Merry Christmas!

Been awhile since the last post so now's a good a time as any to update the 'ol blog. Was finally out for a good hike yesterday around Hamburg's reservoir and the Appalachian Trail. I snapped some pics with my camera phone and hope to start a little hiking log with pics once I get them uploaded to my hard drive.

My sister, her husband, and two nephews are home from Arizona and staying in our basement until around the 3rd of Jan. It's a little hectic at times but it's very good to see them all again. Gift-giving was fun and profitable (meaning plenty of $$ for rpg buying or, more likely, a casino trip or two!). More importantly, everyone was happy, safe, and together--what the holidays are all about. Here's hoping you all have the same.

Ebay Sale!

I've decided to sell off some of my d20 collection. What does that mean? Well, cheap books for you if the titles appeal to you. More may be added in the coming days, but I've got about 40 items up now here: http://search.ebay.com/_W0QQsassZvantas1

PDF Sales AP Article

Perhaps there's money in pdfs after all... http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5g4aOK0HuId1Q6oWOGzIM5h9Rtf_QD8TARQMG2

December Already?

Where does the time go? Yesterday it went to cleaning my room--11am to 8pm of reorganizing, Pledge-ing, and vacuuming. I had to get back to work today to rest!

The group has a throw-together module on Sat. since Brad realized at the last minute that he couldn't make it. That left me quickly cobbling together the plot for an adventure for our planar PCs. I knew early on in the campaign, while doodling notes for possible future adventures, that I wanted these PCs to come across a world already ravaged by Orcus' meteor throwing weapon (as seen in the finale of the previous high-level campaign found somewhere in the murky history of this blog).

I knew I wanted the group to fight spellstitched ghasts (from MMII) in waves, be "rescued" by a mind flayer in need of armed allies, and eventually save a band of survivors by taking them back to Sigil. All of that happened, thanks in no small part to lifting a monster (lava creeps--CR2 my ass) and a small wizard tower from Goodman's DCC #8. After guided to safety by the mind flayer, they are led to the refugee camp. When the mind flayer speaks of a teleportation ring mentioned by fleeing drow, the PCs concoct a plan to use it to take everyone back to the glyph gate. With luck, they could escape with minimal casualties (as the gate was last seen under heavy undead guard, not the least of which included a dracolich!).

There were 3 near-PC-deaths and every refugee (including the mind flayer, separated from his colony during the meteor bombardment) survived, so it was a good game. Doesn't look like we'll be playing next weekend so perhaps that time can be spent Xmas shopping.

Green Ronin Mega-Huge Sale-a-thon!

Until Dec. 12, GR is practically giving away their outstanding catalog of books. As I understand it, they were having the sale through their distributor only, meaning if you wanted to take advantage of the fantastic prices ($2, $5, etc.), you had to go to your FLGS and order the books. I'm guessing that online fan outcry was such that Paizo configured a way to get these cheap titles to fans via their web store. The proof for this theory is here: http://paizo.com/store/sale/greenRonin

Happy shopping!

Thanksgivaway!

OBS is offering up pdfs for free this week as donated by some nice publishers over there. One of which happens to be BtS: Vampiric Touch on Wednesday. If you still haven't checked out my signature series, now is the perfect time! Check out the free pdfs here: http://enworld.rpgnow.com/thanksgiveaway.php?&src=ThanksGiveAway

Goodbye d20

For those who may not have heard yet, Scott Rouse (the D&D manager at this time) has said: "There will be the OGL and Wizards D&D products period. No d20 STL (tiered or otherwise) to be even more clear." Check out this thread for more: http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=211378&page=1&pp=30

On one hand, I'm a bit sorry to see it go, but on the other hand, did it stand for quality anymore? People have enough "d20" product to last until the end of time. Now, d20 publishers will have to somehoe distinguish their products from the pack if they still want to be paired in the consumer's mind with D&D (unless, as Scott mentions in that thread, WotC does include a usable compatibility phrase with the OGL). Eh, in any case, I'm glad that I kept the d20 logo off of Tricky Owlbear products so far. :)

Two New Releases & Happy Halloween

If all goes as planned, two new pdfs with my scribblings should be released Thursday. The first is my contribution to Axel Carlsson's Behind the Monsters: Barghest and the second is the first in a line of pdfs for Highmoon. The piece is called "The Museum of Infamous Heroism" and the line of products is called Domains of Adventure. If the line proves popular, I think I'm going to be penning most (if not all) of them. Ah, to be busy. And then, of course, there's continuing Behind the Spells (I know, I'm bad for letting them go this long) and the occasional BtM solo (such as Skeleton and Gargoyle coming up).

