Blógünder Schlock

First, a holiday comic for you.

Too early? Not if you’re ordering Christmas cards! Pre-orders are open for 5-packs, 10-packs, and individual “Merry XDMas” cards featuring this cartoon on the front, and the XDM Fortune Cookie Magic System on the back. The interior of the card is blank and awaiting personalization… like an invitation to get together for some holiday-themed role-play during the solstice…

There is absolutely no better way to get the gamers back together for the holidays than to send the invitation along with an adventure hook AND a magic system.

We’ll be making the print run early next week, and we’ll order some extras, but if you want to be guaranteed enough cards to send to your gamer friends, please pre-order this weekend. We will have the cards in hand the week of the 16th, and you should receive your order shortly thereafter — in plenty of time to send cards out for Christmas.

(Sorry for the late notice. This was one of those ideas that kind of snuck up on me at the last minute. I only knew I had to do it once I realized that Kringle has been deceiving us for decades.)

First a quick note: We have 40 more Schlock Mercenary ACEO cards from Series One in the store. These are the last of them. There will be a series two, but we’re not launching it until these are gone.

Some of you may have met or heard of John Brown before. He is a local friend and debut novelist who Howard helped interview in two recent episodes of the Writing Excuses podcast: How Not to Repeat Yourself, and Emotion in Fiction with John Brown. If you click the links you can listen to the podcasts right on your computer. They’re worth the time because John knows what he is talking about when it comes to writing.

John is celebrating the release of his first novel by giving away copies of his book Servant of a Dark God. He has kindly offered two copies for us to give away here at Blogunder Schlock. The winner must be willing to provide a mailing address via email. The simplest method for determining who wins these books is for us to draw names out of a hat. There are two ways for you to get your name into the hat.

1. Leave a comment here on this post between now and midnight on Sunday November 8. You will get one entry just for commenting. Only one entry per name even if you make multiple comments. NOTE: The first time you comment after registering, your comment goes into a moderation queue and has to be approved before it will be visible. This dramatically reduces the amount of spam in our blog comments. There is no need to comment again, we’ll see it and put your name in the hat.

2. We are curious to know how many copies of XDM and Schlock books are making it into friendly local gaming stores. If you visit your local gaming store and see our books there, snap a picture. Mail that picture to schlockmercenary@gmail.com and we’ll throw your name into that hat two times. (Yes that is in addition to adding your name for a comment.) If we get some good pics, we’ll be sure to share them.

So that’s the contest. Ready, set, go!

Garden Ninja Studios is offering a new licensed product. You know you want one.

28mm "Sergeant Schlock" by Melissa Mayhew and Drew Olds

Sculpted by Melissa Mayhew, each miniature is hand-painted by the Garden Ninja himself, Drew Olds. And they’re available now.

There are only about 120 of them. They’re the perfect scale for table-top wargaming, and though we don’t have a rule-set for them, that’s okay. We’re sure you can find a way to work everybody’s favorite carbosilicate amorph into your collection.

If you’d rather paint Schlock yourself, or if you’re into the antique-patina pewter look, check out this page for the full set of options and prices on these.

While you’re over there, check out the other cool stuff that Garden Ninja offers. Their line of Mistborn minis and Goblin Quest minis are on sale for 30% off through January.

Update: As of 7:40am Mountain Time there are only sixty of these left (the inventory widget on the site is not accurate.) Garden Ninja Studios has another sixty on order, but that’s all they can get between now and the new year.

As is usual when we ship books to a major event, some of the books which returned from GenCon were damaged in transit.  Forklifts are not kind to books.  We are now offering these scuffed, dented, or bent books for sale in the store at discounted prices.

As you can see from the photos, most of the damage is minor.  Your book could get as much damage from being carried around in in a backpack.  We guarantee that no pages will be torn and that all pages will be present and accounted for.

On a tangential note, we’ve put up a special item for auction this week.  A fan bought a book from us at WorldCon.  Then he paid Howard to draw a picture in it.  Then he gave the book back to us on the condition that we offer the book up for auction.  So we are now auctioning off a unique copy of XDM X-Treme Dungeon Mastery with a drawing of Howard rejoicing at being paid three times.  We’re starting the bidding low since we’ve already been paid twice.  Happy bidding!

I have received word that our two pallets of books have arrived.  Tracy, Curtis, and Howard have all arrived.  Everything is good to go.  This means that I will no longer be plagued with nightmares of plane delays and mis-shipped goods.  I don’t expect to hear much from Howard over the next few days.  He’s going to be too busy to tweet let alone call.  What I hear from him is rather like telegraph messages.

Call 1 “The cash register isn’t working, so we’re going to have to take money by hand.”

Call 2  “Which credit cards do we accept?”

Call 3  “We’re ready to go.  The doors are about to open.”

Call 4 (in a harried voice) “Did you send those orange shopping bags?”

