Plywood Memories from Gencon to Vegas

 Out trip to Gencon took us up through the Arkansas Delta country, and into the boot of Missouri, across the Big Muddy and on into the sprawling flats of southern Illinois and Indiana. It is a marvel to travel in this part of the country. When people think of the bread baskets of the U.S. their minds always go to the Great Plains, but they forget the never-ending fields of corn that mark this region, the Lowlands and Till Plains of Indiana. Its beautiful in its never ending yield.

We broke camp early in the morning of the 31^st and drove that last few miles up to Indianapolis and over to the convention center. We went to the marshalling yard to get our unloading bill and in short order found ourselves pulling the canvas back from the truck, and hauling boxes, banners and stands into the great hall of the Indiana Convention Center. It was hot in there, as it always is, during set up, but no matter Dakota and I set to unloading and assessing what we were going to need to get set up. It quickly became apparent that are racks were woefully worn down and out. We had to do something.

My primary concern however was flooring, something to soften the concrete on tired feet, so off to a hardware store we went. While there Dakota mapped out his ideas for some new racks, what he wanted, and what he thought it should look like. He gave me a list and off to the Container store we went. By this point Jeremy had joined us, and we all wandered about gathering the gear we needed.

Racks have always been a problem for us. We had smaller budgets and little access in those days. At our first convention, Gencon 2000, we didn’t have anything. The books were laid flat on the table, map hung with some tape on the front table and a banner on the back curtain. We knew that wouldn’t play for the next round so Todd Gray and I sat about making a more lasting display. We took 3 sheets of 4 x 8 ¾ inch plywood and attached them one to the other with little brass hinges. Carefully measuring and cutting strips of loop pile carpet we glued it on the inner face of the plywood, making a beautiful, if simple, covered backdrop. It was perfect because velcro would stick to it. We had posters made with our books on them, glued velcro to the back of them and could put them up and take them down from the carpet face. We could attach lights to the boar too, for better lighting if need should dictate.

It was brilliant and worked beautifully and, to my mind, still the best-looking booth display and backdrop we have ever had. It was so clean and simple, functional, and ridiculously sturdy. It folded up nicely too, one sheet over on the other so nothing would get torn or scratched. Its only real draw back was its weight. Lugging that thing around was crazy. But lug it we did. When we loaded for shows from GTS in Vegas to Pentacon in Fort Wayne, Gencon, or Genghis Con, we did it by loading that monster into the truck first, piling the stock and luggage on its back and hauling it in and out of cons.

Todd and I were so exhausted at one Vegas show that the idea of moving it was mind numbing. We hired some kids in the parking lot, paying them 40 bucks, to haul it in for us.

We used it for 3 or 4 years I think, dozens of cons. After the hard times hit in ’05 and TLG’s staff dwindled to me, managing the beast became difficult if not impossible. I remember it leaning against the house, in the back yard sometime in the fall, when the rains hit. And they hit and I quietly forgot about it. Intentionally? Purposely? Maybe a little bit of both. Either way the boards warped and the carpet popped. It was abandoned after that and eventually was consigned to the burn pile.

I feel bad about it now and again. But then I remember hauling it around and that eases the feeling a little.

We later switched to wire racks, spinners, magazine racks, and hanging banners.  These were so cheap that they didn’t take the weight of the books and became lopsided, bent, twisted. Eventually one blew out of the open bed of the truck one night on the way back from Origins or Gencon and we didn’t notice until we were back home. That was the beginning of the end of those things. The banners too have had their ups and downs, the canvas is never even, sags and folds. We’ve rigged braces from pvc pipe, dowels, and 1 x 2 boards. It all ends the same. It looks good for a short while, but doesn’t weather well.

After that we bought the racks we have now and have had for many years. They are tall, fairly stout racks but long sense battered half to death. Wires broke, legs twisted, just tired and worn. The backdrop has enjoyed new collapsable banners, but these cheap things break at the nearest opportunity, or give up the banner so it lazily folds over itself and hangs as if defeated in a game it never wanted to play.

I like the look, but its time for something new for sure.

