Skip to the end for details on a special release-day discount.

In His Name details the churches of The Echoes of Heaven setting, with mechanical write ups, politics, NPCs, and dozens upon dozens of adventure seeds. It also details the great holy city of the Human church and it inhabitants and special sites. A must for any Echoes of Heaven player or GM.

The Last Hallowed Place is the 5th adventure in The Moving Shadow Campaign. Now that the characters have escaped from the trap set for them in The Tainted Tears, Morthorn has almost completed his plan to end the world. Can our intrepid adventurers stop him in time, or is this the end of the Mortal Realm as we know it?

For those who have waited so long, we’ve provided a special release day sale. Use the link below to purchase the bundle version of the product including the OGL, Rolemaster, and HARP rules for the price of a single version. Get three times the content and help us at Final Redoubt Press return with a bang. It’s our gift to you and your gift to us all at the same time.

http://www.rpgnow.com/index.php?discount=73358

Thanks, and good gaming!

In addition to that I’ve started updating the internal text (including the preview download) to include updated information about the licenses. At the same time I’m upgrading the interior of the preview to full color, like the 4e version of the products. I don’t want to delay the other existing copies with large-scale interior updates, so I’ll restrain myself and only handle the licensing issues in those.

On the Death by Cliche front, I’ve finished an output of the e-pub version with a table of contents. I did this while gaming at a friend’s house, however, so it hasn’t been tested yet. The Kindle version is still pending. I don’t have news on a cover, there.

That’s the major news, the covers are just dozens and dozens of hours of work. With them receding, however, I hope to get updated copies online over the next weeks.

Regards,

Bob

As I mentioned in my recent post on Playtesting.net (this post will be showing up in both locations), it looks like my HERO System license won’t be renewing. Since I’ve started releasing small conversions for 4e, I’m adding that as my fourth system, although the actual 4e conversions won’t have a place in my schedule I finish getting Death by Cliché up and released. Essentially, I only have time to work on two Final Redoubt projects at once.

As for Death by Cliché, I’ve done my initial page making pass and it is finished. I’ve also done a proof of concept export for Kindle and e-pub and some subsequent exports to handle formatting issues. They all look good now. I’ll need to add a table of contents to the e-book versions for navigation purposes. That’s next on my list. I also need to get a cover. It looks like I’m not going to be able to get a piece of reuse art for the cover—my first choice—so I’m going to need to commission an actual piece. We’ll see how that develops. I’ve found some artists I think would do a good job but I haven’t contacted them yet.

We’re within a few weeks of starting the Rolemaster playtest of the final adventure, O What a Hell Would Heaven Be. I’m very excited about it. I’m halfway through the RM/HARP conversion of the final bonded weapon of the campaign and I’m VERY glad that bit will soon be done. There is only one major NPC in this one, so the statting of the adventure itself should proceed apace. I should be able to keep ahead of the playtest group handily enough once the NPC is statted.

So that’s where we are. I’ll try to keep you posted on events and thanks for your patience.

Regards,

Bob

So what does this mean to you?

If you’re a fan of my game products, it means I’ve begun working on them again.  Unfortunately, I think I’m going to have to drop the HERO System portion of the line, at least for the time being.  I haven’t been able to work out a new license on that front.  Over the next weeks, you should see Echoes trickling back into the stores as I update their covers and adjust the legal text to comply with the new licensing.

If you’re a fan of my fiction, I’ve spoken with my trusted consultants and we’ve decided that the e-book industry has taken enough of a hold for me to begin producing non-PDF e-books.  In that vein, I will be releasing Death by Cliché for purchase.  You’ve enjoyed it for free and there is, of course, no obligation to buy, but if the book brought you joy, I’d like to invite you to buy a copy.  I intend to release it for Kindle and in e-pub.  I haven’t determined for sure yet if it will only be available for e-pub in my store or if you will be able to buy it through iBooks and Barnes and Noble.  I intend the latter, but we are in the preliminary stages.  I also intend to release a print version on Lulu for those of you who are e-reader adverse, but this is just as a service to you.  While I’ll probably make more money per book with Lulu, that won’t likely help grow my business.

