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Dispatches:
News from Atlas Games
Cartoonist Attends Signing, Leaves Toothbrush
John and I spent part of this weekend at the Source Comics & Games' 10th birthday party, where we got to chance to hang out with cartoonists John Kovalic and Aaron Williams, and Atlas artist Jesse Mohn. The store was a zoo ... Atlas gave the Source 850 copies of Touched by the Gods as promotional copies, and they ran out before the end of the two-day event. And with John and Aaron staying at our house for the duration, we were pretty busy the whole time. After things calmed down, we found John Kovalic's toothbrush left behind in our bathroom ... makes me wonder how much we could get for it on EBay! (Just kidding, John. *grin*)
Special Ops Information Leak
I thought it was about time to start leaking info about the Special Ops volunteer program. Several months ago we here at Atlas decided to revive our Special Ops demo team, and the last few weeks I've been working hard to make that happen. We plan to go live with the program in June, hopefully before the Origins convention. Information will be posted on the web site in just a few weeks ... if you'd like to be notified when it goes up, email michelle@atlas-games.com and put "Special Ops" in the header. We can't wait to get people signed up for the summer gaming season!
Brannon Hollingsworth Signing
May, 2003
At The Lion & Unicorn, a local gaming store in Birmingham, Alabama, game designer Brannon Hollingsworth is scheduled to sign books and run a contest. The signing is scheduled to take place from 1:00 ˆ 3:00 PM on Saturday, May 24th.
Brannon Hollingsworth was one of the contributing authors who submitted monsters for the
Penumbra Fantasy Bestiary. His other publishing credits include:
Danger in Deadwood, (co-authored with Ken Marable);
Dark Welcomes, an introductory adventure for the Oathbound Campaign Setting as well as assist on the development of the Oathbound Campaign Setting itself. Brannon’s work to date has been for several D20 publishers including Bastion Press, Sovereign Press, Necromancer Games,
Atlas Games, Eden Studios, Skeleton Key Games, Ambient, Inc., and Citizen Games.
In the coming months, Brannon’s work will be appearing in Dragon Magazine, The EN World Player’s Journal, Gaming Frontiers, several new Bastion Press releases, a book from Natural 20 Press, an article in the RPG Freelancers Guide and numerous adventures with DireKobold.com. Brannon has also recently opened a website,
The Enkwell.
Some quick updates:
Sacred Ground is on its way to distributors. This book features four temples and holy sites, continuing the work of last year's popular sourcebooks,
Seven Cities and
Seven Strongholds.
The Black Monks of Glastonbury is at the printer now. We're expecting to get it back and commence shipping to distributors in the 2nd half of June; the book should be available at Origins.
Finally, we received word from the printer that
The Penumbra Fantasy Bestiary should be delivered to us on June 4th. Have we mentioned how big this book is? I've gotta go find room for it in the warehouse somehow.
Wrath of Kr'awn
The
Blood Kr'awn PDF sample is now available on the official Atlas site. There you'll also find some evidence of the other, forthcoming previews. Enjoy your Monday.
Attack of the Mak Attax
With
Break Today being dispersed among the world's retailers, it seems like a good time to warn you about
To Go, the massive
Unknown Armies campaign coming from Greg Stolze. This is a stellar time to tap into
Unknown Armies the first time. You've got the whole summer to (re)familiarize yourself with the game and bone up on
Break Today.
Never played the game? Check out the fan-driven site by
Unknown Armies co-creator John Tynes at
www.unknown-armies.com or scan the game's source material and current catalog at
www.atlas-games.com/unknownarmies. Word.
Books On A Truck
Ugh! I'm tired!
Break Today was delivered early this afternoon -- four days later than expected, but these things happen. So we shipped it out to distributors all over the world, along with
Uncommon Character, the latest
Penumbra sourcebook. Watch for them to appear in stores in the coming week or two.
Meanwhile, time for me to finish my proofreading of David Chart's
The Black Monks of Glastonbury. I'm really enjoying it, even though I've already read an earlier draft. Scott's layout is beautiful and appropriate. Besides some original artwork, it makes good use of some Medieval woodcuts and wonderful Gustav Dore engravings from
Idylls of the King. (Yup, there's an Arthurian connection in this book.)
Next week we'll be shipping
Sacred Ground, the latest campaign sites sourcebook (along with
Seven Cities and
Seven Strongholds).
A Monster of a Book
We just got the proof copy of the Penumbra Fantasy Bestiary from the printer today. John commented: "That's 1d6 subdual damage just throwing it on my lap!"
The Real Land of Fire and Ice
So what's Iceland like, you ask? They say that Greenland is actually all ice, and Iceland is green, but what they forget to mention is that the green is actually just the moss and lichen on the lava fields. Iceland is a volcanic island, with gorgeous soaring mountains everywhere you look. There aren't any foothills ... the "mountains" just shoot suspiciously straight up from flat plains of lava rock. There also aren't very many plants or animals ... only 1% of the country is wooded (due partially to logging and partially to climate change) and birds and arctic foxes are the only native wildlife of mention. There aren't even any native insects, though some flies are said to have hitched a ride in recently.
