Archive for the 'Tour' Category

GenCon SoCal

Well folks I’m back from Anaheim, CA. I’d tell you about the city, but I really didn’t see any of it. I was at the convention pretty much from waking up until crashing out. Now, this was my first experience at GenCon. I’ve been to conventions in the past, but not many. Primarily my marketing has involved driving thousands of miles to run demos in game stores or just sit around talking about my book to folks. I must say though, there is something to be said for being around thousands of gamers for four days in a row. It’s kinda cool and kinda scary at the same time. If you’ve had the pleasure of checking out Weird Al’s new hit single “White an Nerdy” that pretty much sums it all up. None of you gaming folks can be offended by this, you all know it’s true.

GenCon was not so much of a selling trip for me as it was a learning and networking experience, which was the plan. I met tons of folks and had a hell of a good time. A lot of this was spent just mulling about the floor and playing a lot of laser recon, which totally rocks, check out this link for info on that. I played in White Wolf’s Camarilla LARP thursday thru saturday, which was very cool. I got to chill with some of the design team of the Great War of Magellan RPG, an upcoming scifi epic game that’s currently, I believe, close to completion. I’m not sure if they have a web site for that one but you should check it out if you dig scifi, it was a cool game with a nice system in my opinion. Also, I got to talk to Luke, designer of the Burning Wheel and Burning Empires RPGs, which was awesome. If you haven’t heard of them, these are some excellent RPGs in the indie community check this out for burning wheel info. Other than that, I played an open beta of the Spoils (very nice CCG), crossed foam swords with the guys from H.A.C.S. (awesome) and plaed a bit of WarMachine and Hordes (very nice tabletop battlegames). Overall it was an awesome experience and I definitely plan to start hitting more cons and whatnot.

So I think after that I’m done with touring for the rest of the year, I plan to spend the rest of this year working up some free content for the site, working on suppements and writing a novel base on the Siege (at least the first part of it is). I know I always say this, but keep checking back as I plan on updating a lot more soon and doing more work on the site. Until next time (hopefully part IV of my design feature). Until then, keep the Memory, Live in the Now, believe in the dream.

– Ashe

The Long Road Home – II

I’m in Lebanon, Missouri. As Felix might venture to say, I’m in a state o’ Missouri (say that out loud). The days have been largely uneventful from here folks…I’ve been driving and that’s it. I only have 500 more miles to go and I’m back in Denton. The Ozarks are always pleasent to look at and then eventually I’ll be back through Oklahoma and on my merry way down I-35 to Denton. If I seem off or unenthusiastic, it’s only because I’m tired – it’s about 10am right now. I’m definitely ready to be back home for a while before I set off west. It’s been a good run, but I need a break every now and then – time to spend with my kids, my girlfriend and my crew. Then It’s on the road again.

That doesn’t mean, however, that I’ll no longer be updating this page. Keep on the lookout for new features (finally) rants (always) and production intelligence on the next books. I’ll keep posting as long as all of you keep reading…and even if you don’t I may post anyways. ;)

- Ashe

The Long Road Home – I

So after selling out of books and being generally low on other promo stuff I finally started back to Texas today, bringing with me some souvenirs from Salem and, apparently, a New England accent. Now, I love accents folks, I love doing them generally, but when I used to mimic a New England accent (particularly Bostonian), I would get stuck in it for hours. This is much worse. I noticed it when I was on the phone (hearing myself speak through it) and currently have been actually having to concentrate on talking like myself. So forgive me to my Texas crew if I come bac sounding like the proverbial Damn Yankee (not like any of you guys really care anyways, it’s just a reason to laugh at me).

IN the Dark Tower (particularly at the beginning of Wizard and Glass) Eddie Dean goes on about turnpikin’ (something I believe I mentioned in an earlier tour rant). Well folks I’ve done a hell of a lot of turnpikin’ lately, and the later it gets, the darker. Upstate New York is ghost territory (no pun intended) in the later hours and I haven’t even been driving that late. Combine that action with some nasty fog and lights of towns here and there coming from the towns on the other side of the trees that line the turnpike and you have some beautiful horror material (at least for looks). Sadly there isn’t really anywhere to stop and setup the tripod to get some photos of this, but then again, there are a lot of places and sights I didn’t get to photograph for all of you on this tour. Too much ground to cover and business to do. By the time I get back to Denton from this tour I will have covered over 5,000 miles…maybe more than that…gods know I’ve lost count. It’s been a long haul but it’s been more than worth it. We’ll have to see what the next one brings. I suppose that I better crash out though folks, check out, as always, is 11 am and I have 550+ miles to cover tomorrow. Hope everyone is well tonight.

