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October 31, 2001: BOO!

Trick or treat, kids. There's nothing like a holiday that combines confection with coercion at the hands of foul, ravenous, soulless creatures whose only goal is to suck the very life from your body. But Halloween is more than just a day for children, it's a day to entertain those dark and horrific fantasies, to indulge in a little fear - be it yours or someone else's.

So to help you get into the Halloween mood, Creative Director Philip Reed has put together a treat for you - GURPS Monsters wallpaper! You may recognize this breathtaking piece of art by Christopher Shy. It can be found in the newly released GURPS Monsters, but unfortunately had to be printed in black and white. The full-color version was just too good to waste, so we're offering it to you here to use for your desktop background.

Now's the time to make the most of those titles from our Summer of Horror, from Screampunk to Spirits. And remember that the third edition of GURPS Horror is on its way! So put that wallpaper up, turn down the lights, and have yourselves a good scare, on us. Just don't forget to leave some candy by the door for the little monsters outside.

After all, you never know what kind of tricks they'll play.

-- Sage, Devourer of Candy Corn

Warehouse 23 News: Great Art At A Great Price

In anticipation of his upcoming Cartouche Press book, we've acquired a small supply of John Zeleznik's limited run mini-print set, Vertical Curvz.

October 30, 2001: Unnatural Axe

You've got to go look at the John Kovalic art . . . snicker, giggle, chortle . . . John has outdone himself again. Come on, come on, you know you want to see it . . . just click here . . .

October 29, 2001: Progress Of A Sort

Packet loss appears to have been reduced to near nil, so we think we're back under control with regards to the net.

Wish I could say the same with regard to manuscript reading. The "Steve Read This ASAP" pile measures only 11.5 inches (that's 177 sevagrams for those of you using the metric system) . . . but the things I'm actively working on are not even in the pile; they're sitting in my computer (In Nomine Anime), all over my desk and work table (GURPS Traveller: Humaniti), or both (GURPS Cops).

Good thing I like this job :-)

-- Steve Jackson

Warehouse 23 News: GURPS Myth Revisited

In celebration of the release of Myth III, this week's special is the GURPS Myth Bundle: everything you need to play GURPS in the Myth universe, plus a pretty poster.

October 28, 2001: We're Baaaaaack... Sort Of

Some of you have been having trouble accessing the site, or at least various parts of it, and probably want to know why. Basically, our ISP has had to move all its equipment, as well as all colocated servers (such as ours) to a new facility. I'll spare you the details on why, and let you read for yourself if you're interested.

We had a couple of short outages while preparing beforehand for the move, and the move itself happened Friday morning at 2 a.m. The server was down until around 10 a.m., and afterwards there were routing problems and the like, so it wasn't easily reachable for most of the day. Even now, you may be having trouble getting through, but Illuminati Online is working getting all of these issues resolved. On our end of things, those of you who are Pyramid subscribers have probably noticed that there are some serious problems with newsgroups. In case I haven't gotten back to some of you who've emailed me, we're still working on it. Hopefully we'll have it fixed soon... until then, please be patient, and if you see any other major problems with the site, as always, feel free to drop me a line. :)

-- Sage

Warehouse 23 News: Two Games in One

The fully revised and updated Galactic Starfire, Fourth Edition, combines tactical fleet combat with strategic empire building for an unequaled gaming experience.

October 27, 2001: GURPS Monsters Book Signing

There will be a signing/release party for GURPS Monsters at Ravenstone Games in Columbus, OH this Wednesday, October 31 . . . Halloween, of course! The fun starts at 6pm. Hunter Johnson, the author/compiler of GURPS Monsters, will be there to sign books.

(Thanks to the Columbus MIBs for setting this up!)

Warehouse 23 News: A Forgotten and Misunderstood Land of Adventure, Magic, and Long Winters

The recently released Northern Hinterlands (for the Palladium Fantasy RPG) is now available. We've also added titles to our selection of previously published Palladium products.