Since I’ve helped run a booth before, I have a very clear picture in my mind of all the frantic preparation and scrambling to get everything into place.  I wish I could be there to help out, but it sounds like the space behind the booth is already pretty cramped.  I’ll know how things went at around 5 PM my time when the dealer room is closed and they’ve had time to count inventory.

Until then I’ll have to console myself with reading this lovely review.

Howard’s full GenCon schedule is here.

Note from Sandra:

The XDM pre-orders went out today.  Sketched Under New Management second printing will go out early next week after Howard has a chance to do the sketching.  Thank you to everyone who ordered.   Extra special thanks to the volunteers who cheerfully helped even when the plans had to be shifted around to meet events.

While I am thanking people, I also want to thank everyone who bid on the auctions or donated money.  Howard got his iphone yesterday and is now cheerfully contemplating what Schlockish apps can be devised for it.

Also thanks to all of you who read and laugh every day.  You make what we do possible.

Posted by Sandra Tayler
Howard will be attending two major conventions in the month of August.  We do not have all the schedule details yet, but we want to let you know that he’ll be attending so that you can make your travel plans accordingly.

Anticipation (Worldcon 67) in Montreal Canada August 6-9.  Howard will be attending the convention and appearing on many panels.  I will be attending too, but not on panels.  This will also be the site for the Hugo Award announcement.  Important:  We will not have a dealer table at this event and have not been able to arrange for another dealer to sell our books.  We can’t bring piles of books with us through customs.  If you want books signed and sketched by Howard, you will need to buy them in advance.  We are looking into arranging a Schlocker meet and greet that is separate from the convention.  It will probably be on Friday August 7 but exact time and location are yet to be determined.  Montreal locals are invited to speak up in the comment thread with ideas and suggestions.

GenCon Indy in Indianapolis August 12-16.  We will post Howard’s full schedule at a later date.  He will be on many panels and presentations.  When he is not presenting, he will be at booth 1921 signing books like crazy.  This booth is located on the main aisle right across from the big Wizards of the Coast booth.  This is the Margaret Weiss Games booth which will be selling both XDM X-Treme Dungeon Mastery and all of the Schlock Mercenary books.  We’d dearly love to sell out and not have to ship any books home, so stop by early.

Howard will NOT be at Comic Con San Diego this year.   With Worldcon and GenCon back-to-back, another event was one event too many.  Howard is sad to miss it, but happy to retain some shreds of sanity.

David Reddick, one of the hardest-working men in the comics business, asked me to do a guest comic for him over at The Legend of Bill. He provided a script (which I tweaked to my liking) and I provided the art. I’m happy with the way it turned out. Bill is fun to draw.

Go look!

Hey, Writing Excuses fans! Ummm… sorry! We’ll get Episode 3.6 posted real soon now.

Meanwhile, XDM: X-Treme Dungeon Mastery pre-orders continue apace. Scroll down (or click here if you’re on RSS) to see the leaked page spread you may have missed that over the holiday weekend!

I’m checking out the new website over at xtremedungeonmastery.com (your official source for all things XDM) and what do I see? A page spread, right there where anybody can read it without buying it.

It looked almost exactly like this.

And if you clicked on it, you got a version that was large enough to be completely readable. Except the footnotes. They were incompletely or “squintily” readable.

Not to be outdone, I posted the same stuff in here. Go! Click! Read that page spread, and marvel at the wit and wisdom of the Grand Masters of XDM. But you’ll not proceed past mere marvelling. In order to truly bask and absorb you must take the heroic journey yourself, returning with the elixir, the sacred prize… in short, you’ll have to buy the whole book.

You may now pre-order your autograph edition of XDM: X-Treme Dungeon Mastery, by Tracy and Curtis Hickman, illustrated by Howard Tayler. Tracy Hickman is the co-creator of Castle Ravenloft and the popular Dragonlance series. His son Curtis is a practicing magician. And me? Me you probably already know.

If you play table-top role-playing games like D&D*, Rifts*, Shadowrun*, or GURPS* then XDM: X-Treme Dungeon Mastery is the best game supplement you can buy. Its principles will make anybody a better game-master, and will turn good game-masters into small gods. Its principles will also make for better players, so whether you’re running a game or playing in one you will benefit from this book.

And if you just want to read it for the sheer entertainment value I promise you that it’ll hold up just fine. This is not a dusty reference tome. This was written to be read, learned from, and above all enjoyed.

But that’s not the only new thing in the Schlock Mercenary Store this morning. You may have heard that Under New Management has gone into a second printing. We’ve fixed the typos, tweaked the cover and spine, and are now opening pre-orders for numbered sketch editions. We only did 300 of those the first time around, so some of you may have missed out.

And that’s STILL not where it ends. We also have Tagon’s Toughs t-shirts coming back to the store, and a new shirt that I’m not going to spoil for you here. Why not? Because it uses a punchline that won’t appear on in the comic until August. If you want to read it now, go window-shopping.

(*Note: D&D, Rifts, Shadowrun, and GURPS are all other people’s trademarks, and they want you to know that.)