Motivational Monday

Lazy Sunday Photo Dump

The new Corps!

The Corps figure line has been a second string offering of action figures for quite a while. Not as snazzy as the GI Joe and Star Wars figures but not as cheap and sucky as the dollar store ripoffs, still the Corps has never really "Wowed" me.

Until now.

There is a new line of "Adventure team" styled figures available mostly at Wal Mart, new sculpts, updated articulation,a cool premise, and a price that can't be beat (A three pack will set you back about $2.97

here are a few pics. I added a few accessories from some Chap Mei figures for a little flavor. like I said very "Adventure Team."

World of Broadsword-Spotlight: Belsa

Wulfgar is a "Friend of the Lair" and all around nice guy. Today he sent me a campaign map that he is using for his Labyrinth Lords game.
The map is of Belsa Province, one of the areas featured in the World of Broadsword. As I opened the file I was as giddy as a schoolgirl. This is what its all about people, not the money, the fame, the women (well maybe the women). It's about people liking your stuff enough to use it, tweak it, and make it their own.

And he did one hell of a job on it.

WoB has gotten a good reception and great reviews, and hearing that it's actually being used in play was a great feeling.


"World of Broadsword worked great for what I wanted it to do. I ran the game with Labyrinth Lords (the Moldvay D&D retro-clone) so I didn't use any of the 1PG rules or stats. I used the world info to lay out the game world and provide the players with some background and rumors."
Wulfgar

Drizzt is Mongolian?

Who knew?

Hador

Work proceeds at a steady clip on my next release through Evil DM Productions. This time around I'll be taking a stab at the Pulp sub-genre of the Lost Worlds Adventure.

I plan to follow the same formula I did for the World of Broadsword. In addition to the world gazetteer, there will be an adventure where explorers from 1938 find themselves transported to The Lost World.

here is the Blurb for it.

The Lost World of Hador
This supplement will highlight the "Lost World" aspect of the pulp genre. In this instance the lost world is not in the center of the earth or in a hidden valley in the arctic. The world of Hador is lost between time and space. On Hador creatures thought to be mythical are real and peoples from all eras, past and future coexist in a world of savage wonder.


As with World of Broadsword, the Lost World of Hador will be geared towards Deep7's 1PG system. specifically- the pulp adventure game Dime Heroes. However, the gazetteer and adventure will be readily adaptable to any Pulp adventure rules system.

I'm getting quite a bit of help from my online friends covering a variety of subjects. Even though it's a Pulp game I want there to be some semblance of historical and linguistic accuracy. So my thanks again to all of you who have been helping out. I hope to be done with this project by early July.

Motivational Monday

Lazy Sunday Photodump

Journey

I’ve had some bad dates, but the absolute worst date of my life was back in 1986, at an all day music and art festival in the California "Gold country" called "Mountain Air". What made it the worst date was the fact that the girl I took wanted to leave halfway through the day, before the concert portion began.
The headliner was Journey.
I took her home and needless to say it was a long quiet drive back to Sacramento. I was so pissed I could have chewed through a beer can.
That was the first, last, and only time I ever had the chance to see Journey in concert. Of course there have been concerts since but once Steve Perry left the band it just wasn't the same. “Van Hagar” wasn't as traumatic of a switch for me, since I was always a fan of the "Red Rocker", but Journey without Steve Perry just wasn't Journey.
The other day on the radio I heard a journey song I never heard before. I was stunned- it was the Journey sound, the Journey guitars, and Steve Perry on lead vocals. I was ecstatic. When the song ended the DJ said it was a cut from their new album “Revelation” featuring a new lead singer named Arnel Pineda. I couldn't believe how much this guy sounds like Steve Perry, it's like they cloned him from a lock of Steve's hair. Of course when I got home I went online and did a little research...
Arnel Pineda was a member of a bar band in the Philippines. Neal Schon was surfing you Tube one night and came across some videos of Pineda covering some Journey songs. Schon was so impressed with Pineda he flew him out to California for an audition and a few days later offered him the spot as Journey's new lead singer. Talk about a Cinderella story.
So now Journey has a new singer, a new album and a summer tour with Heart and Cheap trick.
The guy sounds good (go on you tube and check him out).

