General
Pelgrane News 2001-2002
The following news items and diary entries originally appeared on DyingEarth.com in 2001 and 2002.
You can find the entries for 1998-2000 here.
You can find the entries for 2006-2009 here.
☀ Editor’s note: A few of these news items were not categorized by month or year – I have done my best to approximate their chronology, and have marked them with a small sun symbol.
2001
7th March
Phil Masters has sent his final draft for his section of “Cugel’s Compendium of Indispensable Advantages“. Magic items include “The Ruby of Lucent Absorption” and “Peltaron’s Rapier of Plangent Glaciation”. Included is a section on costume, and Tweaks such as “The Balance of Fortune and Mischance” and “Dour Determination” Phil’s work did not require much editing, as he has grasped the spirit of Cugel-level adventures admirably.
Aaron Allston, who did the Quick Start rules has been commissioned to write the rest of this tome including
*How to negotiate with innkeepers, merchants, teamsters, and others intent on separating you from your terces.
*How to get your fellow players to take all the risks, without their noticing your skilful shirking.
*The fine art of seduction.
*Confidence tricks, as well as a bunch of other bits and pieces.
8th March
We received the final proof copies through – the book looks very attractive, although the spine is a little bigger than I expected. The printers will do the next batch as a free reprint with a slightly smaller spine – they really are admirable people with whom to work. We will be exhibiting at the GAMA trade show in Las Vegas later in the month with the 5 copies we have.
12th March
We received pre-orders for the DE RPG from retailers and distributors. Wizard’s Attic, store and ship all Pelgrane’s stock, arrange for invoicing, and then send us the money. For a small RPG company, it’s a good way of doing things. The pre-orders were pretty good, but we hope that the GAMA Trade Show will improve this.
16th March-25th March
With both my ProFantasy hat and Pelgrane press hat on, I am attending the GAMA Trade Show along with Sasha Bilton a fellow Pelgrane director, and Mark Fulford, the joint MD of ProFantasy Software. Mark has been travelling around the world for a year, and this is his first taste of work for some time. The game goes down well with retailers and distributors, and all promise to order copies. Those large distributors who initially ordered very small numbers I collared, and using techniques inspired by the Dying Earth, tried intimidation, glibness and shame until they agreed to order more. Mike Webb of Alliance Games is a great enthusiast, and I thank him for promoting the game so well.
2nd April
The books have arrived in the UK, including a few signed by Jack Vance, Robin Laws and other contributors. I am thrilled that so much work by so many contributors has finally come to fruition. Piles of attractive-looking books are stacked up in the offer, and I showed them off to everyone in ProFantasy and Hogshead, too. Esdevium Games (the UK’s largest games distributor) have placed a large order and will be collecting it shortly.
5th April
The books are now at Wizard’s Attic in the States and presumably are shipping out to distributors. We’ve had our first on-line orders direct from the website and shipped them out. What will people think of it?
12th April
Thanks to the work of Liz Fulda of Sphinx Group who is doing our publicity and presumably our efforts at GTS, our retailer pre-orders have doubled!
14th April
XPS 2 is ready to go to the printers. Gary Gygax has written a fascinating article about the influence of Vance on the D&D game, the origins of the magic system and his encounters with Vance. Robin has written a 6000-word Rhialto-level adventure, and Steve Long has added a gambling den. Artwork by Ralph, Hilary and newcomer Dave Bezzina is apropos.
As Jim Webster, the editor says “…after many years of good service you will pass it on to your grandchildren who will likewise treasure it as an irreplaceable resource.”
20th April
We are on the front cover of the French magazine Backstab along with an interview with Robin Laws. Next month they feature a review. Cassus Belli, another French magazine has a review, too, next month.
I can’t wait to see some reviews.
23rd April
Esdevium (the main UK distributor) have sold out, as have Alliance. The level of re-orders will tell us how successful we have been. Overall, I am very pleased with our progress.
May-September
The diary appears to have transmuted into a memoir. I am using hard evidence, combined with my infallible memory to reconstruct what has happened over the last few months.
May-July
Reviews! We have lots of reviews, now – all favourable.
