Know, O Prince, that between the years when the oceans drank Atlantis….

I’m a big fan of Conan.

Robert E. Howard’s stories were some of the first fantasy tales I devoured in my discovery of the genre…I remember fondly the day when my father took me into Manhattan with him one day, and in addition to the scads of office supplies I got to scam from his office (the joy of gamers everywhere: notebooks, binders, graph paper!) he took me to a bookstore near his office where he got me my first copy of the Dungeon Masters Guide and the first of the Conan paperbacks from Ace.

Conan the Barbarian was my first R-rated film, and I spent years reading Marvel Comics series, from Conan to King Conan to Savage Sword of Conan.

Needless to say, I am looking forward to the new Conan RPG coming from Mongoose Publishing. I can’t wait to see what they’re going to do with it….and I have high hopes for the quality of the game, given the fact that Ian Sturrock (designer of their Slaine RPG, and one of my co-authors on Green Ronin’s Skull & Bones) has been tapped as the author.

However, if you, like me, can’t wait for it to come out, check out the following fan sites, where industrious gamers have produced their own versions of Conan for the D20 rules system:

Vincent N. Darlage’s Conan the Barbarian for Third Edition D&D site is great, concentrating especially on the portrayal of Conan in the original Howard stories.

The Hyborian Age d20 Campaign Site is another good one, concentrating on the setting as a campaign, rather than focusing on adaptation of Howard’s characters.

Very cool.

GMS

Good line, from comics writer Warren Ellis, sent out this weekend on his email-list sorta-blog, BAD SIGNAL:

“It’s nearly midnight on a Saturday night and I’m still bloody writing.  Writing, as a job, is about as glamorous as a pig tit necklace.”

I’ve settled into my new schedule: Working from home, with the exception of in-office days on Tuesday and Wednesday. Should save a considerable amount of money, considering the daily cost of the commute on NJ Transit. Luckily, I’ve got a reasonable manager.

The realization that, given a return to Kansas, I could afford to write full-time again is never too far from my mind. I really haven’t written ANYTHING in almost 2 years. Nothing finished, anyway. First, I wrestled with a fairly crippling depression, based largely on the stress of failing finances…a nasty little death-spiral: writing was only barely scraping me along, which depressed me, making it hard for me to write, which cut down on my income, making the situation worse. Then, salvation of a sort—I got the current job. Finances got a lot better, but writing dropped off to ZERO, pretty much due to the massive commute and long work-days. The thought of being able to write, with the knowledge that I could make more than enough to live comfortably, is a big part of the attraction of returning to Kansas.

Back to work. More later.

GMS

It’s been a while, so….time for a meaningless bit of blogginess, lifted entirely from James Maliszewski’s Livejournal:

THREE THINGS THAT SCARE ME:

01 | Losing my kids

02 | Spiders

03 | Depths (hard to explain–think of it as the opposite of being afraid of heights)

THREE PEOPLE WHO MAKE ME LAUGH:

01 | Bill Maher

02 | Eddie Izzard

03 | My Fiancee, Laura

THREE THINGS I LOVE:

01 | Laura and my children

02 | Writing

03 | Genre fiction (fantasy, sf, horror, etc.)

THREE THINGS I DON’T UNDERSTAND:

01 | Conservatives

02 | Willfull (even proud) ignorance

03 | Religious fundamentalism

THREE THINGS ON MY DESK:

01 | Blueberry iBook

02 | Vanilla-scented candle

03 | Souvenir skull-shaped glass mug from Treasure Island casino, filled with Coke.

THREE THINGS I’M DOING RIGHT NOW:

01 | Taking a day off from work.

02 | Watching the latest reports from Iraq on CNN

03 | Taking notes on new game design.

THREE THINGS I WANT TO DO BEFORE I DIE:

01 | Return to writing full-time, but this time as a novelist.

02 | Sell a screenplay

03 | Travel in Europe

THREE THINGS I CAN DO:

01 | Write

02 | Compose and produce electronic music

03 | Fight in archaic styles, both Asian and European

THREE WAYS TO DESCRIBE MY PERSONALITY:

01 | Engaging

02 | Brash

03 | Occasionally Charming

THREE WAYS TO DESCRIBE MY LOOKS:

01 | Imposing

02 | Handsome (or so I’m told)

03 | Anachronistic (apparently, I can pull off most “looks”, except modern)

THREE THINGS I CAN’T DO:

01 | Play Guitar

02 | Tolerate Idiots

03 | Keep my mouth shut

THREE THINGS I THINK EVERYONE SHOULD LISTEN TO:

01 | Film scores

02 | Electronica/Techno

03 | 80s music

THREE THINGS I DON’T THINK YOU SHOULD LISTEN TO EVER:

01 | Conservative talk-radio

02 | Country Music

03 | “Inspirational” (read here: Bible-thumper) music

THREE THINGS I SAY THE MOST:

01 | “Basically…” (someone pointed out to me that this is my “verbal pause” word)

02 | “God damn it.” (Good, generic catch-all expletive)

03 | Heavy, exasperated sigh (unfortunately, growing more and more common with every passing year)

THREE OF YOUR ABSOLUTE FAVORITE FOODS:

01 | Pizza

02 | Lobster

03 | Steak

THREE THINGS YOU’D LIKE TO LEARN:

01 | How to live with the burden of vast wealth

02 | Whether or not there is life on other worlds

03 | To play guitar

THREE BEVERAGES YOU DRINK REGULARLY:

01 | Coke

02 | Water

03 | Tea

THREE SHOWS YOU WATCHED WHEN YOU WERE A KID:

01 | Doctor Who

02 | Creature Feature (hosted horror movies)

03 | Star Trek

There ya go–I’m sure we all feel a lot closer now.

GMS