Boiling it down to an elevator pitch, it’s the early history of America through the eyes of H. P. Lovecraft and Dan Brown. Your Heroes can encounter Salem witches, Native American spirits, scheming Freemasons, sorcerous Templars, voodoo, gris-gris, Bigfoot, the Jersey Devil, and much more. I keep teasing Richard that one day I’ll have Ben Franklin construct a lightning-powered mech and go mano a mano with Cthulhu – but perhaps that may be going a little too far. But if you liked The Crucible, Sleepy Hollow, The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, The Last of the Mohicans, The Brotherhood of the Wolf, and the National Treasure movies, chances are you’ll like Colonial Gothic.

I’m very happy at the reception the game has received so far. Most of the supplements have garnered 4- and 5-star reviews on Roleplayers’ Chronicle, DriveThruRPG, and the other major review sites. The release of the Second Edition Rulebook last December was an important step, and we have many plans for the future. Among these is a new campaign, to be created under license by Mystical Throne Entertainment, publishers of Roleplayers’ Chronicle.

Rogue Games’ house campaign, Flames of Freedom, focuses on the shadowy side of the American Revolution. The Mystical Throne campaign (working title New World) is set a generation earlier, in the middle of the 18th century. Rogue Games has touched upon this period in its French and Indian War sourcebook, and it’s very good to see others inspired by the game and the setting to create fresh adventures. The Flames of Freedom campaign will continue, co-written by Richard and me. We have plans for at least two more instalments, possibly more, and the next one, Shadows Upon the Hudson, is scheduled for release later this year.

I’m looking forward to the New World campaign very much. Aaron Huss is a talented writer with a number of impressive credits under his belt, and I can’t wait to see what adventures he has in store for us.

Here’s one I definitely intend to steal.

For those who haven’t heard of him, James Wallis is a Man Who Knows What He’s At. I first met him almost 20 years ago when his company Hogshead Publishing licensed first edition Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay from Games Workshop. We’ve been in touch, off and on, ever since, and I’ve found he’s one of those people who is worth watching. His ideas are never less than interesting and constantly challenge the boundaries of what roleplaying is, what a game is – frankly, what anything is. Take a look at Once Upon a Time or The Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Munchausen and you’ll see what I mean. Really, do – even (especially!) if you are not usually interested in card games or roleplaying games. I’m waiting for his latest game, Alas Vegas, with bated breath.

But that’s enough blathering for now. I’ll leave you to read and be inspired.

For this and more memories of Games Workshop in the late 80s, check out this interview at the RealmofChaos80s blog. And take a look around while you’re there: Orlygg has landed some fascinating interviews with the likes of Rick Priestley, Tony Ackland, and Bryan Ansell among others.

Oh, the memories. Anyway, if you’re at all interested in the period of Games Workshop’s history that produced WFRP, Warhammer 40K, Adeptus Titanicus, Dark Future, Space Hulk, and Advanced Heroquest, you will find this blog absolutely fascinating.

My mother, like many women of her generation, was a secretary-turned-homemaker. For medical reasons I was an only child, and she put everything she had into raising me. She read me stories and encouraged me to read from an early age, so much so that I could read and write before I set foot in a school building. She bought me endless books, starting with Enid Blyton and progressing through myth and legend, literature and nonfiction, and I devoured them all. I loved stories, and so did she.

Mum was a writer herself, although she would never have thought to call herself one. She kept up a voluminous and regular correspondence with friends and relatives across the world: I always remember her with a tray on her lap, writing letters all evening as my dad and I watched television after dinner.

Before I was born, she wrote a series of children’s stories for my older cousin. She always said it was something to do so she looked busy during slack hours in the typing pool, but the love and care she put into these little tales shines through every word. I still have the copies she kept, typed on half-pages and stapled into card covers with the title on the front of each one in her neat copperplate. I’ve even thought of trying to get them published in support of her favorite charity, but I have come to the reluctant conclusion that they are too dated to be publishable today.

My dad worked in the printing industry for his entire career. He started in the printing and stationery section of BOAC back when airliners had propellors and parts of Heathrow were still under canvas; he retired just as desktop publishing software was making his craft obsolete. And it was a real craft.

His job title was photolithographer, a name which, typically for him, he considered rather too grandiose. Using a photographic process, he turned pasted-up copy sheets into flexible metal plates for rolling-drum presses. His camera used a plate that was three feet square, or so it seemed to me; the back of the camera was built into the wall of his darkroom and the lens moved on Victorian-looking rails. The copy stand had a vacuum bed to hold the sheets tightly in place. The whole arrangement was about twelve feet long, and when he got a new one in the early 70s they had to take down part of the building’s exterior wall to bring it in by crane.