So here’s the rallying cry.  Sometime in the next months, I’ll be officially releasing these books.  I know that many of you are probably in either the Nook, iPad, or Kindle camps.  That’s fine.  We’ll probably try to hit all of those more or less at once.  The crux is this, we’ll want to hit them with purchases all on the same day.  The more of you that buy at once, the more the features of these stores should take notice.  Amazon, for instance, ranks the sales position of each book in the store.  If we can crank that high in one day, we might be able to get the store to take notice and if we can get it to begin offering the book to new customers, and if you give me plenty of thoughtful reviews, we might just be able to accomplish something here.

If not, then at least you have a copy of a book you enjoyed.

I’ll be talking about this over the coming weeks, and because of my full-disclosure policy, I’ll probably be blogging about or answering questions on the business considerations.  But Chime in if you want to buy a copy and let us know the format of your choice.  I’d like to know what the level of enthusiasm is here.  I know that it’s asking something to expect you to give money for something I’ve already given you for free, especially so long after the date.  So let me know.  Do you want to purchase a copy of Death by Cliché for your very own?

Bob

So stay tuned. Look for my rallying cry.

Bob

So someone just mentioned in a tweet that I haven’t updated this in a while. I’ll take a quick break to do so now.

I’m employed. I work for a wonderful company, upgrading client software. It’s a lot of overtime, and I haven’t figured out how to meld all my scheduling needs together. I bought a new laptop. I’m hoping that will help me use those inefficient parts of my time better.

Anyway, I just thought you should all know.

Bob

I’m nearing the end of my edit for the novel I’ll probably record after the Echoes short stories. It feels good to be in the climax. I’m writing a book that will either be the next major novel podcast or the one after that. It’s going well. I’m in a writing group with Howard Taylor (schlockmercenary.com) and Dan Willis of Dragonlance, among other worthies, and it seems to be going well.

More next week.

Bob

Anyway, I applied Friday night when I got home. Obviously, they haven’t even seen the application yet, but it’s in. We’ll see how that develops.

Bob

Anyway, not a whole lot to report on this end right now.

Bob

All in all, a good plan.

I took a little nap that night because I’d only had about 4 hours sleep the night before. Woke up at 6am after two hours. Enough to get me by.

Left at 8 am. It’s about a 40 minute drive, but I’ve never done it at 8am and I didn’t know how bad rush hour would be. I knew it was TERRIBLE coming back in the evening.

Pulling out onto the main road, lights flashed behind me. Evidently I saw my opportunity to merge with traffic and didn’t come to a complete stop at the stop sign, then merged in front of a sheriff. The stop put me about 15 minutes behind, but I thought I still had time.

Then, about a half a mile away from the interview, I blew my right front tire. Pulling over, I realized that when my key bent we made four copies from the bent key, but none of them opened all the locks on my car. The one I had on my keyring opened only the driver’s side door, and I didn’t think any of them had opened the trunk. It was 8:55. Cursing, I called my mother to see if she was willing to go find the other keys, then come meet me. Then I threw out a thumb and caught a ride going to a building one away from the building where I was interviewed.

I got there at 8:59. I went to the bathroom after checking in the the receptionist.  As I walked out of the bathroom, I heard her telling the interviewer that I had just arrived. I told him about my trip and he seemed impressed that I still made it on time. Whew.

I didn’t feel like calling my mother back during the interview. I thought that would be a bad move, so I waited until it was over. She doesn’t have a cell phone so she couldn’t really leave until we knew I would be ready to go. So I settled in and read a book on my iPod while I waited for her to do the 45 minutes or so of driving.

It was then I realized there was no way I could go out with Howard. If I did NOTHING else, it would be 1 pm before I got to bed. I’d have to be awake by 5:30 to get to my date on time (it was 50 minutes away . . . everything is 45 minutes away from my house), which meant 4 and a half hours sleep at the most, and we all know you never get to bed immediately upon getting home. So I called Howard and rescheduled, mad at my day for another thing going wrong.

My mother found me and one of the keys opened my trunk (and the other doors, BTW). She’s never changed a tire herself, and she had a hip replacement surgery that’s set an upper limit on her applying force to anything, so she sat in the car and watched.

