News at Last, Thank God Almighty there is News at Last!

Hey Folks,

I've been absent from the boards for several weeks, mainly working on the CKG, and as I'm way overdue for some news, here she goes . . .

Things are going to heat up a little around here. As I put more time into the CKG I'm going to move things around a bit in the schedule. All the below is set to give me more time into the CKG:

Neal joins us for the next two weeks and he's going to take over all the electronic uploads we've been needing to do, particularly over at Paizo, Game Hermit, RPGNow, Amazon etc.

I'm going to shift Crusader back one issue, a month's delay essentially. Resetting the magazine so that Issue 21 will ship in October, Issue 22 in November and so on. I'm doing this mainly so that I have more time in the short term to work on the CKG. I may have to do this again at some point in the very near future. So for the next few months it may get bumpy . . . certainly not as bad as it was back during the early days of the magazine.

Players Handbook is due to ship to these offices on the 23rd of this month, that 's this Wednesday. It normally ships in 2 days so that we will have the books late on Friday afternoon. Now, we are going to attempt to preset packaging and get a batch of them out on Friday, no promises on that though as we just never know when those tractor trailers are going to arrive.

Gods and Monsters is up next, but its going to have to wait a few more weeks for the pipe to clear.

The Screens continue to be a vexing problem. We are going to have another go at them this week.

CKG, chapter 21 wrap up today and tomorrow. This has really been the hardest chapter of it all, so hopefully this will prove to be the end game for this project.

We've launched the personalized Players Handbooks as well. Get your orders in quickly, if not the files, so we can set these up and start printing them. Thanks.

I'm sure there's more but it will have to come to me as it comes to me.

I have started a thread over on the message boards called News and More News. If you have any questions, please stop by and I'll do my best to answer them.

Thanks for playing,
Steve

Good Sweet Heavens

Gen Con, Hardbacks, Tainted Lands, too much unloading and loading...lots of work going on around here and the blog gets shucked to the side again. I'll update in the next coming days.

But in the short term, we returned from Gencon at 4 in the a.m. and we are back at the work bench hammering away: up next CKG.

Steve

Troll Con and Beyond

Hey all from the Troll Dens,

It was a very good show, whole lot of fun. Lots of games, visiting and hanging out. The set up was nice and the show went smooth as butter.

A very hearty Thank You to Jim Ward, the 501st and everyone else. The Troll Crew did an excellent job running the show and I thank you from me to them: Richard, Excellent job! Breakdaddy, Todd, Brian, Mark, Davis and all. Great job.

But the real thanks goes out to the people from John Adams and family to Robert Miller and Family and all the Wichita guys and everyone else who took the time and money to spend a weekend with us here in Little Rock. A very kind thank you very much from me to you.

We'll get some wrap ups in the next few days out for Crusader and what not but suffice it to say it was a real fun time.

And the real good news is that its only going to get better.

Lots to do around here, lots more work to be done. Gods is a wrap, PH is a wrap and we are on to Tainted Lands and the CKG. Its all bore now for Gencon and the fall releases. Soooo, I'm going to take a week off and go to Montana and walk around the glaciers there and get my head cleared.

But when I get back on the 20th we are going to hit the ground running.

Trollzah! and remember its a Troll World After All....hahah

Thanks for playing,
Steve

ps: Davis and Mark are in charge while I'm gone. That should be fun. :)

Message Boards

Hey folks,

The Message Boards are down. It appears to be a problem with the DNS on the providers end. Bryan is looking into some solutions. We may attempt to get some temp boards up.

Thanks for the patience!

Steve

Players

Steve: hard at work on PH edits and a little reformat.

Peter: hard at work on Gods and Monsters.

Davis: hard at work on CKG.

Mark: hard at work on Area mapping sheets.

Jim: hard at work on CKG.

Thanks for playing,
Steve

Growing Pains

Well as usual, we seem to be having growing pains. At least I hope its growing pains . . . .

Jim and Liz have just put Crusader 19 to bed and its a good one, chalk full of all kinds of articles. We have a few sneak peeks on the CKG in this issue as well.

