Wednesday 3 April 2019

Chaosium Inc. - Newsletter #98

Lots of new RPG releases from Chaosium...
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#98 the straight scoop from the well of chaos...

John Wick Joins Chaosium

 

Chaosium to fulfill 7th Sea Second Edition and 7th Sea Khitai Kickstarters

 

Chaosium, publishers of the award-winning tabletop roleplaying games Call of CthulhuRuneQuest, and King Arthur Pendragon, has acquired John Wick’s acclaimed 7th Sea RPG , it was announced today.

7th Sea is John’s Wick’s swashbuckling and sorcery roleplaying game set set in the fictional world of Théah. The second edition of 7th Sea was crowdfunded by John Wick’s own company, John Wick Presents in 2016, setting a then-record on Kickstarter for a tabletop RPG, raising over $1.3 million dollars.

John Wick himself will be joining Chaosium as creative director for 7th Sea. He will continue to have creative oversight of his game, and will remain a principal author of 7th Sea material going forward. Beyond that, John Wick will also write for other Chaosium game lines, for which he has great affection.

“John is an extraordinarily talented designer and highly regarded figure in the world of tabletop rpgs. We are delighted to have him join our team”, said Chaosium President Rick Meints.

Following the death of Chaosium founder Greg Stafford in November last year, John’s memorial piece about Greg's titanic influence on the landscape of tabletop games was shared and quoted widely (The Gray Crane).
John Wick said,"My first RPG was a Chaosium game. My second RPG was a Chaosium game. My third RPG was a Chaosium game. Saying 'I'm excited to be joining the Chaosium team' just doesn't do it. I've respected and admired the company for over thirty years. I'm joining the same company who started me on this journey and I couldn't be prouder."
Upon acquiring this new game line, Chaosium’s paramount objective for 7th Sea is the fulfilment of the outstanding rewards from the 7th Sea Second Edition and 7th Sea Khitai Kickstarters. Coinciding with this announcement, John Wick has updated all Kickstarter backers with the new arrangements, which will see Chaosium overseeing the remaining fulfilment of the campaigns.

Over coming weeks, 7th Sea products and content will begin to be migrated to Chaosium.comand Chaosium’s page at DriveThruRPG. A 7th Sea discussion board will also be set up at BRP Central, Chaosium’s forums.

For media enquires about John Wick and 7th Sea contact: Michael O'Brien.

About Chaosium: 
Chaosium was founded by visionary game designer Greg Stafford in 1975. For more than forty years, Chaosium has captivated gamers, readers and mythic adventurers worldwide. Its award-winning roleplaying games, board games and fiction have been acclaimed as some of the most engaging and innovative of all time. 
www.chaosium.com
ABOUT JOHN WICK

Since getting his start in 1995, John Wick has published dozens of games and won over a dozen awards. His games include Legend of the Five Rings RPG, 7th SeaOrkworldHouses of the Blooded and Cat: A Little Game about Little Heroes. 

John was raised to the sublime degree of Master Mason, is a Discordian Double Agent, sings (but not well), still has the first dollar bill he made telling stories, uses Qabalic rituals on his birthday to help his friends walk up the Tree of Life, was a memetic assassin (it was a corgi), maintains a clutch of Monsters, saw a man cut in half while working as a breakman on the railroad, beat the Devil in a game of riddles, fell asleep in a goth club, plays drums (but not well), was healed by Harlan Ellison, met and talked to characters he created, and wrote this bio. And it's all true.