Then I had to change a tire. I have had two rear-impact car accidents that have damaged my lower back. I can think of NOTHING more painful, that I have actually done, than changing a tire. I was literally on the verge of tears from the agony by the time I was done. My mother came out toward the end and found that there was something she could do. Every time the wrench fell off a lug it was an excruciating processes for me to move from the position where I could turn the lugs to a position where I could reset the wrench, and then another excruciating move back. She just stood next to me and reset the wrench when it slid off. When my back finally gave out completely and I just couldn’t possibly be in position one moment longer, I said I needed a break. She turned the jack twice at that point (it was basically finger loose) and pulled it out.  I hadn’t realized I was basically done.

I called a couple tire places on the way because you usually save about 30-50 dollars if you call in a head of time. Tire places will often cut you a deal if you’re shopping different places by phone (they want you to come in), but they give you their normal prices if you walk in the door. I found a decent deal and drove there.

By the time I got home, I could barely move from the pain. I ate dinner, went to sleep, woke up after 4 hours, and went on my date. Saw Clash of the Titans. The author did some interesting things with that movie that I don’t think anyone but I noticed. Then I came home, napped, and Called the day dead.

It seemed like a bad day. Let’s list the bad:

1) Got pulled over on the way to a job interview.
2) Blew a tire on the way to the same interview.
3) Didn’t have a way to get into my trunk to fix the tire.
4) Had to wait a long time for a ride.
5) Had to cancel the only thing anyone was planning on doing for ME on my birthday (Dinner with Howard).
6) Had to make my mother drive out to save me.
7) Had to change a tire.
Had to buy a tire when I’m unemployed, using up the money I’d intended to spend on myself for my birthday present.
9) Had to go on a date with 4 hours sleep.

But I’d like to point out:

1) Didn’t GET a ticket despite being pulled over.
2) Blew the tire in a high traffic area instead of in the middle of nowhere on my fifty minute drive to my date.
3) Still made it to the interview.
4) Interview went well enough that I’m cautiously optimistic.
5) Got picked up by the first car when hitchhiking. (That has NEVER happened to me before. People NEVER pick me up. I’m large and sometimes I frighten people).
6) Found out I DID have a key that opened all the locks.
7) Had a pleasant date.

So I still didn’t get much in the way of any birthday presents (my mother produced a pair of dockers for my interview that she told me after the fact would be my birthday present . . . she’d bought them months or even years ago) I call the day an interesting series of good luck rather than bad. Let’s call that a win.

Bob

So updates: Carolyn told me I didn’t have to pay her for the recording stuff I’ve already done, considering my situation, and she’s not charging for the Jake Black Benefit Story. But I can’t pay her for anything else, obviously. In addition, now that I don’t work there, I have to pay for this hosting. In the meanwhile, I’ve been hitting my daily deadlines for prepping ahead on the fiction. Right now I’m working on what I THINK is going to be the first novel after all the Echoes short stories (probably starting about 4 months into the schedule after I start releasing again.) It’s one of my earlier works, and I thought about rewriting it from scratch, but I think it might be funner to analyze it a bit as I put it out, for all the other writers out there. Let me know if you think that would be something you’d find entertaining. Either way, Josh passed it off as not too embarrassing to release.

As for cancer and chemo, this Thursday is my mother’s last chemo infusion. It will almost certainly be the worst, and I’ve cleared my weekend for it, but after Sunday, every day should be better than the last. Hopefully, forever.

Bob

What am I doing with my free time? Twitter (Among other things, of course . . . Twttter is probably ten minutes of my day). You can find me at @robertjdefendi. I’ll try to tweet things like how recording is going and where we are in the various Echoes playtests. Jump on and follow me if you tweet.

Doesn’t mean that I won’t be updating here as well. I just know I’ll tweet more often, so I thought I’d let you all know about it.

Bob

Thursday
10:00 AM
- Fantasy without Magic
(Paul Genesse, Brandon Sanderson, Robert J Defendi, Lary Correis, James Brown)

2:00 PM
- The Howard and Bob Show. What do you get when you get two prolific writers together on a panel? Come and find out!
(Howard Tayer, Robert J Defendi)

Saturday
10:00 AM
- Soft-science SF-Can “hard” SF be about the “soft” sciences — psychology, sociology, etc? Who’s writing the best in the field?
(Helge Moulding, Roger White, James Dashner, Robert J Defendi, LarryCorreia,

6:00 PM
- How to write a good short story. You have to be concise, clear, articulate, and still keep the reader’s interest. What does a short story writer need to know/do to write a great short story?
(Robert J Defendi, Suzanne Vincent, Eric James Stone, Kathleen Dalton-Woodbury, Brad R. Torgensen)

Also, I have LTUE next week, Thur, Fri, and Sat. Life the Universe and Everything is a sf symposium at BYU. Click here for more details. I look forward to speaking on my panels. I’ll post my schedule tomorrow.

