The universe of The Walking Dead expands to include a new prequel spin-off. A list of the 20 most useless Dungeons & Dragons spells. And just what was all the fuss about the Hugo awards this year? It's your weekly news for Airy Monday, our take on popular culture as it relates to magic and religion. All this and more for the Pagan News Beagle!
Banish dazzle? Otto's irresistible dance? If those spells sound made-up you'd be correct... but only insofar as they're part of the massive grimoire of fictional spells created for the roleplaying game Dungeons & Dragons over the year. Over at io9, Rob Bricken assembles them and 18 other apparently useless spells for this entertaining list.
In addition to a movie it seems the popular fantasy game World of Warcraft will be receiving a new expansion soon, titled Legion. Announced just a few weeks ago, fans are already excited for the game, for reasons gaming website Kotaku describes here.
Looking for video games with a well-developed or interesting female lead? Look no further. Chris Isaac of The Mary Sue expands his earlier list of female-centered video games with several other notables, such as Life Is Strange or The Walking Dead.
Speaking of The Walking Dead franchise, its new spin-off, titled Fear the Walking Dead debuted last night on AMC. If you didn't catch it last night and are still weighing whether or not to pick it up, Comics Alliance has a review available now which goes over the main beats while remaining spoiler-light.
Lastly, if you've been paying any attention to the science fiction and fantasy fandom over the last year you may have heard about the Hugo Awards and something called "Sad Puppies." Now that the Awards have been held, what was all the fuss about? This article from Wired takes a look at the controversy surrounding the Hugos this year and how the situation was ultimately resolved.
Top image by Johan Anglemark