That new began during set up yesterday at this Gencon 2024. New shelving and displays, lights and fixtures, just the beginning of the overhaul. We are talking about digital displays. Projectors casting rotating images on screens, in place of banners and backdrops. All very exciting and makes me wonder what the old plywood backdrop would think.

On the Road to Gencon, Interstate 57, Dave Trampier and 25 Years

We left Little Rock in the late morning in a truck loaded with books, racks, luggage, a cooler of Dr. Pepper, and all the other sundries one takes on the road. We crossed the Upper Delta of Arkansas, those flat lands of rice fields and soy beans, first on 40 and then hanging a left onto 55 and on up to the show me state. Crossing into Missouri somewhere after noon we headed on to Sikeston. The weather was amazing. Blue skies as far as one can see, dotted by clouds here and there, only interrupted by Dakota’s rambling observations about this, that, and the other.

Dodging out of Sikeston, we hit 57 north and in short order crossed the Mississippi River. I only took a glance at the muddy waters, as my mind was lost in the trip I took on that same highway quite a few years ago, when I was looking for Dave Trampier.

For those who don’t know Dave, you should look him up. He is a bit of a legend in the old world. The writer and artist of Wormy, a smart talking, pool playing dragon, that appeared in the old Dragon magazines. Really good stuff. Dave had a falling out with the industry back in the woebegone days of the early 80s and vanished. No one knew where he was.

It was the early oughts, ‘03 or ‘04 I can’t remember now, and TLG was still very young and looking for what, we still didn’t know. Mac Golden, one time partner in TLG and longtime friend of me and the Trolls, was a huge fan – we all were/are – and he suggested, since we were working with Gary Gygax that I try to find Dave. That’s an idea I thought! I set about to see what I could turn up. We were working with quite a few of the old TSR people in those days so I thought surely someone would know something. After some polite questions, I got wind that he had gone down to Cairo, Illinois where he was driving a taxi for the Yellow Cab company.

I don’t rightly remember which convention I was going to, I was alone, so it probably wasn’t Gencon, it was probably the Alliance Open House or more likely a convention up in Fort Wayne Indiana called Pentacon or some such. Be that as it may, it took me up 57, right past Cairo. Right over the river, I detoured and cut down the ramp into Cairo hoping I could run into Dave.

I quickly found the shell of the Yellow Cab Company, it was either out of business or closed (out of business I think) so I took it on myself to poke around and see if I could find some rumor of him. I ate lunch at a small diner and asked about him. No one had heard of him of course. I drove around a bit to see if something might turn up. Cairo has seen better days for sure. I drove down an empty main street, old brick buildings standing stark under a lonely, calm, too-quiet sky. They must have been beautiful in their day, something to behold. I stopped for a long while and just looked at these old brick facades. The failed attempts to bring them back to life. The hoped for renaissance that all small towns enjoy, where hope forever flourishes.

I’m rather fond of buildings.

After musing for a bit, I fired up old blue (my truck) and set to leave town. As I rolled up the street I noticed an old dusty shop with huge store front windows. In it, looking out at me, was a large cut-out of a weird looking troll. I stopped and stared at it. There was no one else it could have been but Dave. His work that is. Pulling over, I jumped out to get a closer look. Pressing my face against the dirty window I could see no one had been in the building in a forever of Sundays. There was junk here and there. Maybe an old flea market, that last dying gasp of hope of many a small-town building.

There was no sign of anyone. No sign of occupancy on that day or for a host of days preceding it. It was Dave, of that I had no doubt, he had been there. Once. For certain.

I drove around a bit, asked a few people who owned the shop, I could turn up nothing on the brief search. Time was pressing and I had a show to get to, so reluctantly headed back to 57. I knew he had been there. Once. I took off, hitting 57 north.

On the same road Dakota and I were on. As I left my reverie the Big Muddy was long behind us and we were well on the road to our return to Gencon.

We drove on through the afternoon, stopping for gas and some eats a few times. The skies opened as we crossed into Indiana in the early evening, dumping water in sheets. At last, a few miles south of town, we pulled into a La Quinta Inn for some rest and lodging.