Finally, I want everyone to know that robertjdefendi.com isn’t current. The reason is I’m moving the data here (you might have noticed the Spacemaster page appearing on the right . . . the credits page is pretty darn annoying, so I haven’t gotten to it yet). Anyway, I retitled this site to include my name a while back because I intend to point robertjdefendi.com here when I get all the data moved. I know my updates have been sporadic, but this is where I intend to make them.

Caroline and I were talking about how to record the Jake Black story just this week. Now we’re working logistics.

Thanks for your patience.

I might be a little out of it the next day or two. I’d appreciate any prayers, meditation, or general well wishes you might throw our way. Her name is Patricia Christine Adams.

I still intend to do a Jake Black fund raising podcast. I’ll keep you posted on other matters.

Bob

I’ve volunteered for this, and I’m sure I’ll be doing something, even if it’s fetching and carrying for the comic book people who are participating and throwing all my available cash at their donated product.  But I’d like to do something more, and I need your help.

I’ve talked to Carolyn.  We’re going to do a Jake Black Fundraising podcast audio story (to release end-of-Octoberish).  It will be my short story The Great Midwestern Squirrel Conspiracy of 2010.  I’ve been saving this one for a special occasion, and this is it.

So here’s how it’s going to work:

I don’t have the technical bits in line yet (let’s assume I have to set it at a hard minimum price), but Carolyn is in a master class until the middle of October, so we have a little time.  It won’t hurt to have a run-up period for people to check in on the site again.  Let’s start the buzz on this one.

You’ll donate money.  You’ll get the story somehow.  Jake gets everything paypal doesn’t take.  What I don’t know yet is how much I should set as the minimum donation.  I want it low enough for everyone to get in on it, but paypal starts with a pretty big chunk, so the more we pay per story, the lower the percentage they take off the top.

I haven’t read the story aloud in a while.  I believe it’s about an hour long.

If this works, I’ll be releasing my other comedy stories the same way.  This might mean I have a lack of comedy material for free, but I think we can all agree that this is a good cause, and I’d like to be able to say that thousands of people banded together in laughter to help pay the medical bills of a good man in need.  (Did you hear that?  Thousands.  That means that I don’t want to settle for the standard small percentage of of sell-throughs.  You all want to be a part of this.  I know you do.  Let’s all step up and do something special.)

So what do you think we should charge?  I want to really try to get as many people donating as possible.  Chemo and radiation are expensive, and insurance doesn’t cover it all.  WEKM suggested $5 at Dragon’s Keep tonight, but I want to hear the rest of you as well.  Be honest.  I don’t want to set the price and find out everyone is well-meaning but practically, they don’t get around to paying the price point.

Comment.  Let me know.  It’s for a good cause.

Love,

Bob

If you’re going to GenCon, buy it anyway (if you ship it priority I bet you’ll get it before you go).  When you get there, buy another.  If you hand Howard both, I bet he’d doodle something special for you.  Tell him I said he would.    But you have to buy one now.  And one there.

Actually, you love your family, don’t you?  They each need one.  Oh, I understand.  No, no.  No need to explain why you don’t love your family.  I get it.  I won’t tell them.  I mean, I will probably never see them, right?  This will likely never come back to haunt you.  I’ll just go weep for your cold, stony, heart.

I need to go rethink my view on humanity.

Or DO I?

Enjoy.

Edit:

Okay, I just listened to it.  It’s pretty bad, sound wise.  That’s why we made it episode 0.    Anyway, we promise to work to improve it.

Here are some Liner notes:

Dragon’s Keep in Provo, UT

JERMS (John English’s Random Movie Stuff)

Dragon Tears

Dan Willis’s Page

Dramatica

Deconstructing Hollywood is a movie podcast.  We’ll spend the first five to ten minutes in the podcast reviewing the movie, as spoiler free as possible, and then the rest analyzing the film, the writing, the structure, etc.  For those of you that just want the review, you can listen to the begining.  For those who enjoy breaking a movie down, you’ll have the rest.

