Worlds built on strategy, conflict & consequence
How Christianity Got from “Turn the Other Cheek” to Holy War About Holy WarsHoly Wars is my ongoing exploration of the collision between religion, power, politics and violence—from the ancient world through the Crusades and beyond. It’s also part of a larger writing project examining how people come to believe that conflict can be sacred. [Read why […]
Drones, signals, surveillance – and what happens when we can no longer trust the encryption holding the modern world together. There is a scene in Terminator 2: Judgment Day where Arnold Schwarzenegger’s T-800 explains how Skynet becomes self-aware and, almost immediately, turns humanity’s own military infrastructure against it. A defence network becomes intelligent. The machines […]
A family history, a forgotten genealogy, and a project that may become something stranger In October 2023, I stood on a street in Newburyport, Massachusetts, trying to picture a house that had disappeared centuries ago. Cars moved past us. People walked between shops and restaurants. Across the road stood the public library where Jen and […]
Campaign Status Campaign: Curse of Strahd, Highland EditionDate: Sunday July 26 2026Session: 4Party Level: 3Current Location: Death HouseStatus: Exploring the dungeon beneath the houseNext Session: Sun Aug 9 and/or Sun Sep 27 2026 DM Campaign Archive: Session 4 Record 1. Session Summary The party officially transitioned from the upper floors of the manor into the dungeon […]
How I’m building a sustainable creative system for writing books, blogging, and sharing ideas through ToddHDow Studios. People often imagine writing as the moment someone sits down in front of a blank page. The truth is, that’s only the visible part of the process. Writing begins long before the first sentence is typed. It begins […]
One of the questions I get asked most often is surprisingly simple: “How much prep do you actually do before a session?” The honest answer? Less than I used to. That probably sounds strange coming from someone who loves worldbuilding, campaign design, and collecting maps, books, miniatures, and terrain. But over the last year or […]
Why would a cybersecurity engineer spend more than twenty years researching Christian history and the Crusades? This is the story behind Holy Wars.
Artificial intelligence is doing far more than generating artwork. Discover how AI is accelerating cystic fibrosis research, transforming medicine, and acting as a force multiplier for scientific discovery.
ToddHDow.com has been part of my life for more than twenty years. Over that time it’s been a personal website, a résumé, a place to share projects, and occasionally a home for whatever happened to capture my attention at the time. If you’ve visited before, you might notice that things look a little different. Not […]
About Holy WarsHoly Wars is my ongoing exploration of the collision between religion, power, politics and violence—from the ancient world through the Crusades and beyond. It’s also part of a larger writing project examining how people come to believe that conflict can be sacred. [Read why I’m writing Holy Wars →] Deus Vult. God wills it. Nearly […]
Artificial Intelligence has become one of the most valuable tools behind my DM screen. Whenever I mention that, people tend to assume one of two things. Either they think AI is somehow running my games for me, or they think it’s a gimmick that produces generic fantasy content. In reality, it’s neither. AI doesn’t replace […]
I regularly track developments in cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, critical infrastructure, and geopolitical competition. Most of these stories disappear into the daily news cycle. A few feel different. A few reveal where technology is heading, how conflict is changing, and what tomorrow’s risks might look like. These are the signals that have captured my attention recently. […]
Quote I’ve been pondering: Build something 100 people love, not something 1M people kind of like. – Brian Chesky This quote from Brian Chesky, Airbnb co-founder and CEO, is similar to Kevin Kelly’s 1,000 True Fans mantra. I’ve hesitated with my creativity in the past, worrying that too many people would judge me. But the […]
On December 8 2025, we held our last Infosec Hamilton event of 2025. We did something different for this session – instead of one speaker, we opened the floor for “lightning talks” – Each person had up to 15 minutes to share something Infosec related with the rest of the group. We had great turnout […]
It’s been a minute since I last posted. Well… more than a minute… 3,424,320 minutes to be exact. And we didn’t have ChatGPT to give me that number the last time I posted was way back in 2019. We had to calculate it the old fashioned way: use google to find a time calculation website, […]
Quote I’ve been pondering: “Man is condemned to be free; because once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does.” – Jean-Paul Sartre Do you ever get to the grocery store and forget all of items you came to get, or miss a step in something you’re doing, or do repetitive work […]
Quote I’ve been pondering: “A mind all logic is like a knife all blade. It makes the hand bleed that uses it.” – Rabindranath Tagore And this one came into my inbox last minute and had to include it this week as well: “I will have to remember ‘I am here today to cross the […]
The No. 7 shield plug from the top of the reactor vessel impaled the third man through his groin and exited his shoulder, pinning him to the ceiling.
You will continue to suffer if you have an emotional reaction to everything that is said to you.
Quote I’ve been pondering this week: “Care about what other people think and you will always be their prisoner.” – Lao Tzu I’m a huge security and privacy proponent. Stumbled across this great visual example of ways we all expect privacy in our everyday lives – and it highlights why our digital privacy should be […]