Another journey in the long list of 25 years of such journeys. Also looking for something or someone I suppose. This one our return to Gencon.

I should note that I eventually found Dave Trampier. He was living in Carbondale Illinois, driving a cab. I talked to him briefly, sent him several letters, trying to engage him in bringing back Wormy or something similar. He politely asked me, in a beautifully written letter, to stop contacting him. I did of course. He’s crossed over now, passed some years ago, like many an old brick building in every town you’ve ever been in.

The Saucer's Unique Spin

 As I wander ever deeper into the world of UFO sightings I keep finding ever more interesting parcels of information. For instance, a Japanese astronomer noted, in 1949, a giant explosion on Mars (December 9 I think). He theorized that it had to be an atomic explosion because of the size of the dust cloud. Were the saucers coming from Mars?

There are hosts of these small things that roll across the pages.

That aside, I found fascinating the question  "why the flying saucer?" Why the unique shape for this particular craft that was spotted so many hundreds of times. Buried in the text of "Flying Saucers from Outer Space" was a short essay in the guise of a Q/A with the author and a Canadian scientist. 

Set aside the possibilities of visual anomalies, and wander back to the 1950s, fresh from World War 2 when jet engines were barely 5 years old and the Atomic Age only just beginning. Bi-planes, single engine, jet planes, all have a distinctive reasoned shape. But the saucers that suddenly appeared. Why the saucers? Its that shape that gives them their speed.

The saucers all moved at tremendous speeds. They changed colors, blue, red, what have you and even though the footage from those days we have these saucers doesn't show it (see below), they seem to spin.

The saucers are able to achieve such considerable speed because they use a magnetic sink to propel themselves forward. This "sink" creates a flux in the earth's magnetic sphere into which the craft is propelled. The sink also provides the ship with electrical power. A ring built around the ship, giving it the distinctive saucer shape, channels the energy through and behind it, again propelling it forward. The craft must spin in order to avoid building up too large a charge. The changing colors are a reflection of the speed that craft is achieving.

It reads a little better than that and like really cool science fiction, something you might find in the upcoming Star Siege, but what is really fascinating is the amount of energy put into trying to decipher what was being seen.

I love this concept, though I'm not sure how grounded in science a magnetic sink is or what it would mean for travel through the atmosphere. It sure would explain a lot though!

Regardless of why, there certainly were alot of saucer sightings in the 1950s.

Look! Look! They are Here!

I'm still looking for a good history of the UFO phenomena in the United States and beyond. Preferably one that begins in the post war period, the "Atomic Age" (what a great name for an age too, we are stuck in the Information Age, or have we left that and entered some other dystopian Age as yet uncatagorized) and carries it through to at least the 1980s. These years seem to be the golden years of UFO sightings and reportings. 

Sans that history I have begun gathering books written on the topic, but starting at the beginning, or as close to it as I can. I'm currently reading Flying Saucers from Outer Space. Written in 1953 by Donald Keyhoe, it is an interesting catalog of conversations that supposedly happened between the writer, a retired Air Force Colonel, and a host of Air Force officials throughout 1952-1953. He is trying to get the air force to admit what everyone "in the know" already realizes, that the flying saucers are real and they come from out space. Turns out this is not the first book written on the phenomena by Keyhoe, as he had previously published a book The Flying Saucers are Real* that only appeared in limited number in paper back. That book is in route to me now.

There is a sense of urgency about this book, Flying Saucers. Every page wants to leap out at you, to grab you by the collar, jerk your head to the heavens and say "look! look! they are coming!" There is an almost frantic need to get the truth out there, to let everyone know about the coming contact. There's not the hint of fear, only an unsettled certainty of what is coming and bracing for it. barely a half decade from a devastating world war and in the midst of the Korean War there is no trepidation, only hurry up, tell us the truth.

I've yet to finish it, but the half I've read carries the same tone, the same feeling to it. I can't imagine it will change pace. Keyhoe wrote science fiction as well, or maybe this is, and his pacing is very good, his hand on the doorknob is spot on.