October 26, 2001: Just Ducky

Illuminated Site of the Week: Round 1 is over as of August, but i found a duck has been so popular another round is in the works. 500 plastic ducks start in London and race around the world in the biggest plastic duck race on Earth. If you find one of the little darlings, make note of its progress and see that it gets to another distant destination safely. (Now if airport personnel ask if anyone's given you anything, you can say, "Just this duck.")

-- Suggested by Joshua Turton

Warehouse 23 News: Tenchi Universe

The first season of the Tenchi Muyo Anime TV Series is now available (on DVD) from Warehouse 23. Be sure to also check out the corresponding roleplaying supplement from Guardians of Order.

October 25, 2001: More On Munchkin

(Moron Munchkin?)

Thanks to Tim Converse for sharing these quotes from an evening of playing Munchkin.

On backstabbing:

Jeff: Will you help me?
Megan: After you've backstabbed me?
Jeff: I haven't backstabbed you yet!
Megan: Oh, is that a threat?
Jeff: (Showing his Thief class card) No, it's a skill!

After a particularly nasty barrage of monster cards with modifiers has been played on one player, another offers to help:

Tarik: So, you really want to do this?
Tim: This is such a brilliant plan, I just can't resist the urge to mess it up!

Warehouse 23 News: Ever Loonier Than Usual

Your favorite Looney Labs card games now have expansions: Fluxx Blanxx and Chrononauts: Lost Identities.

October 24, 2001: Warbots?

As predicted in Ogre, Transhuman Space, Traveller, and numerous SF works, armed pilotless aircraft are finally a reality. The Washington Post reports that the U.S. military is using Hellfire-armed Predator recon drones in combat over Afghanistan, and may soon (if they aren’t already) arm the more advanced Global Hawks.

The pilotless flying vehicles have been used many times for scouting and artillery spotting, but this is the first (as far as I know) use of armed drones. Can warbots be far behind?
-- Loren Wiseman

Warehouse 23 News: Cthulhu in England

Ramsey Campbell's Goatswood provides a full campaign in Southwestern Britain, based on the writings of Ramsey Campbell.

October 23, 2001: Nanotech Transistors

We're getting there. We're really getting there. Read the Yahoo story about what's coming out of Bell Labs now.

Warehouse 23 News: New Minis

Check out the Fencer and Fencer-B individual miniatures for Ogre. These Paneuropean cybertanks will give any Combine Ogre a run for its money.

October 22, 2001: Car Wars Delayed, And Other Status Notes

For the many who have asked how the financial side of things is holding up: We're hanging in there. We have closed the books on 2000; yes, indeed, we lost a great deal of money. Now the challenge is to catch up with the only-slightly-fresher mess that is 2001 and straighten out those books. With luck, that will happen before 2002 starts and we'll be able to open the new year with a clean slate.

Despite the layoffs, we managed to maintain our ambitious schedule for a few months. We rather HAD to, in fact, to keep the money coming in. But there's only so much you can do with a reduced staff, and that finally caught up with us. After looking at the Car Wars situation, we have decided to push the whole re-release back - not just a little bit, but significantly. The first new Car Wars releases will now be appearing in February.

Yes, that's a long time. But too many issues . . . niggling game balance details, art, the web page, and our planned online successor to ADQ . . . had just gone undone, week after week.

By admitting that we are nowhere near ready to send the first Car Wars books to the printers, we've been able to deploy enough resources to save the rest of the schedule more or less intact. See the New Releases page for details.
-- Steve Jackson

Warehouse 23 News: The King is Dead

As one of the Elven Princes, you must now travel the land, collecting gold tokens and thwarting your rivals' attempts to do the same. The Prince with the most tokens becomes King of the Elves.

October 21, 2001: Welcome To Castle Anthrax

The anthrax scare brushed us earlier this week . . . we heard from a customer who said he was returning a package from us because he hadn't ordered it. A quick check of the Direct Mail records indicated that it had been sent to him by a family member as a surprise gift. So he got a call from that person saying "Accept the package, darn it."

No word on whether the present included a copy of GURPS Bio-Tech.

