David Chart's Blog

David Chart’s Blog

Latest News

  • Ars Magica Crowdfundings

    My first professional publication for Ars Magica came out in 1993, in White Wolf Magazine. Things rather grew from there, and I spent over a decade as the Line Developer. When I retired from that position, I ended up taking a break for a few years, but now I’m back.

    First, I prepared the text for the upcoming Definitive Edition. The text is now done and is being laid out, and the crowdfunding launches in a few days.

    Second, part of the crowdfunding is the release of Ars Magica under an open license (CC BY-SA), and I have a Patreon at which I am writing for that license. The licensing has not happened yet, but I have permission from Atlas to do that. When you have been working with them on the line for years, you can do that.

    I am looking forward to writing for the game again!

News Archive

My Writing

Fiction

I have written some fiction.

Academic

I have published a few peer-reviewed academic works, on philosophy and Japanese history.

Roleplaying Games

I have written for roleplaying games.

Mimusubi

Mimusubi is my project for non-fiction writing about Shinto. It has its own website.

Recent Blog Posts

  • A Place for Consciousness

    This is the book about consciousness that I noted a little while ago, and I’ve just got around to reading it. It’s very good. In the first section, Rosenberg raises most of the problems about consciousness that had occurred to me. In short, no matter how good a physical description you have, there is nothing…

  • Peter Lipton, 1954-2007

    This morning I received an email from one of my friends from my Master’s course at Cambridge, informing me that Peter Lipton, my Ph.D. supervisor, had died. This was a great shock; he was only in his fifties. There are good general obituaries in the Guardian and on the Cambridge Department of History and Philosophy…

  • Evolutionary Psychology

    These last few days, Mayuki has started smiling and laughing as soon as I appear in front of her. She looks really pleased to see me. Hypotheses: 1) My face is weird, and makes her laugh. 2) While mothers can be sure that a baby is theirs, men have the option of doubt. However, the…

  • Looking at Flats

    Today, all three of us went to look at a flat. Yuriko and Mayuki went yesterday, but I was feeling very tired, so I stayed at home. I’m feeling much better today (probably because I took yesterday easy), so I went back with them; Yuriko wanted to look again. The flats are a new block…

  • A Naturalist’s Guide to the Arctic

    The title of this book is slightly less self-explanatory than you might think; its range is the North American Arctic, and thus primarily the Canadian Arctic. There’s nothing about Greenland or Scandinavia, nor about Arctic Russia. The primary target audience is people who are going to the Arctic and want to know what they are…

  • The Pure

    This is a book for White Wolf’s Werewolf: the Forsaken line, detailing the “bad werewolves” of the setting. Naturally, with it being a horror game, the “good werewolves” are not exactly models of virtue and restraint, but they are supposed to be much more sympathetic than the Pure. The Pure are driven by an unwavering…

  • First Words

    When seen through the eyes of a doting father, naturally. Today, during dinner, I was talking to Mayuki while I ate. Her eyes are clearly getting better, as she was watching me from some distance away as she sat in the bouncer, and reacted to my words. She reacted by saying “Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh,…

  • Superbaby

    Mayuki is clearly the most brilliantest baby in the whole wide world ever. Why, only this evening I spent about five minutes discussing world politics with her, and she contributed fully to the conversation. “So, what do you think about the Annapolis summit?” “Aaaaaooogugugu.” “That’s a little harsh, don’t you think. Abbas still has some…

  • The Cambridge Companion to Medieval Jewish Philosophy

    Another fairly self-explanatory title… The series of Cambridge Companions aim to provide a range of scholarly essays on a topic or philosopher, to help advanced students to get to grips with them. Thus, they are introductory from one perspective, but very far from superficial, which makes them an interesting read. One interesting thing about this…

  • Showa Memorial Park

    The main topic of this blog will be today’s little trip out, but before we get on to that I’ll fill in yesterday. As regular readers of this blog will doubtless remember, a few months I rented a storage room near our flat. We’ve been transferring big empty boxes and the like over there, but…