My dad knew how to make wet plates by hand using albumen from actual eggs; he could figure focal lengths and exposure times in his head; and he never went anywhere without his printer’s line-glass. Nothing offended him more than a four-color separation that was a tenth of a millimeter off.

These days, scanners and Adobe Creative Suite have made my dad’s profession as dated as blacksmithing; perhaps one day it will be thought of as quaint and nostalgia buffs will devote themselves to keeping it alive. But all that equipment still fascinates and impresses me. I treasured the days when I got to go into work with him. I would help collate pages as they came out of the great Heidelburg printer, as huge and impressive as a steam engine. He taught me to use a darkroom and for a while I was his assistant in his weekend wedding photography sideline. As soon as the guests left the church he and I would go screaming back home and up to his cramped little darkroom in the loft, rushing to get a proof book and order sheet back to the reception while everyone was full of wine and good cheer.

I didn’t follow my dad into printing, but I did have a couple of vacation jobs in print shops while I was at college. When I went to work for Games Workshop, the principles of book and magazine production came easily to me. I found I liked publishing, and I like to think that my understanding of the business made me a better staffer.

Stories and presses, writing and production: these were two of the many, many gifts my parents gave me. I had no idea at the time. Their influence didn’t make it inevitable that I would grow up to be a writer, but I’m sure it didn’t hurt either.

Thanks, Mum and Dad – for this and for everything. I miss you both more than I can say, but I love the memories you left me.

If you have any Games Workshop orc or goblin miniatures from the late 80s, or almost anyone else’s orcs or goblins from any time since, then whether you know it or not, you’ll be familiar with the work of Kevin “Goblinmaster” Adams. He wasn’t quite the first guy to paint them green, but his goblin and orc faces have influenced just about everything since, and not only in the Warhammer family. Since leaving GW he has worked for almost all the UK’s most important miniatures companies. He is also one of the sweetest guys you could ever wish to meet, despite his slightly intimidating appearance. Check out this site to see some of his work.

A few weeks ago, three masked youths broke into Kev’s home in Nottingham. Before robbing him they beat him to a pulp with brass knuckles and stabbed him just for good measure. Kev survived, but if and when the police ever catch up with the culprits they’ll be facing attempted murder charges. There is talk of putting metal plates in his face and reconstructing a crushed eye socket. No one deserves to have something like this happen to them, least of all Kev.

Kev’s friends in the industry – which means just about everyone who ever met or worked with him – have banded together to found Goblinaid. A PayPal account has been set up for donations (goblinaidATfenrisgamesDOTcom), and there will be raffles and other events. A lot of Britain’s best designers are creating custom goblin figures for the cause. I don’t have the talent to do that myself, but I’m contributing some of my own Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay books (The Hogshead editions of the 1st edition rulebook and all the Enemy Within adventures), which I’ve signed with a message of thanks for supporting Goblinaid.

Keep an eye on the Goblinaid Facebook page for the latest news, and details of how you can help. Below are links to some other pages with more information.

Beasts of War
Wargames Foundry
Studio McVey

If you haven’t heard of Stone Skin Press, you should check them out. The themes for their anthologies are never less than intriguing, and their people know what they are doing. Right now, four anthologies are available in electronic form, and preorders are open for the dead-tree versions. I have stories in two of their volumes: one features lemmings and the other involves a zeppelin.

The New Hero is a two-volume collection based around the idea of the iconic hero. Distinct from the dramatic hero whose story is a journey, the iconic hero stands firm in what he (or she) is, bringing order to an imperfect world. Think Conan rather than Frodo, or Batman rather than Luke Skywalker. My story “Against the Air Pirates” is a tribute to the airpulp sub-genre: I pitched it as “Disney’s Tale Spin written by Robert E. Howard.” I am, and have always been, a vintage plane geek.

The Lion and the Aardvark is inspired by Aesop’s Fables, and consists of 70 short-short tales with a modern twist. My tale “The Lemmings and the Sea” is about leaders and their visions, and how staying the course might not always be the best idea.

Shotguns v. Cthulhu does exactly what it says on the tin. It’s a collection of action-adventure tales set within H. P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos. If you like Howard’s muscular take on horror – whether or not you also like Lovecraft’s more cerebral approach – you will like this book.