Anyway expect the first episode to go up in a day or two.  We’re still working on equipment, this one was recorded on his laptop’s built in mic in the basement of Dragons Keep in Provo, UT.  But we’ve decided to let you see all our bumps along the way, for those of you who are interested in the podcasting element of the podcasting.

Anyway.  Keep looking here.  I expect it will go up tomorrow or in the middle of the night tonight.

1)  Every time they do a progress report, they ask me if my problems with gluten have lessened (I’ve never been diagnosed, but I seem to have trouble with wheat).  Everytime I scoff and say no.  Thursday I ate entire Lasagna.  Friday I ate three bagels in a poorly-planned binge.    I realized Saturday that I’d had no effects from either.  So I had two hot dogs.  About that time I started having the most minor symptoms.  Yesterday I had a wheat-based sauce and pop tarts just to push matters further.  Today is a good day, but I can finally see the effects. I’m not the kind of guy to believe a chiropractor can cure a condition that’s almost certainly caused by an auto-immune disease, but it has occurred to me that symptoms might have been worse than they needed to be because of choked nerves between the spine and the organs.  Not conclusive, by any stretch, but I can certainly live happily with things as they’ve been this week.

2)  I wrote that entire last bit trying to avoid unpleasant biological talk.  This one is better.  Saturday night I was at my Dragonlance game with my Saturday group.  I leaned back a little hard in my 6-month-old office chair and the lock that holds it upright released.  Next thing I know all my weight and force are falling backward at full speed into the reclined position.  I’m a big guy.  I don’t let myself do that normally.  And this is why.  When I hit the extent of the recline, the force transfered into the aluminum socket for the base post (evidently FOAM aluminum).  The socket shattered and I flew backward, kicking the table and knocking water two feet into the air.  I landed flat on my back still in the chair.  I’m told it looked spectacular.

My friends were at my side immediately, but I waved them away, mainly because I wanted to orient.  I wasn’t hurting, but I knew that it would come in a moment.  I was actually REALLY comfortable.  After a minute I managed to roll out and stand on my own in my own crippled way.    We moved the chair and slid a lazy-boy-style reclined over to the table.  I still didn’t hurt.  One of my friends suggested that I take a lortab.  I took a soma (I haven’t had to take one in a week) and said I’d be fine.  She pointed out that iboprofen and lortab were more effective if you take them before the pain hits, and my knee was just stiffening up from kicking the table, so I took her advice about a half hour later.  I never felt any real pain (above my normal level).  The next morning I was no stiffer than on any other Sunday.  I felt good.

Two months ago I wouldn’t have been able to think straight after an event like that.  I had days where my pain spiked for hours just because I came down hard on one leg when taking a step.

Anyway, I was so happy all that night that I didn’t even feel bad about breaking the chair (usually something like that would make a person feel fat, to say the least.) 

Bob

I went to the chiropractor for my progress check yesterday.  My range of motion is far better.  In fact, bending over, I could have touched my toes if I’d been able to bend over anytime in the last eight years.    I almost giggled out loud when I realized I couldn’t bend farther because I was too muscle-bound in the legs, not because of blazing back pain.

Anyway, for the first time last night I was able to do the stretching exercises I’m ordered to do.  At the end the muscles in the small of my back had a vaguely broken feeling, but not really painful, more like I was working out some damaged tissue.

Today, I felt good.  My adjustment went well, although I had a different doctor and it hurt more.    He dropped me farther on the table and I felt great when I left.

Anyway, they’ve pulled me back to two adjustments a week, so if my insurance doesn’t start complaining about the length of time I’ve been in treatment, things are looking up. 

Anyway.  I just thought I should know.

Dark Blue Eyes asked about the future plans.  They are now more or less set, although the start date depends on a medical situation.  Let me start by discussing the plans.

I don’t have time to do my own audio editing, since I already have two full time jobs.    That said, Carolyn and I had a nice discussion at dinner the other week and we worked out a great deal for me paying her to continue doing what she did so well in Death by Cliche.  Essentially, she’ll do the work, she’ll get paid, but we’ve worked it out so that if she feels like getting fancy with something she can without feeling guilty.  Anyway, it’s a great deal all around.