- Ashe

Massachusetts

Lemme tell you first folks, driving Boston, MA is a friggin’ nightmare. It’s definitely designed for the foot-borne traveller. I pride myself on being a hell of a driver and whatnot, but it just doesn’t help that much. Next to Boston, driving through New York was a dream (though I didn’t drive directly through the city). That having been said though, the Compleat Strategist was a nice place with an excellent selection of books (and yes, Felix, that is the way it’s spelled). I got to talking with some nice folks and got a couple of books off my hands as usual. I stayed a couple nights in Danvers, MA, just a bit west of good old Salem. Yes folks, that Salem – the witch trials place.

I spent most of my morning today in Salem hanging out around town and checking out the area. It’s a beautiful town with some excellent architecture. Not to mention it’s the one place where you can openly be a heathen and everyone’s perfectly alright with that. I suppose they figure after hanging a few folks 300 or so years ago they owe us or something. Funny thing is, all of that business dealt with their own good Christian brothers and sisters. I sincerely doubt a sinlge pagan was among those. Generally, folks, that’s because most of us pagans would have packed up and left town long before, assuming any of us would have it in our heads to live with the Puritans in the first places. I for one think that perhaps the reason for all the mass hysteria there was based on the simple fact that the puritan lifestyle wasn’t even remotely entertaining. I mean, if you take a look at the lifestyle regulations at the time, rustling up some craziness was bound to happen sooner or later. I spent a good time at an awesome shop called the Broom closet there talking with some modern day witches (of the Wicca persuasion), who were completely un-pretentious (often such nonsense is a staple of modern witches) and totally cool. If you happen to stop through Salem, check out the Broom Closet…nice pagans and a fabulous selection of genuinely useful stuff for those of you who practice the Craft (I personally swing a different way for religion, but this was an awesome shop for Wicca). Other than that they carried some typical tourist stuff, but you gotta make a buck.

Salem and Danvers were good for selling books as well. As a matter of fact, I’m almost sold out of what I brought along for the tour so it’s been a good run, which is excellent because costs for the Northeast were way over what I expected. The drive into Maine was awesome – I took the coastline road off Rt 1 and stopped in Ogunquit at the beach and took some very nice pictures. Unfortunately, I also dropped my cell phone into the Atlantic amidst all of this. Salt water and electronics is bad news folks. For a fun fact, though, Ogunquit is the town in Maine where Harold and Fran are from in Stephen King’s The Stand. If you haven’t read that one, you should.

That’s all for now though – I’m at Crossroad Games here in Maine tomorrow and, after that, I believe I’m headed back to the heat of Texas for a while before heading up through the Rockies on my next tour. I know I’ve been talking features for this site and more updates of this and that, but a lot of that will have to wait until I get home. Until next time…

– Ashe

Philly

The road from Columbus, Ohio into Philadelphia, Pennsylvania was quite a long one, but also quite wonderful to its own degree. I was in the car for 12 hours, the longest stretch thus far, but I dropped by the Ohio Valley Mall for a bit to stretch my legs and then pressed on into the place where West Virginia touches the edge of Pennsylvania and the end of the Appalacians bleed into the north. As I rolled into PA, some dark weather rolled in as well, and I found myself off the turnpike and up into the hills driving through 3-foot visibility fog on winding roads about the summits. There is an old magic up there in the hills, one I’ve felt before and no doubt will feel again before this part of the journey ends. Now, if this sounds hokey or outlandish to you, that’s alright. I’ll have a whole feature soon talking about the nature of magic in game, but this is not that type of magic. There is magic in this world, dear friends, indeed there is. The great problem is that this New World has managed to forget about almost all of it. If you look for it, if you believe and find that glimmer you will always see it again. You will never see any dancing fireballs or cause lightning to strike with this magic, but you may find something more deeply powerful. It’s something the neo-pagans of this world often have no belief or respect in (at least not correctly), but the ancients did…and magic that the children still see. I think being Old World, not as in the book but truly Old World, has a lot to do with recognizing that magic and that balance within the world. I suppose I’ve said my peace on religion for the moment though. Suffice to say it was a nice drive.

