The Hollow Wee ’Un

As part of the Halloween celebration over at FlamesRising.com, they’re posting a statless series of monsters suitable for use in any roleplaying game. Contributors include such luminaries as Bill Bodden, Malcolm Craig, Chuck Wendig, Matt McElroy, Monica Valentinelli, Brad McDevitt, Jeff Preston, John Wick, Monte Cook, Jared Sorensen, Eddy Webb, Alana Abbot, Jeff LaSala, Rich Dansky, Jason Blair, Gregor Hutton, Jason Morningstar, Jess Hartley, E. E. Knight, and more.

Mine–the Hollow Wee ’Un–showed up today. Be sure to check it out.

Audio Call of Cthulhu

Stephen Twining sometimes comments around these parts, and he often shows up at conventions with wonderful things to hand out to friends, like a gravestone rubbing from H.P. Lovecraft marker. He also teaches Freshman English (among other things) at Cumberland High School in Rhode Island. Every autumn, he focuses on Lovecraft’s works, and claims that the students learn the material better when they hear it read aloud.

Rather than destroy his voice reading “The Call of Cthulhu” over and over again, he did it once and recorded it. You can find his excellent articulations on the CHS website in (three) (different) (parts). He was kind enough to share this with me, and now I’m passing his favor on to you.

Listener’s Tip: Wear headphones and hear Stephen’s voice swim straight through your head.

Games, Politics, and Religion

In comments on a recent post about the Citizens of Virtue ARG, my friend Teeuwynn Woodruff points out that the game is meant to support Jesus Wants to Save Christians, a new book by Rob Bell and Don Golden. She also directed me to a fresh blog post that explains it all.

Ironically, on the same day, the über-political-polling site FiveThirtyEight.com posts an article that mentions the other Rob Bell, a friend from the days I worked a lot with ICE. (Rob edited Western Hero, the very first roleplaying game book I wrote entirely on my own, all the way back in 1991.)

In it, the chair of the Republican Party in Albemarle County (home of Charlottesville, Virginia, where ICE still is),”credits Virginia Delegate Rob Bell with an incredibly disciplined and thorough approach to voter database maintenance.” He also says, “Delegate Bell wrote the precinct captain manual that is now used all over Virginia.”

It doesn’t surprise me at all that the Rob I know went from editing a rigorous game system like Champions to figuring out how to win at politics–and then to writing a book about it. Some people joke about what could happen if gamers used their skills in the real world. People like Rob (and my pal John Nephew of Atlas Games–who gave me an Al Franken button at Gen Con!) are actually doing it.

Blood Bowl #5 in Stores Yesterday!

BBKC_05_A.jpgLike a thief in the night, Blood Bowl: Killer Contract #5 slipped into comic book stores yesterday without my notice. In this final issue in the miniseries, Lads Helloven and I wrap up with a bang the tale of the Bad Bay Hackers’ quest to defend their title as the Blood Bowl champs against their (very, very) old rivals, the Champions of Death. Meanwhile, undercover assassin Kalter Mörder has one last chance to kill the Hacker’s star player Dunk Hoffnung or be forced to refund the blood money with his own blood.

BBKC_05_B.jpgAgain, I had a fantastic time working on this project, which serves as a direct sequel to Rumble in the Jungle, the fourth (and currently last) of my Blood Bowl novels. Seeing Lads’s hilarious interpretation of the characters who have been bashing about in my head for the last few years made it all that much better. I hope you enjoy it too. Be sure to ask for it at your friendly neighborhood comic-book store.

Local Debate: Baldwin v. Theron

I was scheduled for an online chat tonight on RPGLife.com, but I’m going to have to reschedule that so I can attend my local congressional debate between Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin and challenger Peter Theron. It’s being held at the Beloit College campus at 8 PM tonight, right when I would be signing on for the chat.

My mother runs Tammy’s office here in Beloit, and I’ve been a supporter of Tammy since before that, so there’s little doubt who will get my vote. Still, it’s important to be involved and to support the excellent work both Tammy and my mother have done for my hometown, so I plan to be there. I plan to reschedule the chat with RPGLife.com if I can. I’ll let you know the new time when that happens.

In the meantime, if you live in or near Beloit, be sure to catch the debate if you can!

100-Word Tale

My latest post is up on Storytellers Unplugged. Since it’s October, it’s time for some short fiction again. Last year, I wrote six-word stories. This time around, I cracked my knuckles and went all the way for 100 words (on the nose) instead.

Be sure to check it out. It won’t take long.

Mine, All Mine

My author’s copies of The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Drawing Superheroes and Villains Illustrated finally showed up yesterday. It’s the first time I’ve held a printed copy of the book in my hands, and it looks great. Yair Herrera did a wonderful job bringing everything I wrote to life.

On a personal level, the best part about the book is that I own all of the characters in it. Most of the writing I do is for tie-in novels, computer games, or book packagers, and while I can’t complain about the contracts, I don’t own very much of that writing. In this case, I negotiated a deal that gave me the underlying rights to all of the characters in the book. After all, what would IDW do with them?

Now, of course, the trick is figuring out what I should do with them. Seems a shame to let an entire book’s worth of superpowered characters lie fallow. Hmmm.