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Dispatches:
News from Atlas Games
Car Card Crazy
Finally, what you've been waiting for ... the vehicle promo cards for Cthulhu 500 that first appeared in Game Trade Magazine are now available on the
Cthulhu 500 page. Experience the Mythos Motorsports Madness with the Cthulhu for President Campaign Bus and the unstoppable Monster Truck!
The WebGoddess Strikes Again
Atlas' WebGoddess emeritus, Wendy Wyman, has struck again. If you have Java Script enabled you'll now note that your archives are in two handy columns on the right, in an abbreviated format. And if you've been looking at wonky vertical spacing on Internet Explorer for Mac for the last two months, you'll be happy to see that's been fixed, too. Hip, hip, hooray!
Follow Your Favorite Designer
I just finished putting up links to each RPG line and card game's designer(s). Now you can find
Jeff Tidball's site by going to the
Cthulhu500 page,
Keith Baker's site by finding
Gloom's page, and the same for the designers of great games like Feng Shui, Over the Edge, On the Edge, Rune, Furry Pirates, Cults Across America, Lunch Money/Beer Money, and Spammers.
And I've put up permanent links to Greg Stolze's Unknown Armies-inspired PDF novel,
Godwalker, on the main
Unknown Armies and
Fiction pages.
More Dynasties for Your Demagogues
Continuing in my attempt to post those oft-missed magazine promos from the past few years on our web site, I give you the
Rocking the Vote preview of
Dynasties & Demagogues' voting system, by esteemed write Chris Aylott. This preview first appeared in Gaming Frontiers in March of 2003.
I'm likely to post the Cthulhu500 promo cards on Friday, so be sure to check back!
Oh Happy Day
Today's the day I promised that the Gloom Houses promo would go up ... and what do you know? There it is, on the
Gloom product page. Enjoy!
This weekend marks John and my 5th wedding anniversary. They say the 5th should be celebrated with paper, so we're going to check out the games at Con of the North on Saturday. (Wait a second ... HOW did I get myself talked into this?!) It's at the Holiday Inn at McKnight & Hwy 94 for all those lonely gamers in the Twin Cities. See you there!
Bells and Whistles
Ever wanted to search the Atlas site for everything related to Nyambe? Looking for every little hidden mention of Ars Magica? Try out the NEW Atlas Games site search engine, down there in the bottom left corner of this page.
Original Art at Genghis Con Charity Auction
If you're in the Denver area this weekend, you should check out
Genghis Con XXVI. This year we were pleased to help arrange for a very special contribution to their charity auction: the original cover painting of
The Myth of Self. The auction takes place February 18, 2005 at 6pm at the Four Points Sheraton at I-25 and Hampden in Denver, CO. It is part of Genghis Con's
charity efforts to benefit
Heifer International's Tsunami Relief fun
d.
Special thanks to artist
Roger Raupp for donating this beautiful original painting for such a worthy cause!
(You can also meet
Gloom designer
Keith Baker at the con, since he's the Writer Guest of Honor -- so really, this is a convention you definitely should attend if you can!)
Vis Sources Call Closed
The Vis Sources Open Call is now closed. The response has been great; I have about 150 vis sources awaiting consideration, and since I only need 40-50, I'm afraid I'm going to be rejecting most submissions. I'm planning to make the decisions in early March at the latest.
The submissions to this raised a couple of points that I think are worth emphasising to all prospective authors, whatever RPG you want to write for, or even if you want to write novels.
First, when there are submission instructions, follow them. If the instructions ask for plain text in the body of an email, don't send RTF attachments or HTML emails.
Second, don't mis-spell basic game terms in the subject line of your email. There are only 15 Arts in Ars Magica, and checking the correct spelling doesn't take long. Getting it wrong really doesn't impress the Line Editor. (Failing to notice that the accents have all been dropped for ArM5, however, doesn't bother him at all.)
Some editors will immediately discard submissions making those sorts of mistakes. I'm more lenient, partly because the query letter that got me my start in this industry was printed in 8 point type on two sides of a sheet of A4 paper (don't do that, either). However, it doesn't make a good impression, and if it comes down to choosing between someone who followed the instructions and spelled game terms correctly, and someone who didn't, the person who got it right will get into the book. Why make life harder for yourself?