Warehouse 23 News: Just For the Helm of It.

Don't miss KODT Illustrated Issue 9 as the Untouchable Trio (plus One) brave a new dungeon, abuse their henchmen, and taunt Knuckles mercilessly.

October 20, 2001: Proteus And Slack Attack Make Games 100 List

Congratulations to the creators of the two SJ Games releases that made the 2002 Games 100!

Proteus, by Francis K. Lalumiere, was named Runner-Up in the Abstract Strategy category!

Chez Geek 2: Slack Attack, developed by Alain Dawson based on the original Chez Geek by Jon Darbro, was one of six listings in the Party Games category.

Woo hoo!

Warehouse 23 News: More Rifts

Another batch of Palladium books, this time all for the Rifts RPG.

October 19, 2001: The Best Defense Is Not To Have Any Enemies

Illuminated Site of the Week: His Holiness Maharishi says every country will be completely invincible when they learn not to give birth to enemies. Such powerful invincibility can only be found at the point of Super Unification. And if we will give Maharishi a billion dollars, he will help us out . . .

-- Suggested by Dan Simpson

Warehouse 23 News: Rats!

Breed rats and squish them (with anvils, no less) for points in Rat Splatter, a new fast and fun card game from Savant Garde. The first three orders also get a free life-sized plastic rat.

October 18, 2001: GURPS Character Builder FAQ

We've had a lot of questions about the GURPS Character Builder – and some have gone unanswered while we, well, figured out the answers :-)

But the program is close enough to finished that we know SOME of the answers. If you're interested, check out the GURPS Character Builder FAQ . This does not yet include a complete feature list, but that will come soon.


October 17, 2001: Game Industry Disaster Fund Auction

If you haven't visited the Game Industry Disaster Fund Auction, you should. This is an auction fund set up to raise money to aid in relief of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Most of the companies in the hobby have donated something, or several things. There will be more SJ Games items coming up, but the one going right now will amuse you . . .

In cooperation with John Kovalic: a personalized, one-of-a-kind, game-legal Chez Geek card.

Or if you've ever wanted to be in Dork Tower, check out John K's character auction.

Warehouse 23 News: Just In Time For Halloween

Run for your life! The Zombies!!! are coming!

October 16, 2001: Munchkin News

(1) Munchkin will return to print in time for Christmas.

(2) I am indeed working on an expansion. Tentatively, 112 cards, fairly evenly divided between doors and treasures. If you have ideas you want to contribute, hit the Munchkin card suggestion page.

(3) I'm also working on a FAQ, for the game, for you nice people who keep trying to apply LOGIC to munchkinism :-) Hint: Stop! It is, for instance, perfectly legal to have a Baby Ancient King Tut. Better than legal: it's good, because it's silly.
-- Steve Jackson

Warehouse 23 News: Fighting Fire With Fireballs

The most current KODT offering, Knights of the Dinner Table, Issue 59, is now available.

October 15, 2001: A New Low In Cheesy Spam

"Protect Yourself From Anthrax."

Eeeeeuuuuwwww.
-- Steve Jackson

Warehouse 23 News: Furries In A Tree

All your favorite anthropomorphic animals living in a giant tree is the setting for the World Tree roleplaying game.

October 14, 2001: But How Many Of Them Speak Klingon?

An e-mail campaign has inspired thousands of people in the UK to report their religion as "Jedi Knight" on census forms. Officials are unamused. See the Daily News story.

Warehouse 23 News: Hand Drawn Symbols For Your Computer

Like Campaign Cartographer 2, but feel that there aren't enough symbols? Symbol Set 1: Fantasy Overland adds over 1,000 new ones and a menu toggle to make them easy to access.

October 13, 2001: Wanted: Clerk for Light Conspiracy Work

Illuminated Site of the Week: If you are devious by nature, think globally and can type 90 wpm, we've got a keyboard for you. No longer will the plot to keep typing speed down hinder your ambitions. ZZZ online features a new keyboard - actually more of a keyobelisk - that will let you write in any language at incredible speed.

