Link Bomb!
Whew. Been a long time. H & I are on the East Coast after a detour through Wyoming. But while we are getting caught up with the relatives, here are a pair of awesome pages to click through, if only because they were authored by friends and family.

Cooking With Lego Chef
The latest Willysaurus project is nothing less than LEGO inspired cooking. Chocolate homemade bricks? The possibilities are endless.

Blackblade Publishing
My dear friend, Taco Jon, has finally thrown his hat into the Old School RPG arena. Check out the hub of the Old School Renaissance, pull out your old AD&D books and get ready to throw some dice.

Death Dealer
Okay, so not technically a link dump, Death Dealer has finally gone to print! Woot! Cannot wait to have this one in hand ...

//H

Break or be Broken

Took part in Carbondale's 350 action yesterday. Ran into an old friend that I didn't even know was living in town, hung out with some great folks, and got out of the house on a rainy day. 

(Fun math note, Dales donated 350 cans of beer for the action, but because of the rain, only around a hundred or so drinking age folks showed up. Good beer-to-human ratio.) 

But more important than an environmental protest action, I also managed to learn fixie skid! First on loose gravel (that whole traction thing being the issue) and then on pavement headed home. 

Fear me, for I can break.

Sorta. 

When I'm lucky. 

//H

No brakes, no problem

(?)

A friend gave me a fixed gear bike and I've been using it to ride to work. Course, I'm pretty dangerous to myself on a bike w/ brakes, let alone one without. (I nearly hit a logging truck the other day.) 

So here's my latest project:

Of course, I'm not down with the emo jeans or spandex, but if you can skid at 30 mph, who cares?

//H

While at the skatepark ...

The Basalt skatepark is set along the Frying Pan river. Our little slice of Colorado is fairly rural, even with all Aspen's pretensions at sophistication. Anyhow, I was skating alone this morning, when through the woods came a 7 foot bull moose.

Being a fan of the old Dan Brown books, my first instinct was to try to sneak up on it and steal a tuft of moose hair. I slipped behind a tree to consider my options, confident that if the moose decide to make a go at it, I'd be able to circle the tree faster than he could. 

The moose took a few steps into the willows, and I started after him. The moose gave me a warning --- a quick few steps my direction --- and that was enough to genetic memory to kick in. I scampered to the top of the quarter pipe and watched from safety as the moose sidled up to the quarter pipe, gave me a stern look in the eye (our eyes were about level at this point) and meandered off to continue munching on willows. 

Moose 1, Harley's stalking skills 0. 

//H

Vinotok, Mk. II

So last year H and I through-hiked up over the mountains to Crested Butte's harvest festival/binge drinking nightmare, better known as Vinotok. The next morning we hitchhiked out of town to the local airstrip, and caught a ride in a single prop plane back to Aspen, barely beating out a serious storm. Exciting times all around. 

This year A invited me to go with him. I'm sick and behind on a deadline, so I offered up an alternative plan: drive over the passes, do Vinotok, then drive back the same night. 

Simplicity itself. After the excitement of last year, what could go wrong?

Indeed. 

The night began like all good plans, that is, according to plan. A rolled up to the house with S, a woman that works at the local CSA. Nice girl, on the hippy side of things, but I've always been comfortable and familiar with that angle. With a few bottles of homebrewed wine and some Maker's Mark, we headed off into the mountains to put the year behind us and welcome the coming winter.

We arrived in Crested Butte just in time. The crowds were gathering, even as the mummers were making their way through the street, dressed in faux-medieval garb and chanting: 

Vine and grain

vine and grain, 

all that dies will rise again. 

The mummers go from bar to bar, singing and chanting. At each bar the mummers are given that bar's signature Vinotok drink. Dodging the mummers, we hit a different bar to get my friends started in true Vinotok style. The bartender brought our drinks, then comp'd us three glasses – the last of the bar's Vinotok drink. This is like a zen master offering tea --- you just don't turn it down, so bottoms up. 

But like the pomegranate Hades offered to Persephone, that red Vinotok mystery drink would ultimately conspire to keep us in the underworld.  

Now, quick note: Crested Butte is an idilic Colorado mountain town, just shy of 9,000 ft. in elevation. A & S are experienced drinkers (what a terrible label to earn) but Alcohol + Elevation = Bad News. 

Just a note. 

Back out in the streets, the mummers were finishing up, and the pageant began. The Greenman foiled death by offering up the Grump in his place. The Grump, a twenty foot high demonic statue, was convicted of our collective sins and marched off to his burning. 

At this point the street is filled with several hundred people, drinking, singing and chanting into the darkness. We march the Grump down to the crossroads, where the statue is placed into the center of an enormous bonfire. Statue is set alight, the drum circle begins, and the dancers start up. 

All according to plan. Vikotok is in full swing. We've done out part, cast our years' regrets into the fire, and even had some official mystery grog. Time to roll out and head home. 

But where's S? 

Somewhere in here: 

Hmm. 

A's had a fair bit to drink at this point, so I station him by a police cordon, and loop the crowd.

No S. 

We try it again, now as the crowd begins to thin out. Still no S. 

At this point I'm starting to get worried. I'm the guy that was supposed to be responsible for these two, getting both of them back to the car and back home again. Like parenting, one out of two isn't such a great record. I had never met S before that night, but that's inconsequential. There was a drunk woman somewhere out in the night, and I needed to find her. 

