Author: Gareth

Several political points today:

• Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff has plead guilty to conspiracy, fraud and tax evasion, and will be assisting with the corruption investigation on what one source claims is two dozen lawmakers and staff members. This is huge. But of course, every media outlet has shifted the story in favor of the latest in TragiPorn: the trapped West Virginia miners.
• The burying of the NSA wiretap scandal has been successful — pretty much every media outlet in the US is covering the story as a “trade-off between security and civil liberties”, completely parroting the GOP plan. They try to make it sound like it was neccessary for national security…..bullshit. There is no trade-off. The Bush administration could have gone to the FISA court and secured warrants….FISA has only rejected 5 cases in its history….compared to the 18,761 it approved. The needs of security would be met, and the LAW would have been upheld. But Bush broke the law. It’s not about security. It’s about a crime. The media has already decided though, that is not how the story will be told. The Republicans have succeeded. The story will go away. If there has been any trade-off in this, it’s that we have traded the soul of our nation for this President and his administration.
• Our Never-Ending War, Part III: Various German news sources are reporting that the US is planning to attack Iran this year. The reports started with a story from the news agency DDP that during CIA Director Porter Goss’ Dec. 12 visit to Ankara, he asked Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to provide support for a possibile 2006 air strike against Iranian nuclear and military facilities. This was followed by the Berlin daily Der Tagesspiegel, citing NATO intelligence sources claiming that Washington’s western allies had been informed that the United States is currently investigating all possibilities of bringing the mullah-led regime into line, including military options. Some American media have quietly covered this as well: last year in the New Yorker, US investigative journalist Seymour Hersh claimed that clandestine American commando groups had already infiltrated Iran in order to mark potential military targets. We’ve got mid-term elections coming up in November of this year. What better way to stir up the red-state base than giving them another enemy who threatens America……

What are you gonna do about it?

I posted this over on E.N. World, so I figured that I’d post it here as well.

Here’s a rundown of our Top 10 products of 2005:

#1: CORSAIR: The Definitive D20 Guide to Ships
#2: Hot Pursuit: The Definitive D20 Guide to Chases
#3: THRILLING TALES: Gamemaster’s Guide to Pulp Adventure
#4: Posthuman: The Definitive D20 Guide to Human Augmentation
#5: Modern Dispatch (#29): Modern Adventure Generator
#6: BLACK MARKET: The Definitive D20 Guide to Cyberpunk Gear
#7: Hot Pursuit: ON FOOT
#8: NETSPACE: The Definitive D20 Guide to Virtual Reality
#9: 40 Alchemical Items
#10: THRILLING TALES – Pulp Villains: NAZIS

I started concentrating on Adamant full-time in the fourth quarter of 2004, and 2005 represents a five-fold increase in sales from the previous year. To say that I’m pleased would be an understatement.

So what does 2006 have in store?

Well, Adamant will be “in store”, for one thing. Adamant Entertainment products will be released in print versions and available at local game stores all over the world, as part of RPGNow’s new print distribution program, beginning in February.

As the first name in d20 pulp, we’ll be continuing our acclaimed Thrilling Tales line, with releases in every month of 2006. We’ve got some big things planned for this line, so stay tuned.

Our licensed support of the Northern Crown campaign setting will continue, with more issues of Franklyn’s Almanack, and the Spectral Boston city sourcebook.

But what about new stuff?

Adamant will be branching out in some new directions in 2006 as well:

Via a licensing arrangement with Green Ronin, Adamant will be releasing several adventures for the Freeport setting this year. The adventures are: Gangs of Freeport by Ari Marmell, Blood of Freeport by Justin S. Bow, Wilds of Freeport by Brian Kirby, and Peril in Freeport by Nate Christen. All manuscripts are in, and layout is underway — Look for them in the first quarter of 2006.

Adamant will also be launching a line of support products under Green Ronin’s M&M Superlink license. Our first product, the Campaign Utility Kit, will be released in print and PDF this month.

Another big release on the horizon is MARS, a d20 science-fantasy planetary romance game that can also be used as a setting for any existing d20-based campaign–fantasy, past, modern or future. Inspired by the planetary romance genre as seen in the works of Edgar Rice Burroughs and others, this product is designed by Lizard, the author of “Iron Lords of Jupiter.” The manuscript is in, and the art is underway. The current release date target on this (in print and PDF) is March.

We’ll also be launching a new line of science-fiction support products: StarSystem. These will be split into two varieties: products for use with the d20 system, and products that can be used with ANY SF game, regardless of system. More info on this line is coming soon.

We’ve got a bunch more in store as well….but this post has gotten truly epic, so I’ll sign off here.

Thanks to our customers for a great year, and we hope to serve you well in 2006!

So, I’ve been reading EOS Press’ new wuxia RPG, Weapons of the Gods.

This thing is so good, that I’ve pretty much decided that I’m not going to bother with my Dao of Wuxia project. I had been hemming and hawing over whether or not it was worth continuing, after Green Ronin announced the forthcoming release of their DragonFist game, which would cover the genre for d20…..but now that I’ve seen WotG, there’s even less point.

This game, designed by Brad Eliot and Nobilis creator Rebecca Borgstrom, may just be the perfect wuxia RPG. I really don’t think that I could say anything about the genre that isn’t covered by WotG, and covered brilliantly. If I did anything with the genre, I’d just end up comparing it to WotG, and I doubt that I’d think I had done it any better than they have.

Wow.