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.