Reality Cheque Launches KickStarter for Badass Zombie Killers Card Game

Reality Cheque, in partnership with Skortched 'Urf Studios, has launched a KickStarter project to get a new card game, Badass Zombie Killers, completed and published.

The game is designed by Lee Garvin, creator of Tales From The Floating Vagabond and Skirmisher Publishing's The Noble Wild.

It is a fast-paced game of one-ups-manship and backstabbing, wherein you try to build the most Badass weapon you can while preventing your opponents from doing the same. When the Zombies arrive, the game is over, and the most Badass wins.

Aethercon: A Virtual RPG Convention

Grab your virtual dice bags folks and mark down November 16-18, 2012 on your calendar, as the AetherCon Online RPG Convention is coming to your computer! Best of all, it’s FREE!

We will be featuring tabletop RPGs of all types throughout the weekend, highlighted by four three-day tournaments of Pathfinder Call of Cthulhu, Pathfinder, Savage Worlds, and Shadowrun. Game tables will be run on the powerful, yet easy to use, Roll20 browser-based virtual tabletop. Learn more with the Roll20 tutorials and the Roll20 Live Stream.

Additionally, we will have a Vendor’s Hall, a Fest Hall (featuring one-hour moderated chat room Q&As with pairs of industry guests) and an Artist’s Enclave. We will be releasing free downloadable wallpapers, from our supporting artists, throughout the months leading up to the con.

Members of the Artists Enclave currently include Paul Abrams (TSR, CGL); Alex E. Alonso Bravo (DC Comics, Pixar, AEG); Brent Chumley (AEG); Jon Gibbons (AEG, PEG, Minion Games); John L Kaufmann (CGL); Eric Lofgren; (Paizo, White Wolf, Mongoose Publishing), Chris Malidore (Fantasy Flight Games, PEG), Patrick McAvoy (WotC, AEG, Fantasy Flight Games), Brad McDevitt (Chaosium, CGL, Battlefield Press), Jesse Mead (Fantasy Flight Games), and Aaron B. Miller (WotC, AEG, Open Design) among others.

You can find our current collection of wallpapers here:

http://www.aethercon.com/Wallpaper/Wallpaper.html

Confirmed guests to date are Steven ‘Bull’ Ratkovich (CGL), Wedge Smith/Doug Bush (Chronicles of the Void), James Sutter (Paizo), and Lawrence Whittaker/Pete Nash (The Design Mechanism).

We have also been fortunate to have recruited Ryan Costello Jr (Paizo, 4 Winds Fantasy Gaming, Super Genius Games, Kobold Quarterly, 3.5 Private Sanctuary) to our staff as Guest Coordinator.

Game publishers to date confirmed as taking part in AetherCon, either through prize support, supplying guests, or taking a vendors booth include:

Battlefield Press, Catalyst Game Labs, Chaosium, Chronicles of the Void, Flying Buffalo Inc., Kenzer and Company, Paizo, Pinnacle Entertainment Group, Skirmish Publishing LLC, Stardust Publications, Sundered Epoch The Design Mechanism, Third Eye Studios and Vigilance Press.

Be sure to visit our websites and show your support for AetherCon via Facebook, Twitter and Google+.

Website: http://www.aethercon.com/

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/AetherConRPG

Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/AetherCon

Google+: http://gplus.to/aethercon

Skirmisher Releases ‘Wisdom from the Wastelands #14: Aggregates’

Skirmisher Publishing LLC is proud to announce the release of Wisdom from the Wastelands Issue #14: Aggregates! It is written by Derek Holland and Chris Van Deelen, authors of multiple multiple Mutant Future supplements, and is available through online venues that include DriveThruRPG.

Having another creature living on or inside your body is not a thought most would enjoy. Nor is the idea of having the same type of creature living inside a child and grandchild, joining generation after generation, until, over time, the two species gradually merge. But, this already happens. Humans and termites rely on intestinal bacteria to aid digestion, lichen are the synthesis of fungus and algae, and mycorrhizae are vital fungal symbionts in plant roots. Aggregates are composite creatures that result from the changes that develop from a host and a symbiont living as one. Rather than one individual host creature being infected by a single parasite, the aggregation process describes how two species merge over generations. Many aggregates do not survive the initial infection or bonding process, and it is only through large numbers of the host species and symbiont species combining that a new species eventually develops.

This publication is dedicated to providing useful information, game content, and ideas to players of modern, science fiction, and post-apocalyptic table-top and role-playing games in general and to fans of Goblinoid Games’ Mutant Future RPG in particular. The rules contained herein are compatible with it and any others that use the “Basic” system introduced in the most popular role-playing games of the early 1970s and are easily adaptable to many other games (especially successor systems, to include those covered by the Open Game License).

Our goal is to release a new thematic issue of this publication every other week and to have it contain a variety of useful and earnest information that will inspire Game Masters and players alike and provide them with things that they can immediately plug into their games. We very much hope you will find this and subsequent issues of the Wisdom from the Wastelands to be useful and enjoyable!