No he isn't Steve Perry. But it doesn't look like Steve is ever gonna change his mind and work with Journey again.
And I'm not getting any younger. I figure I better go see them now while I can still hold up a Bic lighter.
Besides, Heart will be there, and I’ve always had a thing for Nancy Wilson.

I'm a Blackgate correspondent

Does that mean I get paid?

Anyway, I have a review up at the Blackgate website. The book is called the Sword Edged Blonde. Visit the website, read the review, buy the book.

Motivational Monday

Lazy Sunday Photo Dump

Fun with the new Indy Figures

Golden Compass airship at Big Lots!

Over at BIG LOTS! they have the Golden Compass airship for $15.00. I picked one up and it's a great toy for the price.

Motivational Monday

Lazy Sunday Photo Dump

Conan figure at Ross

Looking for a great Conan figure?
These just started showing up in the toy Dept at Ross for $8.00

GI Joe and OD&D

I’m noticing a trend lately that I find interesting not for its own sake but for the larger picture it paints of age, nostalgia and trying to recapture youth- The movement to get back to an “old school” style of gaming.
What I find amusing is that I’ve been on this ride before with my buddies who collect action figures. A few years back there was a huge resurgence in nostalgia amongst us guys who played with GI Joes back in the late 60’s through the mid 70’s. The net filled up with message boards and websites where middle aged men would wax nostalgic about their GI Joe collections and their most recent attempts to reacquire the lost treasures of their youth. The boards would buzz with opinion and debate over which Joes were better, whose collections were the most authentic, which companies were re-releasing which figures to cash in on the nostalgia craze and how every effort to do so sucked.
We would bitch and whine about how kids these days wouldn’t know a fun toy if it bit them in the ass. We complained about the little GI Joes, the “Real American Hero” GI Joes from the late 80’s (which of course would offend the “young pup” collectors who grew up in the 80’s watching GI Joe and He Man), We would complain about the high prices and low quality of the new stuff coming out and how it would never compare to what we had “back in the day.”

Back in the day…
That’s the key isn’t it?
A few years ago the GI Joe guys started hitting middle age. Suddenly there was a rush to get back to simpler times, where backyard adventures filled our summer days. Nothing now would ever, could ever, bring those days of bottle rockets and dirt clod fights back.
So we did the next best thing. We went on EBay and paid outrageous prices for moth eaten tokens of our youth and cleaned them, patched them up and put them on display. Eventually, the craze wore down. The casual collector picked up a $9.00 anniversary Land Adventurer at Wal Mart and moved on. The rest of us die hard’s still haunt the boards and still wait for the re release of the Mobile Command Center, much like Linus waiting for the Great Pumpkin.

So now, a few years later a new group of guys are reaching their 40’s. These guys didn’t have much to do with Kung Fu grips or Big Jim’s P.A.C.K. They were too busy trying not to get killed in the Tomb of Horrors or have all their levels drained by a Succubus. These are the guys waking up and finding a new version of D&D coming very soon. And there are many who say it looks nothing like the D&D we played as we listened to “Led Zeppelin, Iron Maiden, or The Red Hot Chili Peppers. This is some new fangled D&D. Hence, the movement to recapture simpler times. To get back to late night sessions at mom’s dinner table. Nights filled with character sheets, funny dice, graph paper, clunky lead miniatures and of course Taco Bell wrappers. Can we get back to “old school?” I really don’t know. It didn’t work for the GI Joe guys. But if there’s a chance of recapturing a sliver of that excitement the first time you went up a level, then I’d say it’s worth a shot.

Lets do this thing!

I have all the software.
All I need is a game.
If any of you guys want to join in and get something going with this Savage Worlds online thingamajig let me know.

Motivational Monday

H/T to Last of the few

Lazy Sunday Photo dump (Mother's day edition)

First off, a shout out to all those very special Mom's on Mother's Day. You know who they are. We all had one. Whether they were the single mom next door who always needed her lawn mowed, your buddies mom who never quite dressed her age, your girlfriend's mom who was a hell of a lot more interesting than your girlfriend, or the highly involved "Team Mom". They stoked the fires of imagination in many a young lads dreams.







And now back to our regularly scheduled Photodump...