The combined impact of all this is a landscape that is magnificently desolate, punctuated by grand waterfalls like Gullfoss, hot springs like the Blue Lagoon, vast stretches of glacier, and impressive geysirs (the original "Geysir" is in Iceland). In fact, most of Iceland's electrical power is produced by geo-thermal plants, and hot water for homes comes straight from the hot springs under most of the country (smells vaguely of sulfur coming out of the tap), while the cold is routed from the glaciers (we poured out our water bottles and refilled them from the tap before getting on the plane, that's how good it tastes). Most of the country's population lives in Reykjavik, which is a modern city on the southwest coast ... Icelanders seem to have quite a predisposition toward public sculpture and corregated metal as home siding, if Reykjavik is any indication.
Also of note in Iceland is the history of the people: Iceland is the home of the oldest parlimentary body, the Viking Thing. The inhabitants of Iceland would meet every summer in a valley called Thingvellir, where they would pass laws and rule on cases, as well as arrange marriages. One person was designated to recite the laws of Iceland by memory, which would take three summers to complete. This valley is also the product of the continental rift between the European tectonic plate and the North American plate. On each side of the valley, east and west, is a long line of cliffs, which mark the position of each of those plates; as the plates push away from each other, the valley floor falls several inches and the cliff walls retract. Also in view of Thingvellir are over 100 volcanoes, making for an amazing view across the water of the valley's lake.
And last but not least, I have to mention the Icelandic horses. They look like shaggy ponies, though genetically they're horses ... they actually decend from Viking horses, and are unique in that they have 5 gaits where typical quarterhorses only have 3. One of these is called a "tolt," and is about the speed of a trot without all the jarring ... it feels like you're sitting in a chair, hardly moving at all. It's quite an experience to be tolting through the lava fields, with volcanoes looming above you. I highly recommend it!
Atlas Games Distributor Update
May 5, 2003
[This went out to distributors a couple days ago, but I figured I'd post it to our blog, too! Uncommon Character was just delivered by the printe this morning, and Break Today is expected tomorrow.]
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New This Week: Break Today and Uncommon Character
We'll have two new titles shipping this week: Break Today (the hardcover Mak Attax sourcebook for Unknown Armies) and Uncommon Character (a Penumbra book of ready-made NPCs and lots of other new crunchy bits for the D20 System).
Break Today: http://www.atlas-games.com/product_tables/AG6007.html
Stock No. AG6007, ISBN 1-58978-016-7, 144 pp hardcover, $29.95
Uncommon Character: http://www.atlas-games.com/product_tables/AG3219.html
Stock No. AG3219, ISBN 1-58978-031-0, 128 pp softcover, $21.95 SRP.
ORDER DEADLINE: Thursday, May 7th
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Next Up: Sacred Ground
Our next new release will be Sacred Ground, the latest in the Campaign Sites series of Penumbra sourcebooks (after Seven Cities and Seven Strongholds). The earlier two titles have proven to be consistent re-sellers, demonstrating their value to D20 System GMs.
Sacred Ground: http://www.atlas-games.com/product_tables/AG3221.html
Stock No. AG3221, ISBN 1-58978-034-5, 112 pp softcover, $19.95
ORDER DEADLINE: Monday, May 19th
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Updated Release Schedule
Now At Press:
AG3219
Uncommon Character (Penumbra/D20) $21.95 - ships 5/7
AG6007
Break Today (UA) HC $29.95 - ships 5/7
AG3221
Sacred Ground (Penumbra/D20) 19.95 - ships 5/19
AG3218
Penumbra Fantasy Bestiary (Penumbra/D20) HC $44.95 - ships mid-June
May
AG3402
The Black Monks of Glastonbury (Coriolis ArM/D20) $17.95 - now expected to be June release
June
AG3403
Last Hero in Scandinavia (Coriolis Rune/D20) $19.95
July
AG4009
Gorilla Warfare (Feng Shui) HC $29.95
AG3222
En Route 2: By Land or by Sea (Pen/D20) $19.95
August
AG0267
Sanctuary of Ice (ArM) HC $29.95
AG3223
Crime & Punishment (Penumbra/D20) HC $29.95
September
AG3702
Ancestral Vault (Nyambe/D20) $19.95
I forgot to mention: the
Rune pages are now up, at long last. Also, the finalized cover for
The Penumbra Fantasy Bestiary which, as you've no doubt heard by now, has gone to the printers for about six weeks. It's like camp.
Those personality feats I promised
are now online. I mean it this time! You can also now learn everything you've always wanted to about our
Coriolis game line, including the straight dope on the next two
Coriolis books:
The Black Monks of Glastonbury and
The Last Hero in Scandinavia. Oh, and you noticed the little sample cover for
Gorilla Warfare, right?
Dynastic Downloads
We've got a couple of neat downloads related to the just-released
Dynasties and Demagogues D20 hardcover, which should be starting to appear in stores this week. Due to the server change, we don't have them here on our site yet (Will's working on an update today), but you can link to them directly on author Chris Aylott's site:
A sell sheet for retailers
Designer notes
E-Mail is Back
The server changeover is done, and now (a) the website shows up like it should, and (b) we are all receiving e-mail. If you sent an e-mail to any of us at atlas-games.com in the last few days, and had it bounce, please re-send. Thank you, and we apologize for the inconvenience.
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