A and I walk back to the car. He gets tucked in and I head back to the fire, still looking for S, but no dice. I make it back to the car, and we're faced with a decision. Clearly we can't leave her --- it's 2.5 hours and a mountain pass back to Carbondale. So we tuck up as best we can and pass the night in the car, waking up periodically to note, that, sure enough, S still isn't back.

Dawn comes and A and I walk the streets looking for S. Crested Butte is a small town, but large enough to hide one woman. We canvas the streets, make it back to the car one more time and still no S. 

A and I are being forced towards a decision. We can't hang around indefinitely, but we can't leave S. We decide to grab some breakfast and reassess. Rounding the corner, we see our hippy girl about to catch a ride in the back on a jeep.

Vinotok miracle. 5 minutes either way and we would have missed her. But there's our S, with a bloody foot and a black eye, but otherwise no worse for the wear. It seems that once she lost us, S had wandered around town, looking for the car. Unable to find our car, she settled on any car and ended up in a random subaru, wearing some unknown soul's coat with a sweater wrapped around her bloody feet.

Props to S for urban survival. If that was your sweater, ping me and I'll buy you a new one.  

We never found out whose car it was, or how S stubbed her toe and got a black eye. But we hit the road and were back by noon. 

Vinotok, Mk II.    

Lessons learned: 

• Once Vinotok gets its hooks in you, pack a toothbrush. You will spend the night. 
• Altitude will rock you. Respect it. 
• Keep your friends close, and strangers ... catching a ride in your car ... closer. 

I'm sure there are more lessons, but that's it for now.

Till next year,

//H 

Punk Rock News

Jesse Michaels is back in the band Classics of Love. Road trip to Berkley!

Off to Vinitok

Now go get your faux-Viking / Colorado Mountain ritual on. Little Burning Man in the Mountains, indeed. 

And maybe I'll remember to write about it this time. 

//H

Biomass Engine of Destruction

War robots powered by dead bodies. Who knew biomass could so cool? Sci fi got scooped on this one.  

Reposted from Marce Rockwell.  

Along the same lines of disturbing/fascinating is the Legend of Red Shorts, a video where a skateboarder is threatened with a gun and then proceeds to beat the gunman up. I won't embed the video here because of the content and I can't help but wonder about the context, but I'd love to hear your thoughts. 

//H

Gen Con Count Down

Less than a week to the big show. One of the best things about Gen Con is getting to see friends from around the world. Be they old or new, for me the Gen Con experience is about friends.

This year we'll be missing folks. It makes sense, given the economy and life, but the con will be less for their absence.

This year my schedule is less about working the booth, and more about running games. I'm a one man conversion army, out to demonstrate that you can role play with 4E. My first Gen Con I ran 4 games and lost my voice by Saturday night. Running on high octane caffeine and no sleep will do that. 

This year, I'm hoping to come out of this one with both a voice, and the energy to do some skating with the boys ...  

//H

"And you may find yourself 

living in a shotgun shack ..."

Been out of touch the last couple weeks, ranch-sitting in Wyoming, and now traipsing across the East Coast. In less than a week I'll be headed to Gen Con in Indy for the big event of the year, and then it will be back to Colorado to get caught up on my clean living.

In the last 2 weeks we've branded cattle, stayed in a colonial house in old Nantucket, paddled off the coast of Maine, fixed windmills, and now I'm headed to the convention of the year to run games and signings. 

I'm dumbstruck by my good fortune. This isn't me, this isn't my life. To be surrounded by people I love, and to have the privilege to travel and stay at these places just seems out of synch to me. There's something to be unearthed here, but I only notice it when I'm away.  

There is a very familiar part of me that is much better suited to simple things: downing trees with an axe and saw, riding home in the back of a pickup truck. Sophistication doesn't come naturally to me, so I demonize is to preserve my sense of self, when really what is called for is growth. This is the curse and blessing of the country boy.

And of course, this is true of everyone, in every time. Your strengths are your weaknesses.

I know I'm not making much sense, but it's a blog, so that's fine. Consider this my postcard from the beach, a bewildered note from the wilderness of one man's mind. 

"And you may ask yourself

How do I work this? 
And you may ask yourself
Where is that large automobile? 
And you may tell yourself
This is not my beautiful house!
And you may tell yourself
This is not my beautiful wife!"

//H

The Dragon Tank

Obama Axes Pentagon Plan To Build Billion Dollar Tank In Shape Of Dragon

In for penny, 

Up for an ENnie

The maps for my Sellswords of Punjar are up for an ENnie award. As always, it's great that our work (specifically the work of Carto-Rex) is being recognized, but ... man, the writing by my companions-in-arms in Isle and Portal was really, really good and deserves to be recognized. 

Grumble. 

Though in fairness, it is a sign of vainglorious times indeed, when a creator is bitter that his team's work is only up for one award. Heh. How lame am I? Lame indeed.  

My consolation is that the art for Death Dealer is, as the critic said, "seven shades of awesome." C'mon, ENnies 2010!

//H

KQ Interview: Joseph Goodman

Probably only of interest if you have a stake in the RPG business. Still a good interview, and some great insight into this hobby we love. 

//H

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