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