Work on the Castle Keeper's Guide has been tremendous has knocked us off schedule with the A series, nothing unusual there as that poor series is constantly being knocked to the side. A6 has just now shipped and we'll announce its availability tonight or tomorrow night. We'll also put up some errata for the Monsters & Treasure, apparently we left out the stat block for the Shark.

But problems with the M&T have made us take a closer look at the PH which we are going over now. That has necessarily delayed that project by a week or so. This of course has delayed work on the CKG somewhat, but it has not impacted Gods & Monsters as that book is almost completely in Peter's court now. This has had a small impact on Tainted Lands though that project is well on its way for a Gencon Release.

In short we have a ripple affect going up and down the line caused largely by the PH delays. I'll have a better assessment next week of where we are on everything.

Thanks for playing!
Steve

A6 Shattered the Horn

A6 Of Banishment & Blight is finally done and ready to ship. It took a monstrous last minute effort to align text and the 12 odd maps in the book. Davis made a kick ass adventure, but good lord are the maps complicated, 7 towers over 7 causeways to 7 dungeons that lead to a central dungeon that has four levels.

Ug. I hate Davis sometimes. And have let him know quite a bit.

But he has been pounding out the CKG and we invited Jim Ward's input as well and Jim has turned over some remarkable material. The book is well on its way to being completed.

I'm now doing some wrap up for Crusader 19, it should be shipping by early next week at the lastest. So that's good.

After that, some more CKG and then on to Tainted Lands. Box cover is done, now to editing and guts.

And then, Cleaver the Pit. Look for a box set of the game, version 2 I think, this coming Gencon!

Thanks for playing.
Steve

Digging in Under the Bridge

The last few weeks have been very interesting. We continue to see tremendous amounts of traffic at the site and interest in the game. Initial orders went beyond expectations. Generally a reprint is not met with much reaction at the retail level, but we saw strong out the gate numbers. This was encouraging. They were away and beyond the 2nd printing of the M&T. Nothing to shatter records and put C&C on the map as the game of choice, abut very good for TLG and the Crusade in general. In many ways the M&T is the weakest of the books as it is designed primarily for the Castle Keeper. So we have high expectations for the 4th printing of the Players Handbook.

That book has been moved forward, in front of Gods and Monsters. This was a tough decision for me to make and it is mine alone (so if it goes south, we have no one but me to blame). Essentially we are reprinting two hard back books back to back with nothing to soften the expense blow other than the two books in question. This might not make a lot of sense, but both the PH and the will be viewed as reprints by the retailers. This means that they treat them as a normal restock as opposed to a new title. New titles always outsell restocks by 10 to one if not more. The original plan was to bring Gods out to soften the blow for the PH and MT however circumstances changed when retailers quit ordering the PH 3rd printing altogether (once they heard the 4th was coming) and consumers followed suite. Without the PH in the pocket the Crusade has little steam to go on no matter the quality of the M&T, Gods and the CKG. So I moved it forward of Gods to bring it to the fore asap.

Now the 4th printing is slated to go to press on May 31st. We are on target for that date. I have dug in under the Troll Bridge today to finalize edits and material to get over to Peter. The barbarian is largely finished, but I will have it playtested a little more before press time. In the meantime I am putting together more of the art notes for Gods and Mosnters and bringing that fellow to a close. We hope to have everyting on Peter's desk by June 5th so he can finalize layout and we can get this guy to press and out by Troll Con VII. As it stands we are on target for that.

Once these two books are done and gone its all hands on deck for the CKG. Which is still on target for the August release. I'll bring more of that to light later.

But in the meantime. Look for the Heart of Glass release this weekend. It will have some few things the original did not, namely the Crna Ruk as a playable monster (as oppossed to the prestige class of yeasteryear) and the Rings of Brass as playable magic items.

All this is coming and the 4th Crusade expanding into the next realm!

