I still ... live. 

Man, it's been a while since I've been over here. If anyone has been checking in, thank you, and I hope not to let you down again. But the pre-Gen Con push is finally past us, so it looks like I might be stopping over a bit more. 

With my birthday around the corner, it's becoming increasingly poignant how important my friends are to me, and – consequently – how much I miss them. To cure myself of that lethargy (and because I didn't have a word count deadline tonight!) I picked up my deck and went out to skate. 

Now, for context, I used to skate all the time at night. There was a period in college when, considering my evenings, I actively had to make the decision between allotting my most productive hours to either writing or skating. 

You'll notice I didn't publish a lot during college. 

That's since changed, and now I do most my skating in the mornings, and mostly at the skate park. But because of the way I "came of age," daylight skating and park skating have always felt like placeholders for the real thing: skating street after the sun goes down. 

And as I dragged my body out into the darkness, I was struck by the very strong sense that I was making a mistake, that my days (nights) of hitting the concrete hard after dark had passed me by. 

More powerfully, was the realization that I didn't even see them go. 

But I'm nothing if not stubborn, so I hit the hill and beat my way down to the church, with its new parking asphalt parking lot, and low ledges. 

And of course, it was magical.

An hour later, I made it back home, scraped and bleeding, but also feeling more at home in my body than I have for a while. 

Feels good to be posting again. Feels good to be skating after dark. Choose Death still lives. 

//H  

Live from KublaCon, it's Saturday Night!

Goodman Games is staffing a booth and running games all this weekend, which means that I am one bushed puppy. The con has been fantastic, the fans are awesome, and no, there are no more copies of Level Up. We sold out this morning (and the con runs through to Monday . . . whoops.)

A real post will probably have to wait until the plane flight home, but until then, I give you the latest short of your best friend and mine, the Gnome:         

http://wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/toon/20090522

//H

Thank you, Deathers!

...for all the kind words. Now it's about getting caught up on the correspondence and word counts I missed over the weekend, along w/ prepping for a convention in California mid-May. 

Yeep. Bouncing around like a tennis ball. And we're only at the start of the season. 

//H 

Grant Adams
My mother's father passed away this morning. He had been in a coma the past few days after his car accident; story has it, his heart flatlined "a couple" times last night, but kept restarting itself. I don't know how feasible that really is, but you can be sure it is something I'll tell my grandkids.

Willy sent me the news. I walked outside, picked a pair of flowers and walked down to the river. I suspect I was looking for a sign of some sort, as romantics are wont. We have a giant swan that flies the river every day, and a handful of bald eagles. I had settled that seeing either would be a good omen of his passing.

When I was in college, there was a small campus chapel I'd skate to in the middle of the night whenever I was in need of solace. The doors were dark hammered tin depicting saints. Some nights I get to the chapel to find the doors locked. (It was usually 2AM, or so, so this wasn't unexpected.) But more nights than not, I'd get to the chapel to find the doors unlocked. On these nights I'd find my place among the dark pews, sit and think.

On nights when the doors were locked, I'd back down the steps, humbly accepting that I didn't really need solace, that I was just being melodramatic and self-absorbed (again). In this way, approaching the chapel and trying the doors became a sacred act, a spiritual referendum on my mental state.

I was looking for signs today when I went down to the river. Put the flowers in the water, one for Grant, one for his wife, and waited. No eagles. No swan. Just a referendum on my mental state.

And of course, signs never occur when you're looking for them. That's the first lesson.

I have my grandfather's hands. Large, ungainly, suited for hammering and prying, perhaps fighting. My mother has a photo of me, her premature baby, swaddled in a single one of Grant's hands. The same hands that I use to punch out words on a keyboard, but not artistic hands, by any stretch.

Walking back from river, I was struck by the Colorado sky, blue above the red cliffs to the north, and the white sandstone to the south, and green where the river runs. I turned around, scanning the sky, from horizon to horizon. And of course there wasn't a single cloud in the Colorado sky.

And that, I suspect, is the second lesson.

And so tonight, we'll be thinking of Grant Adams. We'll be recalling big hands and a big heart. Not a bad thing to remember a man by.

//H

Sweet...