So, when it’s fiscally possible, we will start recording and producing in earnest.  I’ll keep you apprised as we go, but my goal is to have about a month in the can before we post the first one, in case we have another vacation situation like last time. 

First thing you’ll see:  Probably an ad for The Echoes of Heaven to get people aware of the setting and to set you up a little for what is to come.

Second thing you’ll see:  The Series of Short Stories about a Witch-Hunter name Shorvan Leonedovich (in The Echoes of Heaven setting).  The first story is called Ulcer.  I intend to aim for 20-30 minute episodes, to keep the work flowing and the money manageable, so I’m GUESSING, that we’re looking at about two episodes per story.  I think they take 40-60 minutes each to read aloud.  That means that will be between 6 and 12 weeks of content.  I still need a title for the series as a whole.  Maybe something like The Fall of the Witch-Hunter.  I don’t know.  I’m drawing a blank on a good one.

My goal is not to have another pause.  That means right after this I’ll probably want to lighten the mood.  I’ll probably do this with the masterful, and deeply meaningful and insightful story, The Great Midwestern Squirrel Conspiracy of 2010. That’s 1-2 episodes.  It will bring world peace.  Apologies to everyone for not releasing it sooner.

After that, I’ll launch into a novel.  At this point I’m thinking the first novel will be Interference Patterns.
Interference Patterns is essentially a near future Hard SF murder mystery about Quantum Physics.  That’s 12 longish chapters, so I’m guessing 24 episodes.

This point is really a little up in the air.  I have a hard military sf novel, about the same length, called Xenos’ Paradigm.  About a diplomat trying to figure out why his actions in a friendly diplomatic meeting caused the only aliens Earth has ever met to start a bloody, brutal war.  I don’t know if that book will be available for this slot, however.  I’m hoping this book is at BAEN by then, and if that’s the case I wouldn’t want to do anything that would effect it’s rights.

Around this point we’re getting a little blurry, so I’ll just list some things you might see and
what issues I have releasing them (if any):

The War of Wars Part 1: Point of Contact: This is the book I want to do the most, but it’s currently at BAEN.  It’s been there for almost 5 years, so I don’t know if it’s freeing up anytime soon.  This is the first Spacemaster novel I’ve written (Spacemaster is a roleplaying game I revised for Iron Crown Enterprises).  It’s about a DSA (this is a future version of the NSA) analyst who finds herself in the middle of the opening days of a vast, interstellar war.  Though she’s safely behind lines, the machinations of the sides and the intelligence her troops need to survive all fall on her shoulders.  One of my critquers described it as “What Clancy would write if he wrote science fiction.”  I don’t think the real story can live up to that praise.    I have the rights to produce this myself, via a license from Iron Crown.

Global Conditioning:  A short story about one man’s crusade to end global warning.  Available but too tied to the former administration to sell.

Echoes of the Big Bang: The story of a NSA cryptographer trying to figure out how the Chinese have cracked our “unbreakable” one time pad encryptions.

Smart Bombs, Dumb People: Like Catch 22, but more low-brow and with poorer execution.   My first comedy short story.

A Measure of Misery: In my opinion, the best novel I’ve ever written.  It’s been at Tor for about two and a half years.  I don’t know if it’s going to become free for me to do as an audiobook.  It’s about a burned-out healer in a world where all magic must be fueled directly by one’s personal pain.  The more personal the pain, the more powerful the magic.  This burned-out, possibly drug addicted man is pulled into a plot to save the world.

The Siege of Heaven: The first Echoes of Heaven novel.  This one will probably come fairly soon, I just need to finish writing it.  It’s the story of an autistic man who’s given the spark of a dying angel as well as the angel’s quest to foil and unstoppable force of evil before he can enslave the world.

That’s a taste of things to come, now the hitch:

I’ve been in a great deal of physical pain for more than seven years now.  Two almost identical accidents have reduced my back to twitching agony.  With my new job, I can now afford to do something about it, but weekly visits to the chiropractor have never done much good.  I’ve found a chiropractor whose helped alot through aggressive treatments, but aggressive means expensive.  I’ve been going three times a week and I can walk stairs again, which is a good sign, but I’m starting to suspect that two months treatment isn’t going to do it.  I might be more like 3 or 4, if my current progress is any indication.