Company bio page: https://www.chaosium.com/john-wick

Update about the impending release of
RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha

Our planned release date is Wednesday April 3rd. We have been working with our fulfillment partners to accurately ship and safely pack the full range of RQG products as follows:
  • RQG core rulebook
  • RQG core rulebook leatherette
  • RQG Bestiary
  • RQG Bestiary leatherette
  • RQG GM Screen Pack
  • Full slipcase sets (Rulebook, Bestiary, GM screen pack) in hardcover and leatherette
  • Empty slipcases (chaosium.com only)
(nb we previously announced we would not be selling empty slipcases, due to the logistical challenges involved. After further discussion with our fulfilment partners we now are able to.)
Prior to the release, we are providing coupons for individual items and for slipcase sets by email, based on past PDF purchases on chaosium.com. 
Please note the following:
    • We are selling slipcase sets (containing core rules, Bestiary, and GM Screen Pack), the individual books, and the empty slipcases. 
    • We are not selling partial slipcases.
    • The empty slipcase will be available at a special discounted price for a limited time.
    • We will not run out of slipcase sets any time soon.
    • We have no doubt that some of our most loyal purchasers will require custom coupons, if you ordered different products with different accounts, or want to merge items. Custom coupons can be requested by emailing customerservice@chaosium.com.
    This will still be our most complex coupon process ever, so we ask for everyone to please be patient!

    Berlin: The Wicked City now available at DriveThruRPG too




    Our new Call of Cthulhu release Berlin: The Wicked City is also available at DriveThruRPG. Unveil the mysteries of the Mythos in Weimar Germany!
    Keine Notwendigkeit zu warten! 
    Buy the Berlin: The Wicked City PDF from Chaosium now and you'll get a coupon for the full price of the PDF off the physical book when we release it later this year.

    Talking to Terror Australis Writers

    Terror Australis: Call of Cthulhu in the Land Down Under is a masterful work of imagination by a team of home-grown Australian Call of Cthulhu creators, many of whom were involved in the original edition of Terror Australis, from 1987 and have extensive Chaosium credits.

    We were delighted to have caught up with several of these writers to talk about the book:
    • Richard Watts (Call of Cthulhu, Stormbringer, Elric)
    • Marion Anderson (Cairo Guidebook, Fearful Passages, Beyond the Mountains of Madness and Horror on the Orient Express)
    • Phil Anderson (Horror on the Orient Express, Fearful Passages, Beyond the Mountains of Madness)
    • Geoff Gillan (Call of Cthulhu, Pendragon, Elric and Stormbringer)

    Unboxing Terror Australis


    Max Writer unboxes the Mythos Horrors you'll find Down Under in TERROR AUSTRALIS, out now in hardback...
    Terror Australis is out now in hardback from Chaosium.com.

    Licensee Focus

    Call of Cthulhu the Official Video Game now available in Japanese


    Launched on March 28, a localised Japanese edition of Call of Cthulhu the Official Video Game, for PS4.

    Available now from the Playstation Store. 🦑

    Licensee Focus

    Syrinscape launches SoundPacks for Masks Part Three - London


    This, the third in Syrinscape's SoundPacks for running Call of Cthulhu's epic Masks of Nyarlathotep campaign, enables your players to explore 1920s London - with fully immersive background sound and music matched scene by scene to the adventure.
    Locations include beautifully crafted, immersive environments all over London, including:
    • busy ports
    • train stations
    • tram rides
    • London streets
    • an exhibition house
    • London at night, literally choking with fog
    • a cultist hideout
    • the British Empire Exhibition
    PLUS a whole host of truly vile creatures, ready and willing to destroy your minds and devour your bodies and so much more!
    Also available!
    Syrinscape's Ben Loomes takes a walk through the new SoundPack:

    Licensee Focus

    Achtung! Cthulhu Keeper's and Investigator's Guides Available for 7th Edition Call of Cthulhu


    For WW2 Mythos action, the ENnie-Award winning Achtung! Cthulhu from our friends Modiphius is now fully updated for Call of Cthulhu seventh edition. Plus there's a new scenario, Under the Gun!