Philidelphia was a pretty cool, but I must say severely overpriced for accomodations. I rather enjoyed the day though. I met up with Shaun Healey and Alex Eckman-Lawn, two of those responsible for the reason the art in the book looks o phenomenal. Alex had class here and there for the day, but Shaun and I spent a good amount of time walking about South street and talking about this and that. It was a very cool day, in more than just the company. The weather is excellent up here, particualrly in New Haven, Connecticut, where I am now, finally in New England. Just finishing up the audio of Stone of Tears, the Sword of Truth book 2 (by Terry Goodkind, this will be the second time reading it for me and I recommend the city) is where I leave you for the evening. I will eventually get some pictures up, but I’m not sure if it may take the time to get back before I am able to do so. I’ll send word soon from Boston, and then finally Maine. Until next time, look for that magic, friends. As it says in the book…look deeper.

From New England,
- Ashe

Illinois, Indy and Columbus

Well it’s almost 3am PST (so to me it feels like around 2) and I’m chilling out in a very decent hotel room in Columbus, Ohio, one of the nicer ones I’ve stayed in. I passed through Illinois, listening to the Sword of Truth Book 2: Stone of Tears on audio, virtually without incident and into Indianapolis, IN, which was pretty much a wash, folks. In retrospect of what I’ve heard now I should have just moved onto Dayton or come directly to Columbus. I had a Saturday setup with what was supposed to be a major store out in Indy and had given a fair amount of advanced notice, only to get into town a night early and stop by, then finding out that the store had told no one, the workers had little to no idea who I was and had done nothing to advertise the demo. I could deal with that to a certain degree – there have been many stores that vary in their advertising or putting up the fliers I send – but this store actually only carried about 2 gaming books on the shelf. No, I’m not going to mention the name of the store, I don’t try to attack folks on the blog, but it seems to me that if you don’t really carry RPGs, it’s probably not the best idea to schedule a demo on a Saturday night with a guy who runs an RPG company, especially when you plan to just ignore him but schedule anyway. I mean folks, I’m a nice guy, those of you who know me know this, and I’m not going to get into anyone’s face about this deal, but I’ve already driven a few thousand miles and, well, that’s gotta count for something.

But instead of give it up, whine about it or waste time I cancelled the demo (the person I left the message with didn’t even know who I was) and headed onto the Guardtower here in Columbus Ohio a day early. Now, this place is an awesome gaming store. Miniatures, cards, games, you want it they’ve likely got it. I would venture to say thus far I have yet to see any game store that has the selection of stuff these guys have. All this and Mike, the guy working the counter, is a hell of a nice fellow who knows his stuff. I stuck around, talked a bit and watched a game of Confrontation, which was quite cool. I’ve never really had the urge to get into tabletop battle gaming, but this game has me wanting to bigtime. It’s a very cool system with top-notch miniature design and a nice premise. All this and probably the best core book I’ve ever seen for any game as far as art and design goes. It comes from France, translated to English, but I won’t hold that against it.

At any rate, I’ll be here in Columbus through tomorrow at Guardtower to do my actual scheduled demo/presentation, but also because I’m a fan of the area, the people and the store. After that, it’s onto Pennsylvania where hopefully I’ll be able to hook up with Shaun and Alex, responsible for many of the outstanding illustrations of CoE. Until next time…

- Ashe

The Heartland

A long day of driving today. I was in Nebraska yesterday, out at a place in Bellevue called the Game Shoppe. If you are a person who’s into gaming near Omaha, folks, this is the place to go. Serious representation of role-playing game titles and a massive collection of board games and war miniatures. Combine that with cards, many tables and an awesome staff and you have an excellent gaming store. To say the least, I was impressed.

Now, first, let me tell you a bit about Nebraska and Iowa: there is corn, kids. A lot of corn. I was playing a game with myself to see just how long I might drive without seeing corn field. My record, I think, was 3.5 minutes, and that might be a stretch. That having been said, the drive from Kansas to Nebraska, and today across the entire state of Iowa from west to east, was astounding. With weather that was more than favorable, a breathtaking, rolling, landscape and a great meal from a country place off the interstate a few miles I was simply in live with the landscape. Call me hokey if you will (I mean you, Felix), but there has always been something about landscapes that makes me feel closer to the gods, closer to the worlds beyond if you will. These are the outlands, the townships that speak of in CoE, brought to glory and real enough to touch, and I have spent my days passing through them, wishing I could stop more. But there are miles to move on and places to promote. Perhaps there will be more time someday, perhaps I will be able to make this run again. For now I can only wait for the Rocky Mountain tour coming up next month and look forward to hitting New England.