I’m hoping for great things from – and for – Stone Skin Press. In a world full of Major Fantasy Trilogies and sparkly vampires they are taking the road less traveled and returning to the roots of fantasy and horror fiction, the short story. They are people who know what they’re at, and I found them very pleasant to do business with. I would recommend them to anyone who is interested in writing short fiction for themed collections.

But I have to go now. They have just announced a new book titled The New Gothic and issued a call for submissions. A storm is rising, and it’s a long walk across the lonely moor to the dark old house….

So imagine how pleased I was when Osprey contacted me out of the blue to write for their new Osprey Adventures series. Apparently my work on GURPS Vikings and Medieval: Total War – Viking Invasion impressed someone there, because they asked me to write a book on the most popular of the Norse gods, Thor the Thunderer.

Osprey Adventures is a fairly new series, adding mythology to Osprey’s already impressive coverage of history. I was flattered that they asked me to write one of the first titles. I recently finished a second book in a different series, but I can’t talk about it yet. Watch this space….

I knew the book would be thick, but it surprised me just how thick it was. If you’d like a look at what’s in the box, I found this unboxing video.

It’s been 26 years since the first Enemy Within campaign was launched for 1st edition WFRP. It’s a bold move by Fantasy Flight to use the same name for these all-new adventures, but their reasoning is sound. The new campaign explores the same themes through new adventures, and I was very happy they asked me to contribute to it.

I know that for some people nothing will ever live up to the original: for them, Fantasy Flight’s re-use of the name is akin to blasphemy. All I can say in response is that I wrote the best adventures I possibly could in both campaigns, and I hope you like the result.

It’s also true that the WFRP community is going through its own edition wars right now, and some diehard 1st or 2nd edition fans might regard a 3rd edition campaign called The Enemy Within as adding insult to injury. Having read 3rd edition – indeed, all three editions – in depth, I must respectfully disagree. While the mass of components that accompany 3rd edition products may be unfamiliar and even intimidating to 1st or 2nd edition grognards, the rules themselves work pretty well. The components, for the most part, are there to help make things run more smoothly: in a lot of cases, they hold text that would otherwise have been in the rulebook, so players and GMs can have it close to hand during a game.

I made a conscious effort, when writing my two chapters, to write a good WFRP adventure rather than a WFRP 3rd edition adventure. Very little of my design depends heavily on mechanics, and I hope that GMs will be able to adapt the campaign for use with earlier rules editions if they wish. It is even possible to add adventures from the original campaign and produce a grand “Total Enemy Within” mash-up that would work fairly well.

Anyway, it’s here, and I hope people like it.

Here’s what I can talk about, though: a lot of things are finally seeing the light of day this month, and that’s very exciting.

New Fiction

I’ve already posted about the Aesop-inspired anthology The Lion and the Aardvark, which includes stories from 70 – count ‘em, 70 – of the best writers out there. I have a short-short tale in there called “The Lemmings and the Sea,” and I can’t wait to see what my 69 co-writers have come up with.

The Hobbit Social Games

I should have posted before about The Hobbit: Kingdoms of Middle-earth and The Hobbit: Armies of the Third Age. I’m very proud to have worked on these two social strategy games tied into Peter Jackson’s new movie. By the bye, Apple has just named Kingdoms of Camelot: Battle for the North as the top-grossing free iOS app of 2012. That was my first project for Kabam, and it’s great to see it doing so well.

I’ve also been involved with two tabletop RPG products that are out just in time for Christmas. Although I don’t work much in that medium these days, I’m proud of both of these new releases, for different reasons.

Colonial Gothic

The Colonial Gothic 2nd Edition Rulebook was released on 12/12/12 at 12:12:12, in reference to the 12 Degrees roleplaying system that powers it. It has been a long, hard labor of love for Colonial Gothic creator Richard Iorio. I’ve offered support and feedback, but the work is all his.

You may not have heard of Colonial Gothic, or of Rogue Games. I first met Richard at GenCon more than a decade ago when we were both working the Hogshead Publishing booth, and we kind of stayed in touch. When I first heard about Colonial Gothic in 2009, I was so impressed by the idea that I offered my services. Since then the Colonial Gothic line has swelled to eight books and a number of e-books, and the game has gathered a small but passionate following.