-- Suggested by David Levi

Warehouse 23 News: They've Printed Almost As Many Books As We Have.

Warehouse 23 now offers a selection of roleplaying products from Palladium Books, including several Rifts titles.

October 12, 2001: Ogrethulhu Playtest

Pyramid subscribers can also see the first part of Ogrethulhu – and should look quickly, because the first phase of public playtesting will be brief.

Warehouse 23 News: Two Great Things That Go Great Together

Roleplaying and anime are a natural combination, so we've added the Warehouse23 Anime Info Page, an organized and complete listing of all anime related products we carry.

October 11, 2001: Want A Little Chaos?

When we were first setting up Warehouse 23, one of the "geek toy" lines I grabbed was Chaos. Though it's hyped as an educational toy, I look at it as pure geeky fun . . . you build a framework, fill it with an array of channels and dingbats, and watch as balls are carried up to the top, roll down, are carried up again . . . How complex a path can you build, and how much action can you get going at once, without spilling balls onto the floor or throwing them around so hard that your structure comes apart?

When I first found out about it, I bought some and built a big THING in my living room. Then I got some more and built a bigger THING. And the balls fell down and spun around and jumped and bounced and went whirr, clunk, ding, BONG, whirr, clatter, dingding . . . And I really thought I had some photos around, but I can't find them now.

Anyway, it's cool stuff. So we stocked up on it. And right about then, the manufacturer started selling direct through the web. Great for fans, not so great for stores -- boom, there goes the old markup. So we set our boxes of Chaos stuff aside, and they've been cluttering up the floor ever since while I didn't get around to dealing with them.

Okay, now I'm dealing with them. The Chaos stuff is on sale. Supplies limited to what we have on hand . . . which does include at least one set that the manufacturer no longer offers.

Look at the Chaos site for pictures and so on. We're matching the prices there and cutting them by a token dollar, just to get it off our floor.

If you want these, send e-mail to orders@sjgames.com. As with auctions, these can't be combined with regular Warehouse 23 orders. Shipping on the whole order is free if you buy one of the sets; if you just buy gadgets, shipping will be at regular Warehouse 23 rates.

Buy this stuff. Any leftover accessories after all the big sets are gone, I'll have to buy myself and put with MY collection. (One of these days I'm bringing this stuff to a con. Talk about an attention-getter . . . )
-- Steve Jackson

Warehouse 23 News: B-Movie Goodness

Create your own Sci-Fi/Horror B-movies with Grave Robbers From Outer Space, the new card game from Z-Man Games.

October 10, 2001: Playtest: In Nomine Anime, GURPS Mars

Pyramid subscribers are now looking at Genevieve Cogman's In Nomine Anime. By the time you read this, the first draft of James Cambias' GURPS Mars should also be up.

Warehouse 23 News: Our First Computer Game

Cheapass Games has forayed into the realm of computer entertainment with Plasmaworm, an inexpensive and deceptively simple game.

October 9, 2001: Frustration

I've been reading about the new computer game Cossacks, from CDV Software. Looks very interesting. But it will be a long time before I play it, if ever, because you can't get it for Macs. (Yes, I have a PC set up at home. Not yet wired to the net. Sound didn't work, out of the box, and I've never gotten it fixed. I supposedly got it specifically to check out PC games, but it's hard to even get motivated to try.)

Argh. Rant off. It's just frustrating to see the lack of Mac support. And now I'm part of the problem. The GURPS Character Builder will be available for PC only. Why? Simple . . . we're picking up an existing program, and it's written for PC, not Mac. And economically speaking, it's probably NEVER going to be worthwhile to translate it, because the percentage of Mac users is so small. Which, of course, is the reason the good games don't come in Mac format either. End of story, for now.

At least I can still play Caesar III.
-- Steve Jackson

Warehouse 23 News: Welcome to the 23rd Century

Take the battle to the seas and the moon in RISK 2210 A.D., an updated version of the classic strategic boardgame.

October 8, 2001: . . . And Pull It In After You?