And a Happy Halloween to everyone out there (with a special birthday greetings for my nephew Aiden who is 6 today--already a fan of Transformers, thanks to yours truly). So what Halloween traditions do I have? At 32, I'm a tad old for trick-or-treating (although not that old in spirit). Oddly enough, I'll be popping in the second season Halloween episode of the much-missed series Millennium. That episode and the Xmas ep in that same season are what quality TV is all about (mmm, the latter more than the former, but both still good). Actually, pretty much all of MM's season 2 was fantastic but that's a post for another day. Until then, enjoy your spooktastic holiday!

New Job

For those who might have seen my first "New Job" post some weeks back, well, I deleted that one as the job did not come to pass (long story, but I gained some inside info which made me quit before I officially started). Today was my third day working for a small pharmaceutical company called PPS in Shartlesville, PA. The people seem nice enough so that's a plus. My official title is Lab Tech which I'm told encompasses a few jobs. At the moment, I'm training to take samples of raw materials (they make skin products there) and then testing them for contaminents. The whole thing was rather daunting at first but in just these three days I learned what to do and actually prepared a few samples on my own today. I'm told they want me trained on lab machines they currently have consultants come in to work. That's fine by me because then I'll be the only one who has in depth knowledge of those machines (special knowledge = more $$ right?). For now, the job seems like a keeper as I can feel good growth coming in the future once their current restructuring is complete.

A New Publisher & Open Call

Generic Universe Publishing just announced its entrance into our world. The company is headed up by noted author/editor/developer Patrick Lawinger and can be found here: http://www.genericuniverse.com/writingRPGs.html

Actually, this is a link to Patrick's discussion of writing for RPGs (always useful) but you can easily surf the rest of the site from there. Don't forget to check the News section if you're looking for work as there is an Open Call for writers right now. I'd like to submit something but my Tricky Owlbear obligations might eat up too much time. We'll see. It would be neat to submit to a start-up the same theme/type of submission that launched my own freelancing career (the Urban Blight contest creating city locales for Mystic Eye--here's hoping GUP surpasses the fame and longevity of that company!). I met Patrick briefly during my GenCon trip in '04 (I think it was that year) and he was very nice and, from his various message board posts, certainly knows what he's doing in terms of the RPG world. I suspect working for Patrick can, at the very least, lead to a good learning experience.

AE: Waterskin

I see Mark at Skortched 'Urf has released my latest contribution to his Adventurer Essentials line of products. Have a look and don't forget to listen to the neat little audio commentary as well: http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=50743

Random Acts of Knowledge

If you're anything like me, you just love to gather up and store useless bits of knowledge. Now, instead of googling for something interesting, you can use everyone's favorite ever-evolving online encyclopedia--wikipedia! I think I saw this trick mentioned on lifehacker.com. You just hit the "Random Article" link and...voila! On my first hit, I got something which turned out to be good reading: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Pellew%2C_1st_Viscount_Exmouth

Good luck and let me know what interesting things you stumble across!

Campaign Souvenirs

When groups game, campaigns come and go but how many groups create some type of keepsake for really good campaigns? I've done this on three occasions:
1) A notebook for each player which kept the "campaign log."
2) A cassette soundtrack featuring liner notes describing the modules/event each track was played during.
3) Personalized pencils with the adventuring group's name.
4) As #2 but in cd form.

To be honest, I'm probably the only one that's really enjoyed these (especially the music collections) over the years but I maintain that years from now one of the players will stumble across one of these items and be blessed with a hit of nostalgia, saying to him/herself, "Good times." That's what keepsakes are all about, right? Maybe I'm just an oddball but has anyone done anything similar?

Dragonlance Movie Song

Here's a brief clip of the "Qualinesti Hymn" from the upcoming Dragons of Autumn Twilight film. Looks like its release form (direct to DVD or cinema) is still unknown at this time. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54Ure_45SSw

Review-BtS: Dispel Magic

In this week's Digital Front podcast, Behind the Spells: Dispel Magic gets a long awaited review. Surf on over to thedigitalfront.com and have a listen!

Here Comes Autumn...

...and thank God! Yesterday was the first since summer began that I was seen wearing long pants. Today is no different. A crisp wave of cool air has moved into our section of the country and boy does it feel refreshing. When my parents return from an errand later today I will most certainly be getting out onto the mountain. It's been a day shy of 2 weeks that I've been hiking and that's way too long.

