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Dispatches:
News from Atlas Games
Gloom Sold Out!
This morning we received a purchase order from one of our distributors, and it's cleaned us out of the rest of the
Gloom we have for sale. If you're interested, now's a really good time to grab a copy from your local game store (or
Warehouse 23, which still had some copies last I checked).
We have already made arrangements for the reprint. However, it's going to take some time for it to get here (we're guessing late summer); also, it's going to have a 10% price increase ($21.95 versus $19.95 today). We were very pleased that we managed to price the original printing under $20, but with cost increases and the rising price of oil we just can't hold it there. (The cost of the plastic alone has increased 12% since our original printing).
The good folks of Adventure Retail Ltd., who manage our convention presence for us, did insist that we set aside some copies for the summer convention season; so at each of the summer shows there will be a limited quantity available at the Atlas booth. While I'd love to turn those games into cash today, it's true that having them at conventions where the game is being demoed and spread to new players should help the long-term sales through all channels a lot more than selling a few more copies this month.
Finally, the
Gloom expansion deck will also be run with the reprinting, and it even has a title now! Watch this space for more details soon on
Gloom: Unhappy Homes.
Ars Magica Goodies
As a special treat for all our Ars Magica fans who haven't been able to find
Guardians of the Forests: The Rhine Tribunal yet, I've just posted the
Rhine Tribunal map as a PDF.
Also, our Ars Magica line developer David Chart gave me a list of new errata to add to the
Ars Magica 5th Edition errata page, which is now all up. Go crazy!
Website Bonanza
As the final part of the conversion to our new website design, I had the onerous task of culling all of the images and downloadable files ... we're talking HUNDREDS of files. As I went through them, I was especially looking for files that had been on the website once upon a time, but that had lost their links at some point, stranding them in the aether of cyberspace. I'm pleased to say that these forgotten gems are now all securely linked to their appropriate pages, completing our transition to the new website. You'll notice the newly discovered images as you browse the site, and here's a list of the pages where you'll find the resurrected downloads:
- Character stats for Caesar Mac, from Blood of the Valiant
- From the Penumbra Fantasy Bestiary, a horde of critters: Abroa, Cantrip Spirit, Infiltrator, Jikininki, Kanershee, and Northern Sea Dragon
- From Unhallowed Halls, the Bag of Arms wondrous item
- Icelandic Wars, the free supplement for Land of Fire and Ice
- The informative color ad for Seven Cities and Seven Strongholds
- The Attitude Rules that appeared in Splintered Peace
- Evensoar, the fey horse mount of the half-wood nymph/half-orc bard Jonelisse from Uncommon Character
- Stats for the foul Jikininki from Lean and Hungry
- The informative color ad for Occult Lore
- The Trunk of Curses and all the wondrous items it contains, which appeared in The Ebon Mirror
- The Italian translation of Promises, Promises, for Ars Magica 4th Edition
Preorder
Warehouse 23 now has
Dungeoneer: Dragons of the Forsaken Desert and the reprint of
Dungeoneer: Tomb of the Lich Lord available for preorder. Get yours right away!
Today's Agenda
Today Michelle and I are hard at work on production: she's working on the upcoming expansion for
Gloom (title not yet determined), working with the excellent new artwork that Scott Reeves has turned in. Meanwhile, I'm working on
Realms of Power: The Divine; David Chart has turned in the completed files, so now the ball is in my court for layout, art assignments, and proofreading.
To give me the occasional break from work at the computer, there have been a couple of reorders today for me to pack up. It's great to see restock orders for the two new Ars Magica hardcovers,
Guardians of the Forests and
True Lineages, coming through already.
Three New Things
It's your lucky day. Today you get three new things ...
First off is a first look at the new
Realms of Power: The Divine cover, which you may already have noticed on our front page.
The Divine is the sourcebook Ars Magica fans have been waiting for, describing each of the three great Divine religions -- Judaism, Christianity, and Islam -- and giving rules for Divinely-empowered wonder workers and angels. You'll have to wait until July to buy yours, though.
The second new thing is for all of you who have been wondering what the differences are between 2nd Edition and Version 2.1 of
Dungeoneer: Tomb of the Lich Lord.
Download the changed cards as PDFs to find out now!
And lastly, John recently stumbled on the Ars Magica 4th Edition
character sheet in Portuguese, which seems to have gotten lost in the recent website conversion. I've put it up again on the
Ars Magica 4th Edition page for your enjoyment.
Northern Crown Sample Cover is Up!
