Ostensible Cat

After looking at my wife Daisey's pictures from out trip to the Bolzano area and the Italian Alps a week ago, I just had to share.  It was a most excellent trip and I had a most excellent time.  It was most inspirational from a story-telling/game design aspect (heh, yeah, I'm that geeky that I think about that stuff when I travel.  Here's a few pictures from out trip and see if you agree that the southern alps (or northern Italian Dolomites) are beautiful and most inspirational from a game design standpoint.  And I gotta tell you, there is nothing quite like sitting at the top of the world and enjoying a well crafted German Pilsner followed by a cup of Italian Espresso and Apple Strudel ;).  Yeah, it sucks to be me.  Happy gaming gang! 

Today would have been the 74th Birthday of the Grand Master of DMs, Gary Gygax.  Gary, the co-creator of Dungeons and Dragons, in part bears some responsibility for my endless day dreams and flights of fancy for the past 32 years.  I myself turn 40 on Monday and am deeply indebted to the master of the game.  Oh, and in a rather fun coincidence, I received my copies of the 1E AD&D reprints, OSRIC 2.2, Tim Short's zine The Manor , and Terminal Space in the mail today.  Cheers Gary, and thanks for many hours of fun and many, many more to come!

Joe Browning over at Expeditious Retreat Press has announced the latest release in the Advanced Adventures line:  Beneath the Heart of Empire.  I had the pleasure of doing the art for this module.  Check out the spiffy job Daisey did on the color cover. Here's a look at the art for front and back covers: Speaking of spiffy color work, check out the latest post on Kobold Quarterly's blog .  More artisitc stylings by myself and Daisey. Can you name the old school D&D references in the picture?  Go over to Kobold Quarterly represent the Old School and sound off!

For those wanting a print version of Delve! issue 1, the PayPal button is now fixed.  Send me your cash ;)!

I currently at the airport in Frankfurt waiting for my flight back to Venice and home.  I'm excited to get back to the family.  I wasn't productive on the Delve! side of things since I was pretty consumed with my day job, but I do have lots of ideas for delve issue 2.  Issue two will be centered around the town of Dustchapel Downs and it's strange inhabitants.  I'm thinking about working up some variant werewolf rules to make them a bit more scary than they have been.  Sure, silver MIGHT be effective, but was it appropriately blessed and fashioned?  I'll explore some of those things.  As to Dustchapel Downs, it'll be somewhat similar to Dunwhich but perhaps a bit more whimsical...  Sales for Delve! issue one pdf have been pretty good.  To date, I've sold 22 pdf copies and four print copies.  If you are thinking of getting a print copy, you can click the paypal link on the right.  Five dollars US gets you 36 pages of wierd fantasy ...

OK, a couple of caveats here:  1)  I haven't been able to get to the Italian Post office (WHY must they have such ridiculous hours?!?!) so at this point, I'm opening it to US/Canadian orders only since I have to figure out how to navigate the Italian postal system (sorry non US/Canadians, I'll try to make it to the post soon and figure out that system) 2)  I won't be able to ship any orders until Monday  23 July at the earliest since I have a business trip leaving Thursday.  Other than that, click the button on the right to send me your $5 US (postage paid) hard earned cash and I'll send you back a copy of Delve!  Sound easy enough?  We'll, let's get to it then ;).

Delve! issue 1 has received a first review.  Fellow old school blogger Brendan over at Untimately has penned his thoughts on my first foray into the game design, er, *ahem* game.  I definitely appreciate the thoughts and am going to play around with the spell format that he suggested.  Delve!  issue 2 is in the works.  I haven't done much with it yet cause I'm too busy livin large off the proceeds from Delve!  issue 1 and chillin in the Italian Alps.  Actually, it is a nice, much needed vacation with the family.  Here in a bit I'm going to do a video interview with Ed Healy of Gamerati fame.  I'm going to be discussing Strange and Sinister Shores and probably Delve! my art and whatever else we get around to.  Well, that's all for now.  Gotta go prep for my interview!