I wonder what it was like to pull this book off the shelf in 1954 and start reading it. Atomic testing was on the way. The Soviets were building an arsenal, the US was detonating missiles, a whole new style of living was unfolding in the US. In a world of total uncertainty and constant change, where all you had for information was the steady hand of a writer (who, if nothing else, had to take the time to write something several hundred pages longer than a wiki article) to tell you what was up. 

I wonder what it was like to look up at the heavens in 1953.

The truth is out there. But who has it? Its hard to say.

* Turns out what is really needed is a historiography of the literature on the phenomena, a project that might be a good toe in door project for Chenault & Gray Publishing, our parent company. 

Songs from the Drowned Lands ~ Kernaghan

Recently I took a trip to New York (the city) and needed something to read that I could easily carry on the plane. I don't really buy paperbacks anymore but still have my rather large collection from the '80s. I poked around and found a book I hardly remembered reading, but whose content echoed some vague satisfaction from when I first read back in '83 or '84.  

I plunged into on the plane and had trouble putting it down to chat with my wife, or move about, or even wander NYC (which I did, finally taking the time to see the beautiful Empire State Building and the painting of Washington crossing the Deleware). But even while I wandered about my mind kept returning to the stories, now untold but aching to spill out of the pages.

Songs From The Drowned Lands was written by Eileen Kernaghan and published in 1983. It was one of many fantasy books I scooped up in those days and several by Kernaghan. Fantasy was different then, you could read a book and not have to worry about it being part of a giant trilogy or multi-book series, which always run the gamey risk of thrones of never being finished. Plus its nice to just read a story and move on to another with different characters and different settings.

Songs is just such a book. It tells the story of the Sorcerous Isles, rarely named, as taken from the point of view of 5 different characters. Those who inhabit these isles have learned of its eminent demise at the hands of the Lords of Chaos, upon whose arrival the sea will rise up and sweep the Isles and all who inhabit them away.

The tales each relate how notable sorcerers respond to the threat, with acceptance, fear, seeking to flee, fighting it and hope. 

The book is wonderful written and Kernaghan's descriptions of the landscape paint an amazingly vibrant tapestry through which the characters wander. The dialogue is crisp. The characters engaging. And the threat of Chaos is painted so subtly that it yields this strangely compelling fear that nags at the reader, at least it did me. 

Here is one of my favorite passages, heard by Theiras, a noble of an ancient house, a relative of the king. She has only just realized the Lords of Chaos and the coming storm and must come to terms with her melancholia.

"For you there will be no wine, no poppy. That is not the way a king dies, or the daughter of kings. A king does not run from death, nor does he bargain with it. Theiras, if there is the true blood of warriors in you, you will not let death strike you from behind. You will hold out your life in your hands, a gift freely offered. That is the order of things - the first and ancient order - and you will not betray it."

I cannot recommend this book enough. It has encouraged me to return to the genre and read more stories, that are just that, stories.

Find it on Biblio!

The Presumption of Hell

It is presumed in Hell that the plane is one of structured law. That Hell is a realm governed by the dictates of its occupants and creators. That it is one of continuity and design, of purpose and patterns. That Hell’s decalogue governs all things there and all those who inhabit it. This is not wholly the truth, for Hell is also governed by evil, and evil is petty, vainglorious, vindictive, lacking in any real understanding of consequence. Those who occupy Hell are too evil to see the folly of their own deeds and because of this the plane of their manufacture is only a façade of order, a charade perpetrated by the very nature of those who dwell there, the great and the small. It is an artifice for which they themselves have fallen and one they, in their egomaniacal solipsism, propagate unceasingly. 

                                                                                ~ The Codex of the Planes

I think I've Forgotten More than I Remember

 I've been working for Troll Lord Games for 25 years now. That's a fair bit of time and it has been an extremely busy and vibrant quarter century. Notice I don't use the word successful, because it has not always been that way. There were some hard fights along the way, most of the way. And I suspect more to come. 

So many things have happened or we have been a part of that it is difficult to remember them all, or even to string some of them together. I now can safely say, that I've forgotten more than I knew. 