So I plan to start recordings as soon as the visits stop (or slow to a more financially manageable rate.)  I just don’t know if that’s one month away or three.

I’ll try to keep you posted better going forward, but once I start this again, it will be a goal to release something every week for the foreseeable future, and I want to be sure I can sustain that.

Enjoy your week.

Bob.

Anyway, just in case you need a starter for the discussion, what character archetypes (protagonist, antagonist, guardian, sidekick, etc.) do you think the various characters are?  Here’s a list of the Dramatica character archetypes:

Protagonist and Antagonist

Reason and Emotion

Guardian and Contagonist

Sidekick and Skeptic

Most people don’t know Contagonist.  It’s the character who is trying to steer the main character down the wrong path.  Darth Vader was a Contagonist because he wasn’t trying to kill Luke, he was trying to convert him.  I’ll also let you know that the characters I initially assigned to the archetypes were wrong.  A lot of them aren’t obvious. 

Anyway, you won’t hurt my feelings if you insult the book or even if you don’t feel like participating at all.  I just wanted you to have an option.

Bob

Now, don’t give me a dollar for the fine podcast audiobook I just finished putting out.  That has things in it licensed for non-commercial use.  However, giving me a dollar to help fund future sound projects (read:  paying Carolyn to pay attention to me) is perfectly acceptable.  Giving me more than a dollar is also acceptable.

I tell you what.  If enough people give me a dollar (you have to wow me here), I’ll release the terrible, embarressing, should-be-buried-deep-where-no-one-can-see-it, first draft of the first chapter of Death by Cliche.  Complete with typos, for your reading pleasure.

Giving me a dollar is fine.  If you want me to GET a dollar, donate about $1.34 if you are in the US and $1.36 if you aren’t, becuase paypal will take a cut.

Now.  Give me a dollar!

What are you waiting for?

The previously on is the only note that slipped through the cracks.  It’s too long.  The show proper starts at 5:05.  However if you want to hear the entire ending of the last scene of Episode 9 again, it’s all in there. 

Carolyn gave you guys a little present as well.  See if you can spot it.    She did it completely behind my back.

Without further delay.

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Probably post around 4 am MST.

His current thread is asking for recommendations on best fan writer.  <cough>  You can find that here.

On a less mercenary note, I use CC3 to do all my maps for the Echoes of Heaven Campaign Setting.  I’m posting each day’s work in progress with notes on what I did on my Echoes of Heaven dev journal.  If you want to see this from a publisher/cartographer’s pov, go take a look.

http://finalredoubt.com/wordpress/

Starts at 3:10.

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Mirror 1 seems to be broken at the moment but I haven’t had a chance to look to see why.

So this is a question for all gamers.  Tell me, what would help improve <em>your</em> game?

Carolyn came through, though, and it sounds some much better than it did when this started.

So without further ado, Episode 7.

Story begins at 1:59.

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But onto the purpose of THIS post.  I had bad news from Alliance yesterday.  Evidently, Critical Matters, our critical hit book for 4th edition, has become unporfitable for Alliance to floor for me.  Alliance is the biggest game distributor in the country.  Flooring is a type of distribution where they keep you book on stock but only pay you for the copies that they sell.

The problem is, almost no stores know about this book.  When you see threads about 3rd party books for 4th edition, the book is almost never mentioned.  It’s a great book.  It makes combat more exciting, more interesting, more vivid, more dangerous, and often funnier.

But because of a series of advertising problems, no one knows about it.

So, this book might not be available gamestores after March.

This might be your last chance to get it in stores.  It’s certainly one of the last chances for stores to find out about it.

If you want this book, and would like to support Final Redoubt Press.  Call or go to your Friendly Local Game Store right away.  Ask them to order you a copy.  In two months I’ll need to make the decision between paying to ship all the remaming stock to my house or having Alliance destroy it.  At the very least, we can save me shipping.

This is for sale in my store, but I’ll only link the PDF version.  If you play the world’s most popular roleplaying game and want a physical copy of this book, please have your local store order it.

http://www.finalredoubt.com/store/product39.html

Publisher:  Final Redoubt Press

Book:  Combat Essentials 1:  Critical Matters.

Thanks.  I’ll leave you with the marketing text from the product.