Sneak Peek at GAMA Offerings!
I just put up images of our new Ars Magica 5th Edition brochure and Northern Crown: New World Adventures brochure, both of which will be debuting at GAMA Trade Show in March. They each have a nifty poster map in the center, and lots of info on the game.
Take a look!
Also, due to public outcry I've been working on making PDFs of the promos for our games that appeared in magazines in the last few years ... things like the four Gloom promo house cards and the two Cthulhu500 promo vehicle cards that appeared in Game Trade Magazine, the Stilt-Walker and Nyamban Herbal that were published in Campaign and Pyramid for Nyambe, The Whisperer out-take from the Penumbra Fantasy Bestiary that was only ever seen in Pyramid, the Rocking the Vote promo for Dynasties & Demagogues that was in Gaming Frontiers, and Occult Lore promos from D20 Weekly and Gaming Frontiers, plus some material that I came across in my housecleaning that I don't think has been seen anywhere before! I'll be putting them all up in the next few weeks, starting with the Gloom promo from Game Trade Magazine on Friday ... so check back often!
Update: Sourcebooks in Progress
Since I have received a couple of e-mails asking about this topic, I thought I'd provide a general update on the status of the upcoming Ars Magica rulebooks.
Obviously, we're very late. Our whole schedule was tossed to the winds by a variety of things late last year, and the result was that we weren't able to keep to the dates we'd planned. We have been finding our bearings again, however. In particular, I've found that to do the work that I need to take care of on these books (such as layout and doling out the art assignments), I just have to spend some days and weekends working from home, where I won't be distracted by phone calls, wholesale orders, and all the other little things that tend to fill up every day in the office. All of them are very important, mind you, but make it hard to maintain concentration.
At this point, I've done the layout for both Guardians of the Forests and True Lineages. All of the True Lineages artwork is assigned (and due at the end of next week); all the GOTF art is assigned, and this morning I will finish with the map assignments. While we wait for the art to come in, I have to finish some final graphics work (e.g., replacing logos in the page backgrounds for True Lineages), and Michelle and I are proofreading the books. If things go smoothly, both books may go to press on or soon after Feb. 28th. Printing and binding for hardcovers typically takes about 6 weeks, which would put us in the middle of April -- on time for True Lineages, but three months late for Guardians of the Forests.
The original plan was for Guardians to be ganged at the press with Glimpse of the Abyss. However, at this point we don't know when Glimpse will be ready. When it's here, it's here. I can say that all the artwork is in hand. But obviously, even in the best-case scenario, the book could not be printed and available for sale until late April.
So that's the update. And now, I have to get back to work!
New on RPGNow: The Maleficium
This morning I finished my work on making a PDF out of a hard copy scan of the long-out-of-print infernal sourcebook for
Ars Magica,
The Maleficium. It's
now available as a pay-download from RPGNow.
Design your own Dismal Denizen
By popular demand, we're pleased to reveal to you a nifty little download that will let you, yes YOU, design your own
Gloom family cards. Just download the
Character Card PDF, fill in the form fields, print it out, and draw your own character and family symbol!
Dungeoneer: Dragons of the Forsaken Desert
Long ago the sorcery of the Eldritch Lords transformed fertile plains into a desolate waste. Now the crumbling ruins of a great civilization litter the landscape, and only the remnants of the people known as the Drakan survive the harsh desert. But the mighty Dragon King has summoned legions of his kind and their lizard-men minions to lay claim to the desert. Can you defend the villages of the Drakan and defeat the vile dragon horde?Dragons of the Forsaken Desert is a two- to four-player
Dungeoneer card game. Your character explores a wilderness that you build with map cards, while fighting monsters, completing quests, and leveling up along the way. Each
Dungeoneer set can be played as a stand-alone card game, or combined with other decks for more dungeon-delving fun.
Dragons of the Forsaken Desert features 110 new
Dungeoneer cards, including dragon-themed monsters and three new heroes for your
Dungeoneer game: Dragonslayer, Desert Dweller, and Holy Light.
2-4 players, 20-30 minutes per player, ages 12 and up
6-sided dice and tokens not included
Single Deck: Stock No. AG1245, MSRP $19.95 (US), ISBN 1-58978-079-5
Designed and Illustrated by Thomas Denmark
Shipping to Distributors in May 2005
Lunch Money in Portuguese!