Thanks for Playing
Steve the Troll Lord

The Fourth Crusade Begins

Monday afternoon some 56 cartons of books arrived here at the dens. Now of course that's not what goes into distribution. Those ship to Ft. Wayne. Mark was buried deep in some printing work so Davis and I scheduled an after hours unloading. It began in they damp hot air about 5 p.m. We carted the boxes from the truck (we had picked them up at the shipping center) through the mud to the warehouse either on our shoulders or with the hand cart. Mark joined us. By the end of it
we had stacked and inventoried the books.

Inside? Monsters. Monsters and more Monsters.

It was indeed the 3rd printing of the Monsters & Treasure.

I pulled two boxes and carted them back to the mail room and popping one open, had my first look at the M&T. I am very impressed. The last minute switch to green really did well and Peter's new cover is a brilliant blue. Very eye grabbing. The insides are largely the same, some minor changes and some additional art . . . the bullette and dragonne come to mind. But of particular interest to me is the paper stock. Peter pushed me hard to get a different type of paper stock, something about the grayscale art coming out better. I very grudgingly agreed (as it cost more and I'm cheap and didn't want to raise the price of the book...and did not by the by). But holy skype hunting. That paper is awesome. The 2nd printing was too light and stuck together, the first printing was too stiff. This paper stock is awesome.

I am impressed sir Peter, very impressed.

Tuesday we hoped up and packed and shipped the pre-orders. Those should be making their rounds even now. We took all the inventory and cooridanted with Impressions Advertising and Marketing to get the announcements down and here we are.

The Fourth Crusade has begun! Buy your today!

Steve

Free Free Free

Dirn it if the first shipping bill came in for Free RPG Day! haha We have sent out the first 1200 copies of the C&C Primer for 2009. It sports Peter Bradley's new layout with Jason Walton's cover for Monsters of Aihrde.

I finished the first pass over on the Heart of Glass, rework. That's nice to have done.

Work work work.

And Its all good!

Steve

This Crazy Blog

Whose in charge of this thing anyway??

Lots of news around here. The M&T is here and being processed and inventoried. Black Libram is out. We are working on a new cover for the PH, announcing a monster book of devils. Work has proceeded fast on Gods and Monsters and Tainted Lands.

We've added a 4th estate for media info on TLG.

Troll Con is raring up!

Things are moving along fast and furious and folks are grumbling at me for not getting them the
proper materials they need to do the jobs I've hired them to do!

THE FOURTH CRUSADE HAS BEGUN.

Steve

ps: Today I hit the speaker phone on my desk phone to call a distributor and got up and walked into the mail. A few seconds later I heard this ringing and thought, who the heck is calling me? I came back to the desk, saw the light on and said: "Hello." "Hello?" "Is anyone there." It kept ringing and then it hit me . . . . I need some sleep.

A Lion in Winter

Well its been a crazy two weeks since my last post. We've been working like mad around with little direction. We've tackled projects like The Black Librum of Naratus, The Castle Keeper's Guide, Monsters & Treasure, Tainted Lands, Crusadser 17, Monsters & Treasure of Aihrde, A6 Of Banishment & Blight and the 4th Printing of the Players Handbook. Too many loose ends and too many attempts to tie them all up nicely have left us a bit off key.

So we are going to regroup this weekend and get back into order. Black Librum's final should be on my desk on Monday as will Crusader 17 A6 has undergone a major revision and must needs be playtested again, so it will head to playtesting on Monday or Tuesday. M&T 3rd Printing is off to print with proofs approved. Other projects will be set aside and all attention given to the CKG.

So hoping that next week calms a bit and allows us to keep a little more focus.

Now enjoy a little of a great piece of music (not country this time I promise).

Thanks for playing.
Steve

Out of the Office

I will be out of the office until Monday the 30th. I'm taking my family to the mountains for some R&R, but I'm also taking A6, Chapter 6 from the CKG and Heart of Glass with me in order to do some writing, editing and cleaning up while I am away from the mad hatter's race that is TLG.

Here's a little June for you and your weekend!

And really you have to check out a Day in the Life!

