The Story of Trolls 4

Dulled senses make for faded moments and time blurs into a haze of yesteryears where yesterdays become tomorrow's would have beens; but heightened senses make moments leap from the fog  and force the memory to revel in moments that were never so much as they really were. Somewhere there is a universal truth, but no one much cares about it.

The name settled, Troll Lord Games, it became necessary to figure out the next step. How to manage the money for it all. The old Abba song, Money Money Money, where they sing "its a rich man's world" just isn't true. It wasn't for the belt tightened Troll for certain. Having scraped together the possibility of 5000.00 (largely via plastic, savings accounts and other forms of capital financing) the trio found themselves at a loss. The expenses kept coming.

As noted previously, in order to get the discount on the printing, and thus reduce the cost per unit of each book, four books were required. Davis was committed to one, Mac to another; Steve had finished his adventure though it needed maps and some serious polishing. The setting was to be the next one, but immediately problems arose. If the fourth book was to be the setting, it would need a map.

A note on the printing. Mac had called printers all over the US and Canada. He had learned the hard way the high cost of printing. He settled on a printer in Canada (mistakenly reported as Quebecor earlier) but it was in fact Preney Print & Litho. Preney proved an invaluable asset for the Trolls as the crew up there worked with them on every project they produced in the early days. Long phone calls about layout and final format were common. Preney used older equipment, offering blue lines for each of the projects and their set up meant that doing 2 projects instead of 1 or 4 instead of 3 was far more economical, so it was Preney that pushed the 4th book, that turned out to be the setting book that turned into Erde that turned into a bedrock of the company. Preney took raw files from photoshop and pagemaker. They worked hard to work hard with the Trolls. Steve is known to pine for Preney Print and Litho, calling them the bedrock upon which the Trolls built their house.

The map offered another source of financial woe, as 2000 copies of a setting book required an equal number of maps. On top of that, the map had to be drawn.

 Vino's became a hot bed for weekly meetings and beer.

The long-winded beer induced discussion of nickles and dimes became the main topic. The upfront expenses had to be curtailed. The first decision made was on the formatting of the book. The books were to have detachable covers, and by having the covers shipped separately, but folde it shaved off a bit of money. Of course the trio had to stuff each of the books before they could be sold. Also, folding the maps added its own expense, so the maps when ordered were done so unfolded and picked up on large palates . . . a decision that would haunt the company for many long months.

Perhaps the only argument to ever erupt between the partners came over the coating. Mac and Steve disagreed. And if you've ever seen two people disagree in an agreeable manner it is Mac and Steve. Steve saw no logic in the coating and Mac saw a better quality book. The discussion went on long into the smoke filled, drink benumbed night until it was decided with the statement "what self respecting gamer would give a crap if his adventure book was shiny or not?" that the books would have no cover. Mac was unamused by the decision, but in the end, curtailing the expense proved the day.

The coating was settled, the formatting too. And the number of books. But now where there had been 2 books, and then 3, it had become 4; four with a full sized map (and later the tubes to put it in) and Gencon. The $5000.00 budget was blown and sank.

It was then that Abba was proved wrong. It turns out that a sister's friend's brother's cousin was a friend of Macs at the bank. In a far shorter discussion than the one involving the coating it was decided. A loan would be secured with Mac's bank and Davis' truck put up for collateral. It was a tricky business, securing Davis' title to his paid off truck, taking it to a bank for Mac to sign over (which he couldn't as he wasn't on the title) and the bank reluctantly agreeing to the wild financing. On March 28th, 2000 all three signed the bank note; with a monthly payment of 369 and some change. $10,000.00 was secured and Troll Lord Games had money.

Next: maps at the library, an artist with dreadlocks and the division of labor.

post script: It turns out that Mac was right about the coating.