I drove for better than 9 hours today, probably closer to 11. I suppose there is a negative side to that; to driving do many miles in one day, but I haven’t really noticed it. I may be tired often and not sleep as well as I do at home, but I’ve hardly noticed it. I think the tour is the final representation of having actually fiished this book I’ve been working on for most of my life, it’s a transition of sorts forward. Soon I’ll be showing you some of the material from the next supplements and adding more to the site. For now, time to crash folks.

- Ashe

Kansas

Evening, folks, Ashe here from the Days Inn in Emporia, Kansas; the Front Porch of the Flint Hills. I’ve been kicking back, relaxing and playing a bit of World of Warcraft here and there on the hotel’s internet going over directions to Omaha tomorrow. Actually, I should be updating the tour schedule and the retailers page, but I did 6.5 hours worth of driving today so forgive me if I’m a bit inclined to relax.

I tell you what, if you’ve never driven Kansas, you should. This state is breathtaking. Vistas of rolling hills with nary a sign of civilization for miles, it’s calming, relaxing and generally reminding of the great balance of things to this old zealot. The weather out here tonight is top notch as well, cool and calm. I must say I wish I had a few days here and there to stay in places, but I’m off to Nebraska tomorrow. I imagine it ought to be nice out there as well. I’ve never had the opportunity to really get out and drive myself, having done most of my traveling in the past by plane (regretably – I hate flying), so all of this is a treat in and of itself.

Hopefully I’ll have some sort of gallery up soon and I can show all of you some of the pictures I take from the car and whatnot, and hopefully I’ll get the chance to get more pictures of the actual stores and demos. But aside from that, I’m meaning to start kind of a column up here following this and that about the game and gaming in general. After so many years I ought to be somewhat of an authority on the subject. Well, for now though I’m going to kick back. Hope everyone out there is well.

- Ashe

Austin

Well folks it’s 12:30 a.m. and I’m chilling out with nothing better to do than watch Anaconda on TBS in the hotel room (among the many reasons I no longer watch TV, I mean, if I’m gonna watch a movie this bad, at least they could let me see the damn snake eat the guy). Today was pretty decent. I hit Dragon’s Lair here for a demo, met some cool folks, playtested a new game and headed back. Most game stores don’t have Sunday listed as their primary day, so there wasn’t much to do afterwords. This is almost the end of the first leg of the tour dear readers (if there are any of you out there). After this it’s a break for about a week back in Denton (well, not a break – more of setting up for the next one) and then it’s straight north, then east all the way up into main. For those of you who don’t know, I drive a 2002 honda civic si; that’s a sports car. It’s got two doors and a hatchback – not a whole lot of room for a big trip, but it carries all of my stuff when i’m out. Hopefully I’ll have the color tshirts and the stickers by the time I head out for the next one. Ah well, hope everyone’s alright. Out for now.

Morning From San Antonio

You know, I’ve never been that much of a morning person (my pesky eye condition prevents it), but lately I’ve had to be. At this moment, I’m sitting in a little coffee shop called It’s a Grind at the corner of Huebner and IH-10 in San Antonio sipping orange juice (I’m not a coffee person, folks, nor am I a latte person). If you’re ever in the area though, check this place out. It’s definitely cool. They just popped U2’s Where the Streets Have No Name on the radio, so likely it will be a decent day. I have a tendency to judge my day outlook based on the music I hear in the morning. It works out fairly balanced actually, as I’m too forgetful and generaly in too much of a hurry to pick what I put on the stereo in the morning.

I woke up a lot last night. The a/c in my room has a tendency to growl like a respectable sized creature from the Deep every now and again, but it does keep the room cold. All in all the hotel was pretty decent. Last night atv Dragon’s Lair was pretty cool. It’s a hell of a nice store, folks, big and full of gear. They carry some books I’ve never really seen before in a gaming store (only available online or whatnot). The people there were definitely cool, but I didn’t really have enough time or really enough people to run a demo. I probably could have but they invited me into their Magic tournament and I hadn’t played magic in probably 5 years or so, more if you consider a tournament setting, and I haven’t played regularly since the late 90s. It was fun though, I was mercilessly slaughtered, but I had a good time. Met some fine folks, sold a book and a couple of Tshirts, definitely no loss there. Today is the promo grind – I drive to every game store in town that I can get to and promote the book. Hopefully that will go well. Anyways, hope everyone out there is doing well.

- Ashe