I wonder though, if I went back through all the financials, if I could put things together. A time line for sure, but I wonder if it would trigger all manner of memories. 

For instance when we began, we kept records in a ledger book, one you would see from the 1930s. We had a huge business check book, spiral bound, black, that we made payments from. Now of course it is all automated and we do it on computers. Digital files. A wholly different type of ledger!

This jumbled pile of financials represents 2007 through 2018 or there abouts. Every receipt, check, etc. There's the historian's bread crumbs. The other 7 or 8 years are tucked away in other corners here and there.

Movie Recommendation ~ The Last Stop in Yuma County

I kicked back and took a little time to watch The Last Stop in Yuma County last night and I have to say, I was NOT disappointed. 

It was riveting from start to finish. It is a beautifully shot movie, capturing the Arizona dry heat in this not too glaring yellow wash. I felt I was there. The story is, very unusual, with some interesting bordering on wild turns. Everyone in the movie carried it wonderfully. 

No spoilers here but to say, it is not for the faint of heart and just, well, just watch it. 

Memories from the Office of a Game Publisher - My Office Circa '07

 I feel as if this is the typical office of an RPG publisher. Maybe. Maybe not.  This was taken in and around 2007 I suspect (see previous post). 

On the left you have a flail or a morning star as I like to call it. 

The fan of course. A printer with instructions written on the front of it. A pile of indiscriminate paper, which if I remember correctly led to the big metal 1950s teacher desks we have now. I had no drawers with this table as you can plainly see.

A monitor rather old and with no telling what windows was on there (95?). I wonder who I was emailing?

A pile of Gary Gygax books. What RPG publisher would be worth their salt without the world builder books!

A pile of screw drivers for lord only knows what reason. probably the printer. A map of the world of Aihrde on the wall. A stapler, not red, paper clips, scissors, check stamps, a calculator (I still have that calculator and stapler). 

A Dr. Pepper of course.

Interestingly the floor is incomplete. I was laying down pergo flooring and ran out. We ran out of money so it stayed that way for a few months. 

This was definitely taken in 2007 as the Cosmos Builder is there on the far right and it was published in 2007.

Memories from the Office of a Game Publisher – Office Space

Everywhere I look across social media I seem to be encountering two things. Economic news about the pending commercial real estate collapse, and the movie Office Space. The former is vaguely interesting to me, as I applaud the work-from-home movement (better in the long run for everyone, from employees to employers and on to the tread on your tires), and the latter is one of my favorite movies. If you’ve not seen it, you should get some popcorn and give it a look see….but only after you clock out as its not a movies-from-home movement!

But these two fish bowls got me thinking about my own fish bowl. I’ve been doing this, publishing games, for 25 years, how have my offices fared?

The first of my offices was in my kitchen, dining area in my home. That was in 1999-2001 or some such. Kathy (the wife, there can be only one) was exceedingly patient. I remember it well as my computers walled off the table and faced the kitchen so that any small raiders in diapers were plane to see.

The second office was short lived, ’02 or thereabouts. We rented office space from a friend of mine and tried to do that. It lasted about a year, maybe.

In 2003 I moved back to the house, but by then we had closed in an annex to the house and made it a library/office. I worked there for what seems like several years. Todd joined me there and later came Davis. We had three work stations, each with our own desks.

In ’05 we started the print shop in that annex and everyone was kicked out. I moved back to the dining/kitchen area and set up my old office. It was very inconvenient. The family had grown and was continuing to do so.

In ’06 we moved to a new, bigger house, one we picked because it had a room perfect for my office. I set up there (where I still am). In the beginning it was just me. Then Todd moved from the mail room (the large room adjacent to the office) to my office and we shared the space for about a year. But we eventually drove each other nuts, him with my music and me with his slow typing! So he moved back into the mail room, as we moved a great deal of the storage to a warehouse.

As a side note, previously all TLG backstock was in Fort Wayne or the mail room, it was crowded, but we moved the back stock to a local warehouse.

