Pathfinder Preview

Okay, not a preview of the actual rules but I wanted to post something from Tricky Owlbear's first Pathfinder-compatible product. Check out the art preview and tell us what you think!

Hump Day Ramblings

As of 1:30pm this afternoon, my mirror is fixed! A nice bonus on this otherwise normal "hump day" Wednesday. I asked Schlenker's if they had a cot I could sleep on as I've been there many times this week now and will be taking my car in for its 100K mile maintenance on Sat. Despite the mirror difficulty, Linda and I visited Delaware Park last night and returned with...uh, happy memories but no cash.

In writing news, I've been fiddling for BtM: Invisible Stalker but I really thought I'd be done with that by now. No rush, I suppose, as Scot now has 2 things for Tricky Owlbear layout to get done.

Been getting a bit more walking in this week (Sun and Mon); just normal town walks of 45 min/3-mile-ish length but that's better than nothing. What do you folks do to stay healthy and fit? Walking is, I've been told, one of the best things one can do.

Shattered Mirror!

When I stopped to grab some coffee today in Hamburg I was parked along State St. (or, as I like to call it, the "Death Star Trench"). I was waiting for some cars to pass by before exiting the vehicle and then I saw a school bus coming down the road. I waited and then noted, with some alarm, that the bus was awefully close to the parked cars and was not adjusting itself away. I figured I'd step on the brake pedal just to make the driver see the lights and, as normal drivers might do, give the car that might be about to move (although I wasn't) a wider berth. Instead, my side view mirror granted me the last image it would ever reflect--of the school bus decapitating it!

It was like watching the accident in slow motion as the bus shredded the poor mirror just inches away from me. The bus pulled over after the red light, obviously seeing what had happened, as I exited and retrieved whatever looked salvageable from the street. The driver apologized and said he had to get his kids down to the park but would return right away. I agreed even though I really needed to get my coffee and get up to my first bank stop. The man did return and we exchanged information before parting. Somehow, I made it to my first stop with no time to spare.

I called my State Farm woman and she advised me to just let the school's ins. company handle everything lest I need to pay my SF deductible. I didn't get the school's company's number but I was able to call the school (BCIU) and inquire. The woman there said after the driver reported everything then I would get a call. This is all well and good but I need the car to be in one usable piece since it's my livelihood. So, I got an estimate from Schlenkers (the dealership where I bought the vehicle and take it for anything it needs) and they said they could get the parts in as soon as tomorrow! Fortunately, they have one less piece to order as the rear housing of the mirror somehow escaped intact. Good thing I didn't impulsively throw it away. The estimate is less than $150 so I'm hoping the other insurance company won't balk when I get the thing repaired hopefully tomorrow. I don't have time to run around to whatever repair places they'd like an estimates from. I'm the victim here and they will pay. In the meantime, what's left of the mirror's casing has been duct taped to make it less noticeable to roaming police. :)

Lazy Day

Do you ever have one of those days where you just wake up and think, "Nothing's gonna bother me today." That's today. The weather is perfect. Work is normal and I'm gonna leave a bit early to my first run and grab some Sheetz breakfast blend coffee--yum! I'm working with artist David Hamilton on a few small pieces for Abbey of the Golden Sparrow and I guess I'll get back to some "BtM: Invisible Stalker" today as well. Maybe I'll get more brainstorming done on what else Tricky Owlbear should do with the Pathfinder rules. Whatever; doesn't matter. It's a lazy day. Enjoy yours!

Tricky Owlbear Turns Two!

I made a post regarding the company's status on ENWorld here.

Overall, it's been a fun experience so far. Mainly, I just wanted to see the Compendium in print but now we'll have a 3rd edition "revival" with Paizo's Pathfinder RPG releasing next month. We'll be ready with a freelance-written product Abbey of the Golden Sparrow. It's about 14 pages of content regarding monks in their mountain abbey. There's plenty of fluff and crunch to go around for both players and GMs to use so I'm hoping it will sell well to both those camps.

I'm also excited about jumping into Swords & Wizardry. I just think it's going to be so much easier a system to write for. The grognards don't like a whole slew of rules info to be included in their adventures so I'm only too happy to comply! The first adventure for that is tentatively entitled What Goes Up and I'm still just in the planning stages for it. Scot's away for a few days at the beach but he'll be finishing the layout for A Matter of Faith (our medieval adventure using 3.5 rules) as well as for Abbey.

Don't worry, I'm not abandoning the two "Behind the..." series quite yet. It's true that sales are dismal but I think we'll see renewed interest once the Paizo fans see we're an active company (much less one producing content for their game of choice). And there's no reason you can't use the spell and monster info from those pdfs with your Pathfinder game either.

Here's to many more years of fun!

Jim Holloway

One of my all-time favorite TSR artists has been Jim Holloway. I just discovered that you can not only buy some original pieces (if you have the $$) but you can have some of his work on a shirt, mug, etc. via cafepress through this website! I thought of fellow gamer/blogger Mike Ferguson's recent B4 post when I saw the first image after following the link. :)

3e: A Fix for Jerk DMs?

That's what Skip Williams appears to be on about in this interview: http://grognardia.blogspot./com/2009/06/interview-skip-williams.html

I don't know why I don't have Grognardia on my blogroll here. I'll remedy that! Ooh, looks like a "Zeb" Cook interview was just posted today there too.