Steve

The Den is A Mess

Really. The Troll Dens are a mess. Papers are covering my desk, they have spilled on to the floor. A stack of Crusaders is sprawled out next to my chair. The file cabinet looks like it vomited its soul of files and papers. The adjoining counter and desk is covered with half finished projects from t-shirts, to rolled up maps, someone's safe and various and sundry bottles. The adjacent mail room is a confetti nightmare. The 10/5 sale has done very and swamped me and Mark. We sold out of all available M&Ts, (the last of the 2nd printings, about5 30 or so are coming in from the Warehouse, there were reserved for other sales but i'm pulling thme) DB4, A5 and a few others and are reprinting them. But paper, boxes, packing and tape lies everywhere. Its a mess. I shutter to think of what the print shop looks like.

But the day ended with me catching a terrible mistake in MT 3rd printing. The bid called for a round binding and TLG always does square binding. Fixed that, finished the cover and guts and its at last off to the printer. Now on to Gods and Monsters.

But Davis is coming in tonight to work so no real need to clean up as he'll explode across the office like a typhoon of mess.

Here's one of the bed time tunes I used to sing my youngsters...seriously.

Thanks for playing,
Steve

Graphing it all out

Alright, today is a good day so far! Mark is producing more graph paper as it is selling like madness. McBain and I had a productive conversation about Troll Con and are looking at an expanded guest list . . . we'll see on that, pretty exciting at any rate. I just finished Monsters of Aihrde IV and released it and will spend the rest of the day finalizing some things with the Monsters & Treasure, 3rd printing, and it will go off to press this afternoon.

Still digging my Oxygen.

Thanks for playing.
Steve

Tuesdays and Kill Time

The fight to keep time from overwhelming us is a hard one . . . .

Yesterday Breakdaddy reassembled the discombobulated computers in the print shop and got us back online and in business. A good thing by any stretch. Gave me an opportunity to clean the shop some in Mark's absence. Of course the highlight was Breakdaddy giving Todd a friendly punch in the stomach . . . Todd just had surgery on his guy last Friday. The groan was heard in the back of the shop. I haven't laughed so hard in a long time!

We just launched Crusader No. 13 on RPGNow. Be sure to pick that pdf if you haven't already. Of course you should really subscribe and join the Crusade now. A6 continues to get bumped on the roster, but hopefully it will get wrapped up tomorrow. I will launch Monsters of Aihrde IV on RPGNow sometime tomorrow. The last bit of art came in and it looks fantastic. Its the Mogrl by Mark Allen.

Hartsfield aka AGNKim, this one goes out to you!

Thanks for playing,
Steve

Launch Pad

Monday is off and running. Today we launched our fourth annual 10/5 March recession madness sale!!! Get 'em while you can. Some of these items, the PH and MT, are just not going to be around for long...at least in these printings!

Also please note that the Monsters & Treasure 3rd printing is now available for sale! It is off to the printers sometime today or tomorrow!

We had a good weekend, I worked on several projects, most notable Monsters of Aihrde IV, Dwarven Glory III and Crusader 17. So with a little luck we can work through our computer problems and have this week luanch into space much like the space shuttle
Discovery did last night!!

Today I"m working on MT 3rd, Crusader 17 and Heart of Glass. Mark is wrestling with computers and machines as is Breakdaddy!

Thanks for playing,
Steve

Bumpy Ride

Well this week unraveled a little.

On Wednesday we were having trouble with a file, thought the file was corrupt but it wasn't. Turns out we needed updated software. This put us way back on production as we have still not managed to get the software on there. Finally made Breakdaddy aware of it but it will be Monday before we get it online (note to Troll Self: call Breakdaddy first).

We have lots of website updates but Bryan is down with a horrible flu so none of that happened. Hopefully this weekend. Of course can't blame him too much as I was trying to get these files updated for Mark and didn't have time to even get him updates on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Peter got caught up wrapping up some other projects and we didn't get the Title Logo finished so M&T and Black Librum aren't press ready.

E-Con canceled, or sort of did, so we've pulled out for this year and will look to next year!

Lots of visitors in the office and too much conversation.

Its been a frustrating week to say the least. So I'm clocking out early, turning off the phone, shutting down IM and going to get to work cleaning up work spaces and getting ready for what promises to be a bumpy week next week!

