From: "John & Christy Thompson" To: Subject: Chaosium Digest v37.07 Date: Tuesday, March 18, 2003 6:38 AM Chaosium Digest Volume 37, Number 07 Date: Monday, Mar. 18, 2003 Number: 1 of 1 Contents: * Some Announcements Editor's Note: As you can see, we're in need of submissions. I accept submissions on any current Chaosium game: Call of Cthulhu (BRP or D20), Stormbringer, Dragon Lords of Melnibone and anything else BRP, any past Chaosium game such as Pendragon, Nephilim, Mythos and Glorantha as well as related licenses like Delta Green and Cthulhu Live. I prefer submissions to be 50 KB or less in -txt format, though I will accept them in any format that can be opened by MS Word. I'll look at larger submissions, though they will most likely go directly to the website due to the limitations of email distribution. ANNOUNCEMENTS * February 27th, 2003 Howdy Folks! Chaosium is in the middle of moving to new offices this week. So you may have noticed our site hasn't changed in nearly two weeks. For those of you who might be having trouble reaching Chaosium due to the move, you can always contact me (Dustin) at dustin@frontier.net. Our website is moving to new servers, to better serve you. The transition is expected to take anywhere from 1-2 weeks. Meanwhile, we're unable to process your retail orders. Our new site will allow us to resume taking your orders. Further, we'll be adding all sorts of swell new stuff to tempt the discerning cultist. Following the transition, we'll begin (slowly) to revamp our web pages, making them Monkey Clean, and Monkey Fresh. We'll post our new contact information here once the California phones are all working again. Now where did we pack those phones... Meanwhile, all is swell here at Chaosium Inc. We've got two books at the printer and we have several more waiting in the wings. Both H.P. Lovecraft's Arkham and Disciples of Cthulhu 2 will release in March. We've been hard at work planning our Gen Con events, getting ready for the Game Manufacturers Association trade show In Los Vegas in March, and reviewing some Call of Cthulhu and Eternal Champion licensing possibilities for later this year. H.P. Lovecraft's Arkham will be available by Mid-March. We'll have some at the GTS show in Vegas next month for retailers and distributors to look at. If you haven't yet heard, there just might be an Elric movie someday. You can read more about it at http://www.cnn.com/2003/SHOWBIZ/Movies/02/24/film.elric.reut/index.html. This is good news for Stormbringer & Dragonlords of Melnibone fans. As always, we're taking submissions for all of our game lines, including Call of Cthulhu, Call of Cthulhu d20, Stormbringer, and Dragonlords of Melnibone. You too could be a Chaosium writer. Or perhaps you'd rather be a Chaosium artist. Once again, thanks for supporting Chaosium books & games. We look forward to serving you for another 28 years! Charlie, David, Dustin & Lynn - the Chaosium Dudes . -- Dustin Wright- Chaosium Colorado "Leng Embassy" /|\_(@jjjj@)_/|\ http://www.chaosium.com 27 Years of Quality Mayhem and still counting Support your local game shop! * FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE ISSARIES MAKES DISTRIBUTION DEAL WITH STEVE JACKSON GAMES Austin, TX and Oakland, CA February 12, 2003 Issaries, Inc. and Steve Jackson Games Incorporated today announced that SJ Games will handle sales and distribution of all Issaries releases, effective immediately. "We're proud to be associated with a product line as fine as Issaries', and it's a great privilege to work with Greg Stafford," Steve Jackson, founder of Steve Jackson Games, said. "We're a couple of 'gaming graybeards' -- two of the last few to make it this long while remaining independent." Steve Jackson saw his first game design published in 1976, and started the company that bears his name in 1980. Greg Stafford founded Chaosium, Inc. and published White Bear & Red Moon, a boardgame set in the world of Glorantha, in 1975. "That's 55 years of combined experience," Jackson said proudly. "The opportunity to get our products into more outlets is a win-win situation," Stafford said. "Like Steve and his GURPS, we have a roleplaying game for people who want to move beyond the d20 craze -- we just need to get it in front of more fans. This deal lets us do that. The real winners are gamers everywhere." Stafford founded Issaries, Inc. four years ago as a company specializing in games set in his mythic world of Glorantha. His RuneQuest roleplaying game was first published in 1978, and legions of Glorantha fans have been devoted to gaming in this rich, distinctive game world ever since. All existing Issaries back stock will be sold through Steve Jackson Games beginning immediately. Future products will bear both the Issaries and Steve Jackson Games logos, starting with Imperial Lunar Handbook, Vol., 1 (ISS 1302), and HeroQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha (ISS 1001). New products will be solicited and sold as part of the regular monthly SJ Games releases. SJ Games' Warehouse 23 (www.warehouse23.com) will also become the official online source for all Issaries products. About Steve Jackson Games Steve Jackson Games (www.sjgames.com) was founded in 1980 by Steve Jackson, and is currently one of the top five publishers of roleplaying, strategy, and card games and metal miniatures. The company is best known for the INWO trading card game, the GURPS roleplaying system, Car Wars, Illuminati, Ogre and its