Realms of Fantasy described it as “.. a joy to read” and “everything players and a GM need to create a successful Campaign in one of the seminal gaming fantasy worlds”. Yes, these quotes are selective, but no one said anything unpleasant. Backstab used French words that may or may not be bad, but they did give us the Golden Dagger and five stars. Kenneth Hite, industry guru, wrote one of the reviewers and has subsequently agreed to write an article for the XPS. He said he would write a sourcebook “If we agreed to fly him to the UK.”
The Excellent Prismatic Spray II was released in July. It’s bulkier (and more expensive) than XPS 1. It has an air of self-confident formality, with its thick cream cover and old-fashioned text and layout. We really need to do more to encourage subscribers – we are making very little margin on this issue, and need to sell 900 distributor copies just to break even. We are having a few problems with the perception of the XPS – it’s not a fanzine – the articles are of a similar quality to the main rules; it’s timeless – there are few if any time sensitive articles, and it is full of adventure material. I hope that word will spread. Initial orders are very good, but I underestimated the print costs, so we need to sell 800 to break even, unless we can increase the number of subscribers.
The Players’ Guide to White-Walled Kaiin
The manuscript for the Kaiin sourcebook arrived from Robin Laws. It is written from an original perspective and is designed to demonstrate the joys of long-term adventuring in Vance’s world. The book is designed to be perused by players during the game; it is assumed that your PCs are long term residents of Kaiin, and know how things go. You can visit contacts, pick adventure hooks, and share much more of the creativity with the GM. It is over 100,000 words long, and none of it is wasted. Play test response has been very good; we’ve received a few minor requests for additional material and one correction. Jim Webster, editor of the Excellent Prismatic Spray, is a beef farmer, and he pointed out that the fodder requirements for the animals described for the Kaiin supplement are ludicrously low. In the interest of satisfying the large Beef Farmer – Jack Vance fan crossover market, we have corrected these errors.
August
The efficient team of Jim Webster and Sarah Wroot have put XPS 3 together in record time (a record that is perhaps undermined the number of previous attempts.) It gets better each time. Peter Freeman’s exposition of the Valley of the Graven Tombs, illustrated by Sarah is sublime. It won’t be released for a while, but I’m very pleased it is ready to go. This should reassure our potential subscribers.
GenCon 2001 US
The morose David Thomas braved illness, and a woefully low profile (my fault) to represent Pelgrane Press alone at GenCon 2001. I am told by freelancers and other publishers that we did rather well, but we were not buried in terces, and hope to do better next year. A few demo games and suitable clothing might help next time! Strangely, only half of our customers are Americans – this is very unusual for a roleplaying game, particularly one based on a license from a US author. Maybe GenCon will help spread the word. For most companies, the US is 80% of the market. Still Ed Greenwood of Forgotten Realms notoriety took out a subscription, and both he and Jonathan Tweet praised the game.
Cugel’s Compendium update
Cugel’s Compendium is nearly ready to go – I am just awaiting a quote from the printer. Allen Varney has completed the layout in a similar style to the main rules, and Ralph’s artwork is better than ever. It’s Robin’s idea, written primarily by him, Aaron Allston and Phil Masters. However, the excellent Dying Earth Magazine mailing list contributed additional material. It is a book of goodies for players. It includes new items, both magical and mundane, new cantraps, confidence tricks, negotiation strategies, a costume generator, and Tweaks. Tweaks are powers that can be used to amusing effect at a small cost in points. Here are a couple more examples:
Volcanic Umbrage
Situation: You have just discovered that you have been cheated or conned. The individual responsible for doing this still stands within throttling range.
Description: You fly into a titanic, blustering rage, waving your arms about and spitting out barely coherent threats. Even if you are a mild-looking person not known for violence, your aspect temporarily becomes so alarming that even a hardened warrior will flee from you in instinctive fear .
Benefit: The person who cheated you must run away from you at his best possible speed, in the direction best calculated to put the maximum distance between himself and your raging, lunatic self. After one minute, he can stop his flight by making a successful Wherewithal or Persuasion (Intimidating) roll. If he wants to make that a Wallop instead of a roll, he compares his Wherewithal or Persuasion (Intimidating) rating to your Rebuff (Wary) rating.