//H

Pelgrane Press Presents...
Trail of Cthulhu is a great game: beautiful art, great production values, awesome writing. So it is a great honor that the Pelgrane folks would endorse Death in Luxor by converting it to the Trail system.

If you haven't picked up Trail yet, it is worth your time. Solid mythos action, with a solid variant system. 

//H

14 Days to Mercenarios...

I need to go back to packing/prepping, but first another *big* thank you to Ok Games for doing the translation work on the upcoming Punjar book. As I mentioned previously, the Free RPG Day material is incorporated into Sellswords adventure, making this the most complete Punjar supplement to date.

Plus, their new artwork looks really cool. 

You know you're dealing with all around good folks when they can take something, convert it to another language, and it comes out better. Maybe we should translate their version back to English? ;)

//H 

Road Trip!


Wednesday I fly out to Chicago, meet up with the Goodman Games crew, load up the van and hit the road. We'll do some signings, give some interviews, run some games, and generally do our part to insure that the good people of Fort Wayne have a fun weekend.

It's also my excuse to hang out with man-about-town Jeremy Jones, novelist Ed Gentry and some really cool podcasters. (I don't know if Ed's wife can also get free, but I hope so.) I'm always terrified headed into shows, but somehow it always seems to work out. You'd think I'd learn my lesson and come to trust that, odds are, things will be more fun than not, but I'm a slow study.

This is also my chance to try out some of the Death Dealer material before it goes to print. (Note to self, print out the adventure before you leave town. It'd be like me to have to run it from memory.)

So anyhow, if you're in the heartland of our nation this weekend, drop on by. I'm looking forward to seeing a new town, meeting some new faces, and telling some shared stories about places that never existed.

And this is a job?

Yep. :)

Mercenarios de Punjar
Or..."And you thought I was annoying in English!"

Last year Goodman Games released out first German language DCCs. This year we'll be licensing our work in Spanish and French as well.

Even more fun, as best I can tell (Babelfish don't fail me now!) the folks that did the Spanish translation were none other than the generous souls of La Marca de Este. Thanks to Steinkel and Co. for the translation work; I hope the DCCs do great for you. It doesn't hurt that their version of Sellswords of Punjar also contains the Free RPG Day material, technically making it an order of magnitude cooler than the original English version.

Yes, I'll have written books in Spanish that I can't get in English.

I'm a little jealous. 

//H

I'm a sucker for happy musicians
Okay, in all honesty this song sorta sounds like it could be out of a golden age Muppet Show. And yet?

And yet, I still tear up when I watch this.

Now that my little brother has lost all respect for me, the redeeming moments:

*1:00 in ... dude can spit a rhyme. Wow.

*3:02 ... the look on that child's face blows me away. I love that face.


So without further ado ...



//H

"Roll for Initiative..."

As a little geek growing up, I wanted two things: to attend Gen Con and to be a part of the RPGA. Gen Con's in the bag, thanks to Goodman Games, and so now we're moving on to the RPGA. 

RPGA is an officially sanctioned group of gamers, almost a league of gamers if you will. Staffed largely by volunteers, it is gaming for gaming's sake, sort of a distilled Gen Con. Most recently they've become responsible for hosting D&D Experience (the convention previously known as Winter Fantasy), and this year Goodman Games will be in attendance, running games, showing off our 4E products, and enjoying the chance to spend some time with people like us. 

Needless to say, being a fish out of social water 11 months of the year, I'm really looking forwar to the show. If you think you might near Fort Wayne, IN at the end of the month, swing by and drop in for a game either Friday or Saturday. I'll be running a total of 4 games, but other folks – far better DMs – will be running games, too, so there is a good chance you'll be able to get in on some of the fun.

//H  

From the folks at Goodman Games...

Last Call for 3.5!

On December 31, Goodman Games will stop selling its 3.5 products. This is the last call.

Visit our online store to purchase what is left of our PRINT 3.5 product at 50% off. You can find the online store at http://www.goodman-games.com/store.html

For the rest of December, you can also visit our PDF store to purchase 3.5 PDF e-books at $2 each. Remember – after December 31, they’re gone forever! You can find the PDF store at http://goodmangames.rpgnow.com/

//H