According to Richard, the Colonial Gothic concept started out as “Cthulhu 1776,” but it has come a long way since then. It now covers the whole history of Colonial America and the War of Independence. The work of H. P. Lovecraft still inspires the growing Colonial Gothic mythology (and I wish I could talk about a new development in that direction), but there’s more: scheming Dan-Brown-style Freemasons, Bigfoot and other cryptids, local legends like the Jersey Devil, Native spirits, and much, much more. If you liked Sleepy Hollow (the story or any of its movie versions), National Treasure, The Last of the Mohicans, The Patriot, or The Brotherhood of the Wolf, you’ll enjoy Colonial Gothic.

The second edition rulebook will be vital to the line’s future growth: previous editions were plagued by typos and minor inconsistencies, and Richard has taken the time to go through and fix everything. The rules have been reorganized so that information is easier to find; typos and inconsistencies have been fixed; and Richard has done wonders with the layout. It’s also 100% backward-compatible with the entire Colonial Gothic line. Richard has worked incredibly hard on this and the hard work shows.

The third instalment of the acclaimed Flames of Freedom campaign is planned for 2013, along with a couple of other things that, frustratingly, I can’t talk about yet. Keep an eye on Rogue Dispatches for announcements.

The Enemy Within, Again

Many months ago, Fantasy Flight Games caused an enormous stir when they announced a new campaign for 3rd Edition Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. It was the title that got people excited: The Enemy Within. The new Enemy Within is not an adaptation or an updating of the original, but a whole new campaign that explores the same themes through new adventures. The entry I wrote about it back in March remains the most-viewed entry on this whole blog.

After the frenzy that greeted the announcement, there was a long, long silence. Based at least in part on my feedback when I saw the galleys, The Enemy Within went through a lot of editing and development. Now, at last, it has been released.

When I started writing my part of the campaign, I worried about how I would top the completely unforeseen success of the original Enemy Within. I came to the conclusion that nothing could ever top the fond memories that many people have for the original adventures, memories that are tied up with where they were in their lives when they first played them. It’s impossible to recreate that; I just took my two chapter briefs and wrote the best adventure I could.

Since the new Enemy Within was announced, a few people have asked me about running it with 1st or 2nd edition WFRP, and also about running a mash-up of the old and new campaigns. I think both are possible. Although the three editions of WFRP have different rules, the setting and the cast of monsters are the same: with a little work on the GM’s part, stats can be massaged into the preferred edition. When I was writing, I made a conscious effort to write a good WFRP adventure, rather than focusing on the 3rd edition rules.

A mash-up “Total Enemy Within” campaign is equally possible. The new campaign has a strong structure, and if I were running an Enemy Within mashup I would use that as the main plot. The original adventures, up to and including Power Behind the Throne, can be added as side-plots and complications: Death on the Reik, in particular, could flesh out some of the travel sections, which are somewhat abstract in the new campaign. I can even see ways to add Something Rotten in Kislev and Empire in Flames, but going into any detail would involve spoilers so I’ll refrain for now.

Reaction to WFRP 3rd edition has been mixed. In its own way, the WFRP community is riven by an edition war as savage as anything D&D/d20 has seen. I expect at least a few people will eviscerate me online because the new Enemy Within doesn’t live up to their long-held memories of the original, because it’s 3rd edition, because of any number of things. I hope that a lot of people will like it, or at least find something they like in it. I will say that it looks good, and I will be excited to hold it in my hands.

I can’t wait to see this, and not only because it includes my short-short The Lemmings and the Sea. I was intrigued by the concept ever since Robin Laws approached me to write something. I remember reading a children’s edition of Aesop’s Fables at the age of about seven, and being amazed at how insightful they were (even if I couldn’t have articulated that thought back then) as well as loving all the talking animals. I loved having the chance to try my hand at writing something in the same style. But mainly, I just can’t wait to see what the other 69 contributing authors have done.

The roster includes some big names from the gaming world like Greg Stafford, Ed Greenwood, Sandy Petersen, and John Kovalic, as well as writers like Matt Forbeck, Jonathan Howard, and Chuck Wendig. It’s a wide and eclectic group of people, each of whom is bound to come up with something great. I’m proud to be among such company.

The book looks nice, too – a satisfyingly chunky hardback with a lion and an aardvark gold-stamped into the cover underneath a simple but appealing dustjacket. Rachel Kahn’s internal art has a light touch that is perfect for the subject matter.

I’m told that an announcement about North American distribution is expected any day now. I really hope it will be in time for Christmas-gifting on this side of the Atlantic.