We now have the
Lunch Money rules available for download in
Portuguese, courtesy of
Special Ops member Eduardo Fukugava. Thanks, Eduardo!
Another Not-so-Gloomy Review
Shannon Appelcline just posted a very positive (and very detailed!)
review of Gloom at RPG.net. Find out more about the game by reading it now!
Get Gloomy in Spanish!
Check out the
Gloom rules
translated into Spanish by Special Ops demo team member Pelayo Rey. Thanks, Pelayo!
Special Ops is Atlas Games' team of enthusiastic, friendly, outgoing players across the country and around the world, who organize and run demos and tournaments for our games at retail stores and conventions.
To learn more about Special Ops or download an application form, visit the
Special Ops info page.
To request that a Special Ops member run a game demo at your local convention or games store, just download, complete, and return our
Demo Request Form.
ArM5 Sales
We've recently sorted out the January sales figures for Ars Magica Fifth Edition. They're good, better than expected. In fact, they're even better than we would have expected had the introductory offer not finished at the end of December. We hope to continue to be surprised in this fashion.
Overall, Fifth Edition is selling as well as Fourth Edition did, in a much more difficult RPG market. A new edition is always a bit of a gamble, so it's a great relief to see that this edition is not only well-received by most fans, but selling well, too. I can get on with planning our 2007 releases now. (2005 releases? They're all written, and in various stages of playtest, editing, or layout.)
Gloom Reviews Not At All Gloomy
Matthew Pook's second review of
Gloom appeared this week in the board and card game magazine,
Games International, and his
review of Cause & Cure (subscription required) for
Ars Magica appeared in
Pyramid magazine Friday morning.
It's done now ... really!
The final changes to the new web site design just went up this afternoon, in large part thanks to
Special Ops member Tara Edwards, who was kind enough to be my "Web Weasel" and go through every page on the site looking for problems ... with almost 200 product pages, this was quite a task! Thanks, Tara!
Any remaining problems found with the site can be reported to info@atlas-games.com
Did'ya See the Review? Huh, huh, did'ya?
Interested in Gloom? Check out the review on
RPG.net.
Lions and Tigers and Bears!
You asked for it ... begged and pleaded, actually ... and so we're happy to unveil the
Book of Mundane Beasts for Ars Magica 5th Edition. All in one handy FREE download are the stats for many of the everyday creatures you'll encounter in Mythic Europe. Want to shapechange into a bear? Do battle with a pack of wolves? This is the place to get all the info you'll need.
And while you're at it, take a gander at the
new errata page now available for the Ars Magica 5th Edition rulebook.
Feel the love.
Interview on Gamegrene
Gamegrene.com has just posted an interview with me.
Adopt-A-Rabbit Month
Every so often we stray off Atlas Games topics in this blog to other matters, and this is another such occasion...
February is Adopt-a-Rabbit Month. When I married Michelle, I found myself marrying into co-guardianship of a pair of rabbits, and over the past five years I have learned what wonderful and subtle creatures they are. I was also immediately charmed by Michelle's rejection of traditional rabbit naming conventions (which results in names like "Fluffy" and "Bun-Bun"), in favor of monsters and mythological terrors -- just like you might expect from a gamer like her. Hence our two bunnies are named Chimera ("Chimi" for short) and Wendigo ("Windy"). I've become such a convert that I serve on the board of a nonprofit rabbit rescue and education organization, the
Minnesota House Rabbit Society.
If you're thinking about getting a pet, this month offers a great opportunity to
learn about the virtues and flaws of rabbits. They're not the perfect pet for everyone (and far too many rabbits wind up in shelters because people didn't realize what they were taking on by getting one), but a bunny might be right for you.
Today's Pet Peeve: Spam Filters
Spam is annoying. Believe me, I know. We even made
a game about it.
But if you want to get a reply from us, it really helps if you set your spam filter so that it won't reject or delete our e-mails. (And note that our e-mails go out through our ISP's SMTP server, not the atlas-games.com domain.) This is especially true if you've given us no other contact information besides your e-mail address. Michelle has had five or six bounced vis sources release form acknowledgements due to spam filters this past month, for example.
We don't have the time to try and figure our way around peoples' clever anti-spam technologies, so most of the time we don't.
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