: Field in Ukraine by Oleksandr K via Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0). Map of Ust-Luga on the Baltic Sea via Mapcarta.

This post has been edited for clarity.

When the suckage just sucks too much.

Everyday Outfits Inspired by Middle Earth

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On Instagram, Alice as catinawitchhat styled a series of everyday outfits inspired by Middle-Earth. (She also pulled all the outfits together for a slideshow for those who prefer moving image.)

My favorite of Alice’s four collages is the first. It shows her versions of the Shire, Gandalf, and Erebor:

Instagram catinawitchhat Tolkien-Inspired1

The Lonely Mountain Dwarf ensemble is fantastic: the little touches of fur in her boots and the edges of the vest, the embroidery on the tunic, the warm-looking leggings, the knit armwarmers and chunky cardigan, they all contribute. Add to those the puffy shorts (or skirt?) plus the fairly simple leather accessories with brass-colored metal accents and visible, chunky topstitching. Very nice!

The third mashup is also very neat, with the three principal human cultures of the Lord of the Rings—the rangers, Rohan, and Gondor:

Instagram catinawitchhat Tolkien-Inspired3

Gondor is perfect, so austere and bleak. Her version of the rangers I find too dark for my liking—not a fan of black, even if it has its uses—but the profile I agree with.

Alice reminds the readers that her outfits aren’t cosplays, but her styling the contents of her wardrobe. And why not, if you can do it this well! While at times I don’t have exactly the same readings of the various Middle Earth cultures as she does, I do appreciate the combinations of elements from our mundane world and the suggestions she’s able to create through the careful selection of details. Makes me want to look at my closet with a new eye. 🙂

For more detail, visit the individual outfits in their own posts: The Shire. Gandalf. Erebor. Rivendell. Mirkwood. Lothlorien. The Dúnedain. Rohan. Gondor. Rhûn (Easterlings). Harad (Southrons). Mordor.

Images by Alice on Instagram

In Making Stuff we share fun arts and crafts done by us and our fellow geeks and nerds.

Captain America: Brave New World Featurettes

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In the past few weeks, Marvel has been actively marketing Captain America: Brave New World—understandably, as the movie opens next week. (Already!) I thought these two featurettes below were worth linking to. (Note that a spoiler warning is in effect!)

Captain America: Brave New World | Get Tickets Now by Marvel Entertainment on YouTube

Captain America: Brave New World | First Look by Marvel Entertainment on YouTube

We get a few more glimpses of President Ross’s Red Hulk, more walk talk—in fact, SO much war talk—and perhaps a few second’s worth more of Sam Wilson.

More tantalizingly, however, a fleeting hint that appears at the very end of the older of these clips (the one saying Get Tickets Now—cue to the 1:20 mark) seems to be saying that Joaquin Torres from the MCU series The Falcon and the Winter Soldier (played by Danny Ramirez) will get his own wingsuit. And, indeed, the IMDB cast listing confirms it: he’ll become the next Falcon. That should be interesting, since we’ve only ever seen Sam’s take on how to make use of the wings.

BNW releases on February 14, 2025 in the U.S.

Hey, look! We found a thing on the internet! We thought it was cool, and wanted to share it with you.

Visual Inspiration: Living Root Bridges

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Living root bridges are an ingenious type of suspension bridge shaped from plant roots. They are common in the southern part of the Indian state of Meghalaya (in the northeast of the country), home for some of the wettest locations on Earth.

Flickr Roman Korzh Double Decker

The Khasi and Jaintia communities who inhabit the region needed a low-cost way to cross the valleys and gorges in the rainforest during monsoon season. Living root bridges are sturdy and easy to build—albeit time-consuming—and apparently they withstand flash flooding and storm surges quite well.

Flickr Ashwin Kumar Double Decker Living Root Bridge

The building process is described by Zinara Rathnayake for BBC Future as follows:

“Building these bridges takes decades of work. It begins with planting a sapling of Ficus elastica – a tree that grows abundantly in the subtropical terrain of Meghalaya – in a good crossing place along the riverbank. First the trees develop large buttressing roots and then, after about a decade, the maturing trees sprout secondary aerial roots from further up. These aerial roots have a degree of elasticity, and tend to join and grow together to form stable structures.

“In a method perfected over centuries, the Khasi bridge builders weave aerial roots onto a bamboo or another wooden scaffolding, wheedle them across the river and finally implant them on the opposite bank. Over time, the roots shorten, thicken and produce offshoots called daughter roots, which are also trained over the river. The builders intertwine these roots with one another or with branches and trunks of the same or another fig tree. They merge by a process called anastomosis – where branching systems like leaf vessels, tendrils and aerial roots naturally fuse together – and weave into a dense frame-like structure. Sometimes, the Khasi builders use stones to cover the gaps in root structures. This network of roots matures over time to bear loads; some bridges can hold up to 50 people at once.”