My grandmother is recovering nicely (if a bit slowly--but for 84 years old it's good progress), to the point of walking around on her own (albeit only on the floor her bedroom is on). Hopefully she'll get out of her sleepwear today and then she might start to feel normal again. Physical therapy comes tomorrow and that can only increase her recovery speed.

On the job front, I still have nothing solid to report but have found a couple promising leads I'll follow up on tomorrow. With life settling down again on the homefront, I'm finally starting to enjoy my time off so if a job doesn't manifest for another 2 weeks (or more), that's OK with me.

And how about some rpg chatter on here? Well, I'm slowly working on BtS: Sanctuary (with Feather Fall soon to follow). Daniel at Highmoon Media mentioned on a forum that my locale "series" for him will be see its first release in October (I say "series" because I wasn't really certain that I was still writing more than one locale given the 8 or 9 months since I turned in that first one and that I now have a corporation to oversee, but we'll see what happens). And speaking of Daniel, those interested in listening to news of the pdf market should head on over to http://thedigitalfront.com/ where podcast interviews with industry folk are being posted. This is Daniel's new venture and I wish him much success with it!

Welcome Home

Today, after a harrowing two weeks, we brought mom-mom home from the hospital. Even the doctor's are amazed at her progress (not to mention us!). She is in good spirits and can resume activities with no restrictions (although we're keeping her off the stairs for awhile). She'll have physical therapy at the house a few times a week but I bet that won't last longer than a month. We're glad to welcome her back home again.

Friday Update & How I (Almost) Met Michael Palin

Well, the gourmet food run didn't work out...in fact, it didn't even start! I overheard a phone conversation the boss was having with another person interested in the job. When the boss mentioned there was no salary, all commission-based, I turned and fled (after the obligatory "oh, that's how it is; well I'm not comfortable" response to him). Another job seems promising but cannot give full-time hours/pay for 2 to 3 months after a part-time trail (the part-time pay is $300/week but that's cutting it too close for me especially if the job isn't my thing). The search continues.

My grandmother is doing extremely well and is ready to be moved from the ICU. One small problem--no beds! Folks in the ER need beds and there aren't enough to go around so mom-mom may have to stay in the ICU until she's ready to go home. I was with her an hour yesterday after my aborted job run and she was in pretty good shape--a little dementia yet but at least she was sitting in a chair instead of lying in bed. I might make the run out there today with my mom later.

Game on for tomorrow! By request, the planar campaign gets its next installment. The PCs have had some down time and now their approx. 8th-level selves will have an adventure like no other (or is that just a good catch phrase?)! I came up with a plot before bed so it might not hold up well under scrutiny as I work on the adventure today.

And now to Michael Palin--one member of the astoundingly funny and famous Monte Python's Flying Circus group. On the way home from the hospital yesterday, I heard an interview with the man on Philadelphia station 90.9 FM. He was touring for his new book Michael Palin Diaries: 1969-1979, the Python Years. After they played the Lumberjack song at the end of the program (which is about all I heard, coming in late to that station), they mentioned he would be having a talk and signing at the Free Phila. Library on Vine St. @ 7pm that evening. I gathered Scot & Zlaty (after not being able to reach the Cuthberts, admitted Python fans) and headed down. We arrived in a more or less timely fashion but parking was hard to come by. We parked very near the art museum and hoofed it 2 blocks or so. By the time we arrived, security was letting no one else into the building because it was too full--even the standing room was taken! Drat! Probably a couple hundred feet away was a comedy legend I couldn't see. And that's how I (almost) met Michael Palin.

Good News

My grandmother, although still in the ICU, has been successfully removed from the ventilator and she is all but tube-free, talking and more or less coherent. She's a remarkable lady and I hope they can get her out of the ICU soon. It's amazing that it's only been a week since she went in for her mini-stroke symptoms.

On the job search front, I called a company today who needs someone immediately. It has to do, apparently, with gourmet food/delivery and sales. Although I'm not enamored with the "sales" aspect of it, I agreed to go on a no-obligation run with the boss on Thurs. morning. Wish me luck!

Job Hunt

Got my results back from the postal exam yesterday and my score was 77.10. That doesn't sound particularly good to me since I think it's out of 100 but oh well the letter said I'm eligible and on the register for the next 2 years so that's a good thing. In the meantime, Shirley from the herb shop next to the drug store gave me the card of a sales rep who's looking for help. Turns out he's a published author who was on Oprah so just for that reason alone I'll have to open a dialogue with him. :) Good things are rolling in and it's only day 1 of my "extended vacation."