So until Monday.....Death Proof SPOILER the end of this movie appears in this video!! Great Movie!

Thanks for Playing
Steve

Good Days Are Fine Days

Today was a good and productive day. Though things have stalled a little bit on the release front as A6 Of Banishment and Blight languishes on my desk we are moving forward on many other fronts. A productive meeting this weekend led to changes in the Barbarian, Illusionist and Monk class. Minor on the latter two but major on the first one which brings us a few steps closer to the 4th printing. Peter turned over Monsters and Treasure 3rd and I had a chance to look it over quite a bit. We had a good business cycle last week embarking on several joint ventures which will help our overall cash flow. I wrapped some of these up on Friday and today. All very good.

The new facebook page for Troll Con seems to be giving us a little traction and with that in mind Richard McBain and I had a productive meeting today which will see a greater emphasis on a number of conventions including Dragon Con this fall.

I have a growing amount of game material on my desk, day to day operations have not allowed me to tackle it as quickly as I would, but here are some of the items to see in the very near future: Monsters of Aihrde IV, the CKG, the aforementioned A6, Of Gods & Monsters, Heart of Glass and the Book of Familiars.

So things are moving at quick pace here in the dens, hope you all keep along for the ride.

Now for you listening pleasure: Oxygen.

Thanks for Playing,
Steve

Gary Con

The Trolls are off to Gary Con this Thursday night. We'll close up shop Thursday afternoon, load up in the truck and head off north Lake Geneva. After 12 hours or such, we'll come to the end of the road to meet old friends and toast our memories. I remember this time, just a year ago arriving in Lake Geneva, driving a car up from Chicago, stunned at the incomprehensible news.

Well, a year has come and gone and this old cowboy song comes to mind. So enjoy it and think of the Trolls treking north in the cold dark night to relive, if only for a few days.

The Blizzard.

Thanks for playing,
Steve

Curt meet Bare Knuckles Role Playing

I have no idea what is going on around here. I've been back from Dundracon for several days...10 I think, and I still can't get my head on straight. California always does this to me. I come back dazed and confused. Flying into San Fran is strange. At this time of year it seems to be a GIANT golf course. The hills and valleys are covered in this lush, picture perfect green grass. Cows are wandering about in vales and the like. A few burbs here and there and then water, marshland and you land at Oakland. It seems so peaceful and serene. Then you get off the airport and there are 17500 people crammed into a small box sized terminal. Its quite shocking to my system. :)

Its a great place though, going through a couple of bumps right now.

But the con was fair to middling sales wise. I did what I expected us to do, but for all that you'll have to read my Convention Blog on in 16. I'll keep it short. I would like to say that I had an interesting encounter on Monday (con runs through George Washington Day... I refuse to call it President's Day, Lincoln did some great things, but Washington is OUR FOUNDING FATHER).

I was sitting at the booth, hum drumming the morning away when a fella came up and asked if I had anything to do with the company and C&C in particular. I said, "A little. I run the company and helped design/write the game." He said, "Great! I wanted to talk to someone about it." I'm going to paraphrase but he went on to tell me that he had bought the books yesterday from a dark haired guy (I though, Luke! Good job Luke!). Then he continued with how he read it over and was very disappointed, it looked like a 3.5 knock off. (Dirn it Luke! Curse you for selling this guy the books!). And he tossed it in his bag. I was waiting for the other shoe to drop, the I want my money back shoe. Which truthfully, noone has ever asked for their money back.

Well, he goes on to relate how at 1 a.m. the previous night he and his buds had nothing to play. The con was a loss because the several games he signed up for hadn't panned out. So they pulled these C&C books out and decided to give them a whirl. He then said, "This game is Awesome!" We started playing on the table, using the table cloth for our character sheets, no screens, no nothing but some dice, hotel pencils and the PH and MT. He said it was fast and fun and let him and the players really stretch their RP muscles. He was very excited and jumped into the spritit of the game immediately.

It was a great encounter and jazzed me up to no ends. On top of a slow weekend this was the perfect ending. He showed me the table where the paper table cloth was, with the characters scribbled out on it. I asked if he minded if I took it and he didn't care so I did. I have it here and am going to get some photos up shortly!