Flickr Roman Korzh Living Root Bridge

Despite not having the capacity of bridges built entirely from man-made materials, the capabilities of living root bridges are nothing to sneeze at in the kinds of difficult terrains they’re used for. For example, the longest living root bridge is the Rangthylliang bridge at 50+ meters long. That kind of length makes for plenty of potential for similar live-plant-based bridges in speculative gaming campaigns or stories, from ad hoc methods of river crossing for an army or a group of refugees (with the help of plant-growth spells) to permanent structures for local communities.

Living bridges can also last for many hundreds of years in ideal conditions. Even if the oldest currently existing bridges were “merely” from the 1800s, it’s clear that that kind of longevity wouldn’t be possible without community building and traditions passed on and cherished. I.e., the structures solve a concrete problem in a way that both suits and takes advantage of local conditions. We humans tend to be smart like that. 🙂

Images: Double decker by roman korzh via Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0). Second double decker by Ashwin Kumar via Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0). Closeup of stone walkway by roman korzh via Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0).

Visual Inspiration pulls the unusual from our world to inspire design, story-telling, and worldbuilding. If stuff like this already exists, what else could we imagine?

Atypical Illustrations of Elves

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We’ve probably all seen endless examples of stereotypical fantasy Elves: those slim, tall, tranquil, ethereal, Art Nouveau-esque figures that glide effortlessly through a major convocation or battle field carnage alike. The type that for example various Weta artists immortalized for Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings and Hobbit trilogies.

I’ve been hankering for something slightly different for a while. (At least in depictions of taller Elves; ElfQuest Elves and other Elves smaller in stature already start with some variety.) Here’s what I’ve come across.

Some illustrators make their Elves with non-stereotypical weaponry or gear. Pavel Hristov’s Steppe Elf carries a whopper of an axe and chews on a stalk of grain. There are also tassels hanging from the piece of cloth on his waist; those don’t seem to go with the Elf stereotype.

ArtStation Pavel Hristov Steppe Elf
Steppe Elf by Pavel Hristov

What neat details!

This Elven marksman explorer by L3monJuic3 has more typical weaponry—bow and arrow—but unlike her, stereotypical Elves are rarely seen carrying backpacks loaded with mundane items like shovels and cauldrons. Elves do typically eat and presumably have other bodily needs, right, even in the more highfalutin high fantasy worlds?

DeviantArt L3monJuic3 Elven Marksman Explorer
Elven Marksman Explorer by L3monJuic3

The Elf war captain Kürbu by Dauntless1942 not only has an atypical name but also atypical armor and polearm:

Reddit Dauntless1942 Elf War Captain
Elf War Captain by Dauntless1942

The helmet somewhat reminds me of Bronze Age Celtic work, but could also nod towards ancient Eurasian steppe cultures.

Other illustrators have tweaked the professions their Elves take up. BootstheBishop drew an artificer—who’s a Sea Elf…

Reddit BootstheBishop Sea Elf Artificer
Sea Elf Artificer by BootstheBishop

…and Rina Smorodina created a wandering Elf mage with an owl familiar:

ArtStation Rina Smorodina Wandering Elf Mage
Wandering Elf Mage by Rina Smorodina

I cannot think off the top of my head any tinkerer nor wanderer type Elves (except for Drizzt Do’Urden in Forgotten Realms), but I don’t consider myself terribly well-read as far as fantasy goes. Anyway, for me these alternative takes were delightful.

Closest to my heart, however, are illustrations of Elves in non-stereotypical environments, especially among birches, in addition to ones showing different body shapes and happy demeanors.

I love all kinds of birches, but they don’t tend to feature in art much, never mind in SFFnal art. I know of two exceptions of the latter: a trailer for season 1 of Andor and a since-scrapped computer game in development. Now I have two to add.

This birchwood Elf by Andrius Matijosius may be a little scruffy-looking, but I love how his cape mimicks birch bark and arrows resemble leaf-topped trunks.

ArtStation Birchwood Elf
Birchwood Elf by Andrius Matijosius

He seems also to be wearing some kind of long knitted robe underneath the cape, which strikes me as sensible in cool fall weather.

Pinterest The Gate of Forest Elf Castle
The Gate of Forest Elf Castle by ZAHD&ART

The Gate of Forest Elf Castle by ZAHD&ART also features fall colors. I love this birch-lined alley. A forest of birches with their white trunks lined up always looks so striking.

(Next, though, artists, how about depicting birch woods in the summer? Please and thank you!)

Moving to physical characteristics. Un Lee’s illustration of an Elf company is marvellous! Lee wanted to create a varied group much like the Dwarves in the Hobbit but with Elves instead.

ArtStation Un Lee Elf Company
Elf Company by Un Lee

They are absolutely fantastic! No unrealistic and boring copy-paste Elves here; each individual is exactly that, an individual.

Reddit eccentric_bee Ancient Elf
Ancient Elf by eccentric_bee

Besides uniform body shapes, stereotypical Elves come in a fairly narrow range of moods. This portrait of an ancient Elf by eccentric_bee is serene on the surface, yes, but it looks to me that there’s joy underneath that’s often missing in depictions of Elves. Love it!

In Making Stuff we share fun arts and crafts done by us and our fellow geeks and nerds.