    Available direct from Modiphius, and from DriveThruRPG

    Licensee Focus

    Call of Cthulhu Adventure Pack at Fantasy Grounds

     

    The online tabletop resource Fantasy Grounds has launched the first of their "Adventure Packs" for Call of Cthulhu. This consists of the 2018 Free RPG Day scenario Scritch Scratch, plus convention scenarios The Dead Border, What's in the Cellar?, and Camp SunnyGreat value for $4.99!

    Chaosium comes to SupaNova Melbourne, April 5 - 7

    For the first time, Chaosium will be present at popular culture show SupaNova. We're at the Melbourne, Australia event, taking place at the Showgrounds on April 5-7. 
    Chaosium is sharing a booth with our friends at TYPE 40, the master prop-makers. 
    We're also running six gaming tables on Saturday and Sunday, offering demo sessions of Call of Cthulhu and games of Miskatonic University: The Restricted Collection, our newly-released Lovecraftian board game. 


    Team Chaosium had a wonderful time at Carcosa Con, Poland. The creepily evocative Cozcha Castle is a wonderful setting for a Mythos gathering; not only is it an authentic castle in every sense of the word, it is also replete with hidden doors, secret passages, and walls bedecked with unsettling portraiture.
    Many thanks to our friends at Black Monk Games (publishers of the forthcoming Polish edition of Call of Cthulhu) for staging such a superb and smoothly-running event. It's happening again next year, so start making your plans now!

    Plots and Plans Abound at Chaosium's Berlin Summit


    Just before heading to Poland and CarcosaCon, Chaosium held in a summit in Berlin for some strategic planning. Present from the team in Berlin were Jason, Jeff, Lynne, Mike, MOB, Neil, Rick, and Susan. As a distributed company with team members all over the world, we relish the rare opportunities to get together face-to-face. We look forward to sharing with you the many exciting things planned and put into place at this meeting!

    One outcome of the Berlin Summit is the welcome news that Lynne Hardy has come on board full-time as Associate Line Editor for Call of Cthulhu. (Until now Lynne has been assistant Call of Cthulhu line editor on a part-time basis).

    Lynne has extensive RPG industry experience, as an editor and writer for Nightfall Games, Cubicle 7, Pelgrane Press, Green Ronin, and Modiphius where she was line editor for the Achtung! Cthulhu line. She is also the designer of her own ENnie-nominated steampunk game: Cogs, Cakes & Swordsticks.

    The End of an Era on Google Plus:
    Chaosium and Glorantha G+ Groups have been migrated to Tapatalk

    As you may be aware, Google Plus shuts down on April 2nd, 2019. All G+ groups there including the Chaosium and Glorantha groups will be gone forever!

    However, if you're a G+ user, do not despair! - we have taken advantage of Tapatalk's free migration offer, and successfully moved all content from the Chaosium G+ and the Glorantha G+ group there. Previous G+ posts are archived and available.
    Simply login in with your G+ username and password.

    Connecting with Chaosium

    Our primary sites for news, interaction and discussion are Facebook, Twitter and our forums at BRP Central.
    We're also on Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube, and Twitch:
    Here's to the end of an era on G+: but you will receive a warm welcome reconnecting with the Chaosium tribe on Tapatalk or one of these other platforms!
    #WeAreAllUs
    What is Ab Chaos?
    (...from Ab Chaos #7, May 31 1992)

    Ab - Latin "from"
    Chaos - (1) Any condition or place of total disorder (modern vernacular); (2) the disordered state of unformed matter which preceded creation (since Milton, Paradise Lost); (3) the dark, empty space which preceded creation (Greek Mythology); (4) the [formerly] Californian roleplaying game company.

    Ab Chaos is an informal newsletter for Chaosium fans. Through our history we have tried to serve the players and gamemasters through craft and art as well as (and sometimes at the expense of) marketing and moneymaking. We appreciate your loyalty, and offer this communication to those who are curious about us, beyond the mere "product".

    It is planned to be informal and irregular. We are, after all, not the Orderium.
    Copyright © 2019 Chaosium Inc., All rights reserved. 

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