Critical Matters

Criticals are great. Criticals are fun. Everyone loves getting a crit. However, crits can also be boring. They’re just damage. Character can’t bleed to death or break a bone or lose a limb. They have no cinematic impact. They can never be spectacular.

No more.

Introducing Critical Matters, a complete Critical Effects system. We know you like to keep your game moving, but we also know you don’t mind leaning forward in anticipation as you wait to see what the critical is. Would you rather say, “That’s twenty damage,” or would you rather say:

“Blow to collarbone leaves foe with a bruise, a –2 penalty, and the need for strong drink.”

“Point slides into upper abdomen, nicking several important organs and arteries. That’s the whole shooting match. Foe has 8 rounds to wonder how bad it is before he dies. Stunned for 7 rounds. Use the last one wisely.”

“Neatly remove foe’s head. You have just enough time left in the attack to strike a pose.”

“Thunk. Wait for the pain. Wait for it. There it is.”

“Hack cuts foe’s neck. Doesn’t hit anything too major, but there’s a lot of blood. Foe is dazed for 1 round as he works out that he’s only bleeding every hour.”

“Point slices foe’s spine. He collapses, paralyzed from the waist down. He nudges his legs, as if to restart them. Stunned for 1 round, dazed for 3 more. Bleed every round.”

“Blow chips off a piece of the foe’s xiphoid process. The foe feels a slight discomfort under his sternum. Foe has 10 rounds of movement until death. Any round when he doesn’t move his chest doesn’t count. Every round where he moves causes increasing discomfort. –1 per round of movement.”

“Pound foe in the stomach. Foe seems uninjured but foe receives a –1 penalty next round from the pain. The penalty increases one every round until it hits –10, then it drops one a round every round after that.”

“Blow to foe’s spine causes a –2 penalty from the searing pain. If not magically healed, the foe will be able to predict rain.”

“Blow is so devastating that foe’s arms are only technically still attached to his body.”

Yesterday Carolyn sent me another draft of 7.  There were still some major audio typos in it.  I sent her back notes.  I think she said she’s at her computer again tomorrow.

The sound quality is less than great.  It sounds a bit like there’s wind in the background when I’m talking.  Still, you can listen to it, and 8 had almost no troubles in comparison, so I think we’ll just push on.

I haven’t heard a second draft of 7 yet, but I believe Carolyn is scheduled to get home tomorrow.  I expect substantive communication will resume at that point. 

So how do you feel about some serious fiction next?

I’ll try to get a sample from her.

So.  Here’s the best case scenario I think is achievable.  She gets me a draft tomorrow while I’m at work.  I come home and listen to it, spot all the editing “typos” as we call them.  Then I give her that list.  Tuesday she corrects them and gives me a final draft while I’m at work.  I listen to it that night, do the ID3 tags, and post early Wednesday morning.  That’s the best scenario, not a promise.

I know she’s been working hard on it because she goes on vacation this week and she wanted to get ahead before that.  We’ll keep you posted on how things develop.

I apologize for the delay.  Carolyn hasn’t told me why the delay happened, but she does these the week before they release, so she had to do this one over Christmas Eve and Christmas.  I don’t know her plans for New Years.  <cough>

The episode proper starts at 2:32, for those of you who are sick of hearing the party introduced.

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Edit:  Thanks Start Trader.  I was a little frazzled when I posted.  The episode itself starts around 3:08.

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Expect the post in about 25 minutes.

“. . . if I had to recommend one single line that didn’t make the list, this would be it.” –Jeramy Ware, 2007 ENnies Judge

“. . . Stunning . . .” –Nicholas Caldwell, www.Guildcompanion.com

“. . . Fantastically interesting . . .” and “. . . I’m calling it 4 1/2 stars and rounding down.” –Andrew Branstad, RPGNow Staff Reviewer

Trade Paperback:  $14.99

Hardbound: $29.99

I’ll keep you apprised if anything changes.

Right now the book is back from the editor and in proofing.

Without further ado, our third installment.

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Thank you so much for your interest.  I did not expect to be barraged with requests to buy the book on the first and second episode.  I am so very flattered.

Bob

Bob

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The bottom line is, I might have all you all try to download at once before release, to see how we hold up.

Bob

And thanks for making the audiobook such an instant success.

Without further ado.  Death by Cliché.

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