Todd remained in the mail room and me in the office I currently occupy. He moved on to other offices eventually and left me here. My current office has gone through many changes, the desk continually moving, dial up to digital, to no phone at all, painted walls from white to green and all the other sundries. But despite the alterations, I’ve been here for the better part of TLG’s 25 years.

I think its time for some new duds though. Not sure where, but I do know I’m not going to help the commercial landlords get out of whatever bind they are in. Maybe there’s a pasture somewhere, sans the cows, where just the green green grass is blowing back and forth in the wind.

Maybe.

* The Annex served as my office for several years. I loved this space as it gave me plenty of room to work, natural light, and I could see outside with ease.

Memories of a Traveling Publisher ~ A Wild Ride

Some time ago, I think around ’04 or ’05, Todd Gray and I were coming back from Origins up in Columbus, Ohio. We were in Old Blue and had no camper shell. I can’t imagine why we went to a convention without a camper shell, but the cause and effect of such things are best not riddled over much. We tarped the cargo of course, but not much more than that.

At any rate, we were moving along as travelers are wont to do. After loading up we hit the road, somewhere around 5 in the evening. We took 71 headed to Cincinnati, Ohio, the first leg of our journey. We passed through the corn fields of that beautiful state, crossed the Ohio River at the aforementioned city and slipped on into the Blue Grass State, Kaintuck as Johnny Cash calls it in The Road to Kaintuck.

From there we went to Louisville and along one of my favorite interstates, 65. On that road its an easy drive to Nashville, Tennessee, as the road is usually open and not too crowded. As we crossed down to Tennessee the sun began to slip beneath the horizon. In short order we were headlights only, driving along. About this point Todd fell asleep. That boy can sleep in any moving vehicle as long as he’s not driving. If he’s driving he’s good for as long as the wheel is in his hands, when its not, he’s not, and he’s usually sound asleep.

We hit Nashville and turned left on 40, heading west to Memphis, anticipating crossing the Mississippi river and heading on home to Arkansas. Its still a five hour drive from Nashville and I was worn out, and so I pulled over to get some Dr. Pepper. He switched seats to take over and relaxed while I fished for my favorite beverage. Not driving, he promptly fell asleep. When I returned I played hell getting him to wake up and let me in the truck.

Off we went, and before long the dark sky lit up with lightning. The forested hills along that stretch are little more than black silhouettes, ominous shadows that ring in the plaintive lights of your little truck as it passes down the long highway. The flashes of light changed that, outlining the hills and trees in perfect detail, making what was ominous, suddenly baleful. We could feel a storm coming but had no choice but to plow on.

Somewhere on that dark, lonely road, about 11 or so, the weather turned. With windows wide open, as Todd and I do when traveling together, we could feel the weight of it and smell the moisture everywhere. What the lightning presaged gave us a go and the sky opened up. I remember it was a bad one, that rain fell like no tomorrow, beating the wipers in a flood they couldn’t contain, coating our headlights to flickering shadows, driving our windows shut, and hammering that tarp loose in the back. We had it tucked and not tied and those tucks in the back gave way right quick, so the tarp took on a life of its own and the cargo was as exposed as if under a bed sheet

Todd asked me “what do you want to do”!? I told him only one thing to do, “drive faster! use the cab to protect the cargo!” So on we went, plowing through that rain too fast and too slow all at the same time. It felt like a tunnel of water. The battering on the windshield drowned all but our maniacal exuberance, cascaded across the windows in unending rivulets, and whipped back into the cab through the open sliding glass in the back window. The tarp battered back and forth, loose now all up and down the load, as it strained to cling to its hold in the face of those wild winds and falling water. The submerging lasted forever, or so it seemed, and our exuberance began to give way to exhaustion and we both began looking for a safe harbor. To pull over without sure protection was to doom the load so we had to keep a sharp eye for a gas station. One after another slipped by, sometimes we didn't see them, sometimes their lights were off. It seemed to never end as the water harrowed our cargo.

After awhile we found an abandoned truck stop, whipped in to rest and ride it out, fix the tarp and enjoy the remnants of our Dr. Pepper.

It was a wild ride.

Old Blue just before retirment.