Whether you just really, really liked the Underground Lab floor plan, or you're thinking about buying a nice, deep hole of your very own, check out the Ebay auction of an Atlas E missile base. 16,000 square feet . . . there was only one bid, for $1,500,000.

Warehouse 23 News: Explore Mayan Ruins

Direct a Mayan expedition and gain points for treasure found and temples controlled in Tikal, from Rio Grande Games.

October 7, 2001: Beaten At Our Own Game

Reporting from Archon . . . The Toon LARP just ended. We had a very silly time. It was a monster-hunting contest between SJ Games and Hexgames, with walk-ins from convention attendees. Hexgames won . . . I figured out who the Head Monster was, but then got pasted to a wall by a truly stunning mummy, and life just got crueler after that . . . Great game.
-- Steve Jackson

Warehouse 23 News: Something Old, Something New

Issaries continues its support for the Hero Wars RPG with two revised and revamped compilations, Pavis & Big Rubble and Griffin Mountain, and the brand new Storm Tribe.

October 6, 2001: Dinosaur Nostrils

If you're as much of a dinosaur geek as I am, you'll find this New Scientist article fascinating. If not, feel free to wonder at the degree of trivia that science can unearth . . .

Warehouse 23 News: Build Your Own (Cardboard) City

Or dungeon, fortress, spaceship . . . with CC2 Dioramas, an expansion for Campaign Cartographer 2.

October 5, 2001: Much, Much Higher Learning

Illuminated Site of the Week: The Institute of Physics and Astronomy, University of Aarhus is a mad scientist's dream come true...several dreams, in fact. The research focuses on everything from manipulating light to creating a quantum computer that will foil all attempts at decryption. Their latest pet project is teleportation. Small wonder their lab looks like something off The X-Files set. Check out the research and papers at the site.

-- Suggested by Daniel Bartholomew

Warehouse 23 News: The First Season

Tenchi Universe covers the first 26 episodes of the Tenchi Muyo anime series and is completely compatible with the Tenchi Muyo RPG.

October 4, 2001: Attack The Moon!

Artist James Downey wants us all to shoot the Moon with our laser pointers on Oct. 27. Well, why not? Here's the New Scientist story.

As long as the Lunarians don't shoot back . . .

Warehouse 23 News: Dangerous Island

Feuds and deceit await you in Marakush Treachery, a brand new adventure for Chivalry & Sorcery: the Rebirth.

October 3, 2001: GURPS Lite In Italian!

Now there's an Italian version of GURPS Lite, translated and laid out by Andreas Minini Saldini. It's linked from the GURPS Lite page, along with the English and German versions. More to come . . .

Warehouse 23 News: Top 10 for September

Check out Warehoues 23's best selling items for September on the Warehouse 23 Top 10 page.

October 2, 2001: Camelot Is A Silly Place Built Of Little Plastic Bricks

Judging from the number of people who write every day to tell us about this site, a lot of you haven't seen it yet. Okay. Four words. Lego movie. Monty Python.

Warehouse 23 News: New Minis!

The Seguro GEV-PC, Clockwork Cat, Servant Robot, and Large Robot have joined the ranks of our individual miniatures.

October 1, 2001: Arrrrrrr!Con

Well, they usually spell it Archon. But I'll be there this weekend with the Pirate Game. So arrrrrrrrr!

There will be lots of other stuff going on. There will be many trusty Men In Black; we'll have a booth in the dealer room to Sell You Stuff; we'll do demos, many, many demos, and there will be a live-action Toon game.

My friend Tom Smith, the World's Fastest Filker, will be the filk GoH. If you have never heard Tom, be ready to collapse in crazed laughter. And there will be a couple of tiger cubs there, courtesy of the Little Rock, AR Safaripark tiger breeding center. So grrrrrrrrr, too . . . All in all, this is shaping up to be a great convention. If you're anywhere near St. Louis, come on by!
-- Steve Jackson

Warehouse 23 News: Man vs. Nature

Save China from a torrential flood in Ta Yü, from Rio Grande Games.

Past columns

Steve Jackson Games
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