It was a great encounter. The dude's name was Curt something or the other, I didn't catch. But to him I tip my hat! Thanks for playing the game Bare Knuckle Style.

Thanks for playing
Steve

Ps I somehow disabled spell correct on this blog, so my spelling will be normal. Brian??? Jason??? hahahha

A little more Shonen Knife.



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Singapore

Who is supposed to be updating this blog!?

Good Grief.

Enjoy...Singapore.

Steve

Round 2

Well if February isn't already upon us! January went by extremely fast it seems to me. But it was a good month. We released a good number of products in January. A5 Shattered Horn signals the revival of the A series. Bands of Orcs is a new pdf release that offers quick made encounters. Arms and Armor is a great resource for any game system and a truly unique approach to the subject. DB6 also launched this past week, The Conquered East brings us all back to the Haunted Highlands and at the last few days we shipped Crusader 15. All these products compliment the ever growing C&C universe the RPG community at large.

January has been a good month and strong start to 2009.

This of course has been complimented by a new catalog that will be made available this next week for download. Its final draft is being completed now. This is the first tool in my arsenal to revive the sagging Retailer sales that TLG has experience since 2006. The drops in these numbers reflects a failure amongst distributors to push the C&C line and the very poor reaction I have to retailer needs...the catalog being one of the most important.

Mark and I have prepped the machine shop for its expansion which is going to enhance out abilities to do new things. Look for perfect bound copies of C&C products in the very, very near future.

I'm also considering an option, I have to talk this over with Peter, to revive a project he has long wanted to do, offer the PH and MT in one perfect bound book for quick reference. I'm mulling over the options, if we do this, it must include the updated 3rd printing material of the MT and the 4th printing material of the PH. This actually allows folks a less expensive way to get the latest version of the game. More on this early in the week.

For the first time in TLG's history I'm about 90% compliant with all my end of year financial filings, book keeping and the like. Its a small miracle which can be attributed to the staff here at TLG: Mark Sandy, Peter Bradley, James M. Ward, Cory M. Caserta, Brian Kowalski, Elizabeth Stewart, Mike Stewart, Jason Walton, Casey Cannfield, Casey Christofferson, Mark Allen, Robert Doyel, Jason Alexander and Richard McBain. And of course let us not forget the indomitable Davis who blasts into my office at 11 pm with all manner of ideas and mountains of CKG notes for me to put together and assemble.

This coming week I'll turn my attention to the CKG and begin my drive into retail shops and new distribution opportunites. Mark will begin the revamping of the shop to make room for new equipment and aforementioned expansion and Peter will be hopping hard on the multiple covers we've got him working on. Also look for the previously mentioned update on Crusader to make the copy more appealing and let people know what is in each bloody issue. In short we'll be removing the cluster of crap that is the crusader copy now!

Enjoy and as always, Thanks for Gaming!
Steve

For the song's smiths!



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Yodel to the End

Well, in the spirit of bringing TLG into the digital age, albeit reluctantly (Peter just informed me that Google has electronically scanned scores of our books without permission), I thought I'd stop by, to let folks know that I'm going to schedule regular blog posts this coming week.

But until then, enjoy a little of the most pleasent sounds you'll ever here.

That's how we do it! (Peter's head is going to explode on this one!)

If that hurt your ears then check this out.

Electric! (Julian Grimm, this one I'm sure your going to like!)

Thanks for playing,
Steve

2009 is upon us. Today the family, Mac’s family, Todd and Mark gathered for our traditional New Years Day feast of hog jowls, black eyed peas, turnip greens and corn bread with some local muskidine (sic) wine to top it off. Great fare…er, but for the turnip greens, that I could do without. Its supposed to bring us good luck and fortune. Here’s to it!!! And to you and yours as well!!

I’m looking forward to 2009, I really am. It’s going to be an exciting year. Its going to be a year that tests the market staying power of our communities game: Castles & Crusades. If the game does well, then we have a game that will stay and any amount of “it’s a fluke” talk that we’ve all had to endure can be permanently banished to the rubbish heap, where it truly belongs. As those of you who play already know C&C is so much more than a retro d20 game. But why am I so excited? There are several reasons.