Aaron Campbell has just turned in the
preliminary Northern Crown cover, as you can see in the bar at left. We think he's done a fantastic job!
Books on a Truck
This morning I received an e-mail from our rep, Kay, at
Bang Printing, letting us know that our two new
Ars Magica sourcebooks --
Guardians of the Forests and
True Lineages -- are on the truck to be delivered to us this afternoon. I expect I'll be able to ship some non-US customer orders today, and the rest tomorrow.
Monstrous Mayhem
I've got quite the treat for all you Nyambe fans this week ... I've just put up a PDF of the
Nyambe monster out-takes that appeared in Gaming Frontiers in 2002. Hunt the monstrous Aigamuxa that stalks the vast sand dunes, track the vampire moth that drains its victim's very life energy, or become a werehyena yourself. You'll find all these and more, so check it out now!
Also, by request I've added the Gloom character back (ie. the crow side) to the
Make Your Own Character PDF that was already on the site. Put them back-to-back in a plastic card sleeve, and the characters you draw will work just like the ones that came with your copy of Gloom!
Distributor Update - April 5, 2005
[Note: This is the update e-mail that went out to distributors earlier this afternoon. I figured I'd just cut and paste into our blog...]One Week Warning: Ars Magica Sourcebooks
Orders for both sourcebooks books are due by the end of the day next Monday, April 11th. I expect to receive the books early Tuesday afternoon, and I'll get right to work packing orders. As usual, all US orders will ship on the same day; non-US orders will ship on an ASAP basis.
Reminder: Flyers
If you haven't already given me numbers, please let me know how many of our new flyers (the ones for Northern Crown and Ars Magica 5th Edition -- see our retailer portal page, and scroll down to the bottom for the thumbnails) you would like, so that I can ship them with the new releases.
Out of Print: One Shots
We've sold out of AG6001 One Shots (Unknown Armies). We do not plan to reprint this book.
Gloom Selling Briskly
Gloom has been selling very well. We are down to less than 1500 copies in the warehouse, which sounds like a healthy quantity...but given that we need to set aside a few hundred for the summer convention season, and looking at the recent rate of reorder sales, it will probably be gone in 1-2 months.
We are speaking with our printer in India about reprint arrangements, including ways to improve the production quality and plans for an expansion deck to be published at the same time.
Last year it took us more than five months to receive our games after placing our order. We hope that many of the problems we experienced last year were unusual (such as the dock strike and Homeland Security container inspection), but even so, please be aware that after the first printing sells out it will be out of stock for an unknown length of time.
Miscellany
Special Ops Delivers Fun AND Prizes
Atlas Games is pleased to announce that Darren Miguez of Las Vegas, NV is the winner of this quarter's Special Ops prize drawing. Darren will get to choose a prize from among the rare and and one-of-a-kind Atlas Games items reserved for the Special Ops drawing.
Special Ops is Atlas Games' corps of loyal fans who organize and run demos and tournaments at retail stores and conventions across the country and around the world. At the end of each quarter, Special Ops demo team members who have run a game in the last three months are entered into a prize drawing for special Atlas items. The next drawing will be June 27th (to accommodate the Origins convention), and will feature a choice of prizes such as press sheets and original art from our popular Ars Magica, Feng Shui, Penumbra D20, and Unknown Armies RPGs, and from card game favorites like Dungeoneer, Lunch Money, and Once Upon a Time.
Atlas is also happy to announce that the following Special Ops members have gone up in rank this quarter:
Pat Hannum (Magus 500 HP)
Eduardo Fukugava (Companion, 100 HP)
Pelayo Luis Rey Rodríguez (Grog, 50 HP)
Congratulations to all of you, and keep up the great work!
Also, we'd like to welcome the following new recruits:
Ryan Bigelow
Tim Mullins Blaine, Jr.
Allesandro Valério Dias
Tara Edwards
Chris Freeman
Paul Fricker
Virgilio Giron
Malcolm Harbrow
Mark Loebach
David Neubauer
Jeppe Nybo Jorgensen
Tiago Oliveira
Randy Shipp
Joseph Sweeney
Carlos Wagner
Ulrich "Varius" Willmünder
Thanks for being a part of Special Ops!
If you're interested in joining Atlas Games' Special Ops demo team, just fill out and send in the application form at
www.atlas-games.com/specialops.
To request a demo at your convention or retail store, send in the demo request form located at
www.atlas-games.com/pdf_storage/SOdemorequestform.rtf.
Michelle Nephew
Special Ops Coordinator
Atlas Games
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