“Please Forgive My Companion, Who Was Dropped At Birth”
Situation: A member of your group has just committed a terrible social faux pas. He may have offended the attendees at an elevated social function, insulted an influential potential patron, or annoyed a hot-tempered person who is even now reaching for his rapier.
Description: You can mollify the insulted party or parties by smoothly pointing out that your companion is either a halfwit or foreigner, and is therefore not fully responsible for his errors of etiquette. Given their source, you explain, the offended persons need not consider his words any kind of meaningful insult; they can safely ignore him without damage to their reputations or honor.
Benefit: You may spend 1 Etiquette point to eliminate the adverse consequences of another character’s Etiquette failure. Treat this as an automatic action, not requiring a roll.
The Scaum Valley Gazetteer
This supplement will describe the centre of civilization in the Dying Earth, the Scaum Valley. Jim Webster wrote the bulk of the material before the rules were even started. David Thomas and Steve Dempsey added more material. David Thomas and I have been slowly editing and re-writing this 90,000-word manuscript, adding more material than we remove. This supplement is less rigidly planned than Kaiin and the Compendium, so it will take more time to polish. It is full of adventure material and background information, and includes the manse of many of the major Arch-Magicians. We’ve had to deal with certain minor discrepancies in the novels; what is unimportant to the reader of a novel becomes very important in an RPG. For example, Iucounu’s manse is described as overlooking two different rivers in Eyes of the Overworld and Cugel’s Saga. We don’t want to get uptight about it – you should hardly notice such discrepancies.
6th September
We ran out of XPS 1 some time ago, and people are still asking for a copy free with the rules. We aren’t going to do another re-print; we can’t afford not to charge, and people would be upset if we did. I’ve decided to put a PDF up on the website. This will keep current players happy and, with luck, increase the number of subscribers.
1st December
Dragonmeet was fun – we sold out of the new releases, literally rather than metaphorically. We dsiplayed a marvelous four tiered hat created by Magot, and Matt Goodman of Heliograph modelled it splendid effect at one of the seminars. John Kovalic was swamped by hundred’s of fans, and nearly lost the use of his writing hand and voice. The estimable James Wallis of Hogshead Publishing presided over the auction, and we were treated to a glimpse of his games designer’s torso. Luckily, no one bid high enough to see his Doomstones.
10th December
The Player’s Guide to Kaiin is in the hands of Sarah Wroot, the XPS layout artist. However, she has also been working on XPS Online, a web-based supplement for subscribers to the Excellent Prismatic Spray. This has ballooned and now includes additional websites for the Scholasticarium, Wakdun the Panderer. Whilst this will provide new material of the highest caliber, it has delayed Kaiin.
2002
☀ Kaiin and Kaiin map released. The Player’s Guide to Kaiin is on general release. A limited edition full-color map is available from our order page.
19th January
The Scaum Valley Gazetteer has gone out for play testing again. It has been substantially rewritten to provide a better balance between the adventures and source material. We’ve added more taglines, spells and items and toned down certain death for PCs to to likely humiliation.
23rd January
XPS 3 and Cugel’s Compendium were printed back in November, and we had 30 of each shipped by airmail to us to sell at Dragonmeet. Unfortunately, we were unable to get the rest out in time for Christmas. The delay was further compounded by a miscommunication betweeen the printers, their shippers and Wizard’s Attic which means that they only arrived in the States on 20th January. Still, they are here now.
25th January
The XPS 3 subscription copies have gone out worldwide, and Cugel’s Compendium and XPS 3 are available in the States. Wizard’s Attic are shipping copies of each supplement to the UK for distribution to the rest of the world. We should have them over here by mid-February. I think that Leisure Games, who purchased some stock at Dragonmeet might have some copies for those in the UK and rest of the world who are desperate to get them.
The Dying Earth — and its rules-lighter version the Revivification Folio — take you into the world of master fantasist Jack Vance, where a flashing sword is less important than nimble wits, persuasive words,and a fine sense of fashion. Survive by your cunning, search for lost lore, or command the omnipotent but quarrelsome sandestins. Purchase The Dying Earth or the Revivification Folio in print and PDF at the Pelgrane Shop.