sequels, and the current card game hits Munchkin and Chez Geek. It also publishes an online magazine, Pyramid, which covers "The Best In Gaming" in all genres and from all companies. About Issaries Issaries, Inc. (www.glorantha.com) is a publishing house for mythic material. Its flagship game is HeroQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha. The HeroQuest core rules system, created by noted game designer Robin D. Laws, is an elegant story-telling tool, with scalability and keyword-defined characters that take roleplaying to the next level. Orlanth is Dead!, an epic struggle to liberate the gods and defeat the hated Lunar Empire, is the latest release. Imperial Lunar Handbook, Volume 1, the first release in the new HeroQuest line, is due in early March. Issaries, Inc. was incorporated in 1998 through the blessings of Issaries, the Gloranthan god of trade and mercantilism; the good graces of the state of California; and, most importantly, with the support of loyal fans around the globe who raised money through the Glorantha Trading Association (GTA). Contacts Steve Jackson Games: Ross Jepson Issaries: Stephen P. Martin * Greetings! Many changes have come upon Issaries in the last few months, and we apologize that we have been uncharacteristically silent about them. We have simply been overwhelmed by the details. The first and foremost change is the new fulfillment and co-branding agreement with Steve Jackson Games that we announced yesterday. Like all official business arrangements, this one required considerable conversation and legal checking. Negotiations have taken a couple of months, but we are very happy to be able to be working with Steve Jackson Games now. As part of the arrangement we will be featured in all of their normal advertising and marketing, which will help bring HeroQuest to the attention of many new fans. Second, we have closed our Oakland, CA office. For several months, both Greg and I have worked from our homes. It just doesn't make sense to pay rent on what was essentially a storage space. So, as of February 1st the office has been officially closed. Issaries' primary business operations are now being carried out through the new phone number and mailing address indicated at the end of this message. Any and all correspondence should come to us here. All of our email addresses and access remain the same as before. Our negotiations with Steve Jackson Games has caused changes to our publication schedule. Imperial Lunar Handbook (Volume 1: The Lunar Empire) was supposed to go to the printer in December. However, we wish to take advantage of this co-branding relationship, with their logo on and in our books, for the entire HeroQuest line. We made the business decision to delay the book and so benefit from the superior arrangement. Thus, Steve Jackson Games will market and distribute the Imperial Lunar Handbook. It will be available just in time for Gloranthacon. ILH-1 and all of our other books will also be available through their Warehouse 23 online store (www.warehouse23.com). All current GTA members will continue to receive their discount after the move, but we have changed the GTA membership benefits for future members, who will not receive this discount. We wish we did not have to do this, but the economics force us to. All preorders that have been placed with Wizards Attic (including those for Imperial Lunar Handbook) are being cancelled. In the next few weeks we will contact each person who preordered to let you know what your options are. All of these changes have slowed the release of HeroQuest. The new book is going to layout, and it will be announced by Steve Jackson Games as a May or June release. We WILL make the deadline that is set for us by this solicitation. After HeroQuest, Hero's Book will follow in short order, then Kerofinela and (hopefully) Hero Bands by the end of the year. All of these books (and ILH-1) will be fully part of the HeroQuest line. Sample sections of Imperial Lunar Handbook are available online now, and we will put samples of HeroQuest online soon. HeroQuest will be released as a perfect-bound softcover book, standard 8.5" x 11" game size. We expect it to be 256 pages, but will not know the price for a couple more weeks. In addition, Issaries will release a limited edition of the work which will be hardcover. We will make an announcement in the next two weeks about this limited edition, including other enhancements, its price, and pre-order instructions. Our plan is to make each copy of the limited edition absolutely unique. Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions or concerns. I cannot guarantee everyone a personal response right away, but Issaries will do everything we can to provide you with information as quickly as we can. We are upon the brink of the HeroQuest that Greg promised decades ago. We are very excited about, and also extremely pleased with, this handsome product. We hope you will be too. Cheers, Stephen Stephen Martin Issaries, Inc., publisher of HeroQuest, Roleplaying in Glorantha P.O. Box 272914 Concord, CA 94527 Phone: (925) 680-8897 See our extensive web site at -- To unsubscribe from the chaos-digest ML, send an "unsubscribe" command to chaos-digest-request@chaosium.com. Chaosium Inc., Call of Cthulhu, and Nephilim are Registered Trademarks of Chaosium Inc. Elric! and Pendragon are Trademarks of Chaosium Inc. All articles remain copyright their original authors unless otherwise noted.