Video Recap: Origins 2012, Day 1

Gearing up for Origins Game Fair

It's close to that time again when we will be heading to Columbus, OH to help MindGame Productions put on the best show at Origins Game Fair: US Marine Space Corps (USMSC) Interplanetary - an airsoft LARP event. This is a welcome break for us from the daily grind, and has a surprising amount of overlap with what we do at DarkThreads. It's all about the gear.

So, what does a marine in the USMSC wear, anyway?

TRU-SPEC® Tactical Response Uniform Shirt, Digital Urban

Tactical Response Uniform (TRU) Pants, Digital Urban

TRU Combat Shirt, Digital Urban/Black

Seriously, though, this pattern is also worn by many other real-life LE and military units. Other important parts of the uniform include: protective eyewear, for which we have an abundant selection. You also need a vest or plate carrier, in black, either of these will do, and all the appropriate pouches. Contact sales@darkthreads.com for more info and help on getting your USMSC loadout together.

Skirmisher Releases 'Swords of Kos: Necropolis' in PDF!

Skirmisher Publishing LLC is proud to announce the electronic release of Swords of Kos: Necropolis, the first entry in its new line of fantasy fiction! Inspired by the works of classic swords-and-sorcery authors like Fritz Lieber, Jack Vance, and Robert E. Howard, it is Texas author Michael O. Varhola’s eleventh book and is illustrated with a series of beautiful images by veteran fantasy artist Amanda Kahl (172 pages; $3.99 PDF/$7.95 POD and Print; ISBN 978-1-935050-15-5; SKP E 1222). It is available through a variety of online venues, including DriveThruRPG and DriveThru Fiction.

A trade paperback print edition of the book will be released at the Comicpalooza fan convention in Houston during Memorial Day Weekend, May 25-27. It will be available directly from Skirmisher Publishing and through Amazon.com and other retail sites.

Swords of Kos: Necropolis follows the adventures of Paros, a streetwise rogue with a penchant for alchemy, Parthenia, a savage female Elf barbarian, and Selene, a priestess of the outlawed Titan moon goddess, as they brave the hazards of a long-abandoned cemetery and the catacombs that lie beneath it. Dangerous though the hazards and supernatural guardians of this place are, an even greater threat might be the Necropolis itself ...

Following are the first two paragraphs of Swords of Kos: Necropolis:

“Paros could only venture a guess as to how many graves the forsaken burial ground in the little valley before him contained. North to south, it ran about a half mile and, from where he stood beside the wrought-iron fence that zigzagged along its eastern edge, it stretched about a quarter mile to the base of the hills that surrounded it. The rolling, broken ground of this unkempt area was heavily overgrown with grass, vines, copses of scrubby little oaks and brushy gray-green juniper, great clumps of flowers in every color, and probably every other sort of vegetation native to the island of Kos. Obelisks, statues of patron deities, and other stones marking the gravesites of families and individuals lay broken and tumbled amongst the rampant growth, and mausoleums of every size were interspersed throughout.

Paros did not know the extent to which this place had been looted over the century since it was last known to have been used but there were undoubtedly hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of graves that had not yet been pillaged. And they were not even the object of their quest, which was marked by the small, columned temple of black marble that he could see halfway up one of the hills at the other end of the cemetery. And there was no telling what else might be hidden within this wild, desolate place. ... “

Skirmisher to Release 'Swords of Kos' Fiction Line at Comicpalooza

Skirmisher Publishing LLC has announced that it will be releasing the first ttitle in its new swords-and-sorcery fiction line at the Comicpalooza 2012 fan convention, being held Memorial Day Weekend, May 25-27, in Houston.

Swords of Kos: Necropolis is a swords-and-sorcery novel set on the Aegean island of Kos. This story follows the adventures of Paros, a streetwise rogue with a penchant for alchemy, Parthenia, a savage female Elf barbarian, and Selene, a priestess of the outlawed Titan moon goddess, as they brave the hazards of a long-abandoned cemetery and the catacombs that lie beneath it. Dangerous though the hazards and supernatural guardians of this place are, an even greater threat might be the Necropolis itself ...

This book is the first entry in Skirmisher Publishing LLC’s new “Swords of Kos” line of fantasy fiction and is associated with the official campaign setting the company uses to playtest its licensed roleplaying game sourcebooks.

“We are doing a lot of fun things with this series and think fans of fantasy literature in general and gamers in partricular are going to respond really well to it,” said Skirmisher publisher Michael O. Varhola and the author of Necropolis, his 11th book. “It is classic low fantasy swords-and-sorcery, in the tradition of Fritz Lieber's 'Fafhrd and Gray Mouser' books -- and the series title, in fact is a tribute to them. But it is also fresh and new in all sorts of ways."

Skirmisher will be celebrating its 10th anniversary at Comicpalooza and that is part of its motivation for making a number of significant announcements and releases at the convention. Among other things, the company will be running more events than it has at any previous convention, throwing a party for its friends and fans, and giving away at least $3,000 worth of its products.

For more information about Skirmisher in general, the "Swords of Kos" fiction line, or the company's presence at Comicpalooza, post a comment to this message or email webmaster@skirmisher.com.