Foremost is that the core books for Castles and Crusades are up for new printings: The Players Handbook will hit its 4th, the Monsters & Treasure its 3rd, the CK screens their 2nd. These are perfectly timed. We have literally run out of all three items at the same time. And this just happens to be the time that the Castle Keepers Guide is finally being wrapped up (Davis handed over Chapters 1 and 2 for editing this past Monday). The opportunity to address some long standing trade dress issues is golden. We can fix the books and release the new books all with the same look. To this end, several months ago actually, I charged Peter the task of making the trade dress more stark and eye catching. Bring in some colors and contrast them with the background. I also wanted at least a small overhaul to the C&C title logo, to make it more readable. He has done all these things with a gusto. The look has been on the site for awhile, but you can see the near final rendition of the new trade dress and the art for the M&T on this site, tonight. We are also going to take this opportunity to fix some long standing problems with the PH, specifically the Barbarian and the Illusionist. The Barbarian takes on a far more playable character class. I know you all are all going to enjoy it. Some other minor fixes, a new cover piece within the trade dress will top it off. The screen will sport the same art but a slightly different layout.

Next up is our growing relationship with James M. Ward. Jim, as we call him, has been hard at work for TLG for almost a year, if not long. He’s taken over the editor job at Crusader and turned that into a monthly magazine. Sagging subscription sales have picked up and the magazine seems to be inching into a new life. But more than that is the new C&C core book Of Gods & Monsters. This book explores well over a dozen pantheons and offers a host of monsters, magic items and spells to help round out the C&C experience. But more than that Jim takes a different approach to the deities, and makes them playable. The gods are given avatars and these avatars, like the Odin who wandered Midgaard we now have gods that take the guise of mortals. This book is going to be more than useful.

The Aufsrat series, the A adventure modules, lends itself to my happiness. This series is really core to the Aihrde universe as not only does it give people a playable series to dive into the setting with, but it ends with the monumental adventure: Aufstrag. We have managed to kick start the series of adventures that has sat stalled for years. A5 is already out the door and shipping. A6, the cover is done, the maps need drawn and the book edited. It should ship in January with no problem. A7 is on my desk. Peter has begun laying out the Great Tree and though work is far from done I anticipate that the moment the CKG is out the gate this adventure will dominate my attention.

Casey Christofferson has given me mountains of material to work on for the Haunted Highland series. Anticipate a folio edition of that setting coming out soon. He’s explored all manner of new items as well, next up the Black Librum
There is more C&C goodness further down the line. Much more. Miniature battle rules. Oriental rules. The Basic set. Adventures, MT 2, graph paper and more. Its too much for my overly taxed new year’s brain to put out today.

This doesn’t even touch the new adventures for Star Siege we are working. The Harvesters Game, Victorious and the oft mentioned Pulp Siege. We have a Horror Siege in the works as well. We’ll work hard on getting at least two of these out this year. Each game system will be considered for its own line of expansion and setting projects. All very much fun.
We have even more as well, but I’ll save it for later as the website is updated and it is time for me to go to my weekly game. But the shop and product line expansions will bring much growth to TLG and we are all looking forward to it with anticipation.

Alot has happened in the past year. More than any of us could have forseen. But its behind us. My mom once told me something that I use to guide my life. Her husband went off to war in Vietnam (twice volunteered), her three sons joined up during war time (first Iraq war) and I asked her once, when we all thought we would end up overseas, if it was hard saying good bye. She told me that it was harder than I would ever know, but the best thing to do, is to say Goodbye and then go on. And I can't say that in the many times that I have left my mom, when I would look back at her, that she has ever stopped and looked back at me departing. She would say goodbye and then turn around and walk away. In many respects this is what we are doing. We won't forget, we'll honor the memory and hold up the candle for all to see, but we are going forward. Always forward.

TROLLZAH

Now to the Land of Plenty!

Thanks for playing.
Steve