Lords of the West: Update 2

I thought I'd post an update to clarify exactly what is happening with the Lords of the West books. As most of you probably already know, the books will no longer be published by Moon Design, but have been taken up by other publishers. One of those publishers has not made a formal announcement yet (that I know of), although it's probably not desperately hard to work out who it is! So, to summarise what has been announced:

The Book of Glorious Joy
This will be published by d101 Games, and will be a bumper volume including most of the material from both LotW1: Heroes of Malkion and LotW3, the book that would have covered Loskalm. We're working to make it self-contained, although many of the cults from LotW1 will lack detailed descriptions or rules sections, since a "book of cults" wasn't considered very desirable. There is no definite release date for the book as yet, although we're hoping to have it out by the end of the year, and work is already underway on art and layout.

One chapter of LotW3 has, in fact, already been published. It is available in Hearts of Glorantha #4, available from d101 Games via lulu.com. This is the chapter covering Junora (which does, unfortunately, to some extent make reference to the as yet unpublished remaining chapters). It is graced by some wonderful artwork by Peter Town, and, of course, is accompanied by articles by many other great authors - it's well a worth a read. The magazine is available both as a hardcopy, and as a (cheaper) PDF file.

Continuum 2010

I have just returned from the 2010 incarnation of Continuum, the biennial games convention. I have, of course, mentioned this before, and now its back again! I have to say that this seemed, even by the high standards of Continuum, and its predecessor, Convulsion, to be a particularly good event. So far as I could tell, everything was running smoothly, and there was certainly plenty to do throughout the whole weekend.

Of course, a lot of the time was, as always, spent socialising and drinking (so much so that the bar ran out of cider on Saturday evening - fortunately they obtained more for the next day). As always, the conversations were eclectic, and covered much more than just gaming - such as the precise distinction between Prussia and Brandenburg, the funereal habits of the middle-eastern Neolithic, and methods of promotion in the Royal Navy during the 18th century. Because such things are, of course, more important than anything involving, say, footballs.

But, of course, we're there mainly for the gaming. I managed to get into four games over the course of the weekend, which, with seminars in the mornings, out-of-tune singing on Saturday night, and me shouting at people on Sunday evening, made quite a full timetable. The first game was a Glorantha HeroQuest adventure (just published in Gloranthan Adventures), which resulted in much craziness, and dropping of roofs on top of undead sparrows.

On the Saturday, I played in a scenario for the hard SF game River of Heaven. If you've not heard of that before, it's probably because it hasn't yet been published - apparently it should be out by the end of the year. Hard SF doesn't seem to get much of a look-in when it comes to RPGs (although I'm sure one could argue about just how hard is 'hard'), but this setting did look quite interesting from the brief glimpse we got. The scenario itself, concerning a crisis on an STL interstellar cargo ship, was written and GMed by the game's designer, John Ossoway, and gave us plenty to do, without it being too difficult to follow the relevant details of the setting.

On Saturday evening, that was followed by a free-form set in Kingsport, Massachusetts. I was playing a thinly disguised Herbert West, amidst a steadily growing mountain of insanity, much of which revolved heavily around snakes. By the end of the scenario I was was turned into a brain-eating zombie, which seems appropriate enough, under the circumstances. In short, this was a very fun free-form, and one where I managed to keep constantly busy (I've been in some before where this wasn't the case), which I'd recommend if it's run again.

And then, on the Sunday, I played in a game based on the 1960s TV series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons. I played Destiny Angel - I'm sure you can see the resemblance. The GM was obviously very well versed on the show - certainly far more than I was - and did a good job of working in its various conventions, as well as using a brilliant set of props. All in all, very well done, and a lot of effort looked to have gone into it.

In terms of my own publications, it looks as if much of volumes 1 and 3 of Lords of the West should be out in time for Dragonmeet, although no promises on that one. It's looking highly likely that these will, in fact, be published under a single cover, which will make quite a substantial book. There is no specific news on a release date for volume 2, as yet.

And, of course, the best news: there will be another Continuum in 2012. So that will definitely be something to look forward to!