Announcing Lost Carcosa

Plus North Texas games, a couple of new reviews, GothCon notes, and other stuff!

First off, the big announcement from Youtube:

I just posted a Let Me Tell You About… video for The Punchline:

Here is an hour-long review of Nebulith:

LotFP games for North Texas RPG Convention are now live for signup here!

I will personally be running Suicide is Painful… and Drowned Maid. Advance spots were filled immediately, and now the last three slots have been opened up today, so grab them quick. (Something Stinks in Stilton is being run by someone else not in cahoots with me, certainly join that game, always good to see other people running LotFP!)

I did GothCon at the beginning of the month, and it was good, as sales were up from last year. Didn’t get out to see any shows though (Carnivore AD, Mirror of Deception/Isole, and Hypocrisy/Abbath were all playing in town that weekend), as I was so run down that weekend and decided maybe I should take it easy and also not spend money. Then my flight home was canceled on the Sunday because Sweden got hit with hurricane-force winds from a storm named Dave, so Finnair put me up in a hotel for the night (25 kilometers from the airport!) before getting me home the next day. Adventure!

Oh! That self-deprecating story I avoided telling in the Carcosa video. I need you to understand that I had no malice or unpleasantness or misanthropy in mind, the effect I had here was completely unintentional. I understand, expect, and accept that I will be talking to people and will be social at conventions. Got that? So, at GothCon, I forget if it was during setup or waiting for the doors to open the next day, someone the next booth over (selling the Swedish translation of Call of Cthulhu) started chatting with me. “Oh, you have a lot of books, how long have you been doing that, oh, you’re American, living in Finland?” The usual cycle of conversation when people are being actively friendly. Then comes the question: “What do you like most about living in Finland?”

I didn’t even have to think for a second about it. “Strangers don’t try to talk to you there. They leave you alone.”

I couldn’t have made things any more awkward if I had shit my pants in that moment. A few minutes later after realizing what I had done, I explained “wait no no no no I didn’t mean it like that” and things weren’t awkward with the booth neighbor after that. That I noticed, anyway. :p

Reminded me a bit of Dragonmeet at the end of last year, when a fan had approached the table and started off with “I know you don’t like to talk to people, but I wanted to say…” Of course my reflex is to wonder, “Am I that bad?” but the answer is so obviously yes that I feel foolish for even asking myself the question. But again, at conventions, I am expecting and even hoping that people approach the table and want to talk about LotFP! Hopefully with money in hand, but I promise you I am more upset by everyone just passing the table without giving me a second thought than I am by the people actually stopping by. It’s why I am there!

(also at Dragonmeet was the guy who was wanting to rant about Putin and sing anti-fascist songs with me… at least I think that’s what was happening. Dude had Arthur Webley’s accent, so thick and absolutely incomprehensible to my American ears that I initially thought he was fucking with me. I thought that accent was a movie joke, not a way people actually talked? At least in the movie it implies that not all British people understand that either, but that may just be a comedy bit for the film. I don’t know whether it disturbs or comforts me, the idea that this guy went around the convention talking to people like that and everyone else there understood him just fine.

Next conventions are the UK Games Expo May 29-31 and then of course the North Texas RPG Convention June 3-7.

I’m pretty sure there was something else I wanted to list here, but I guess I’ll get it next time.

Oh yeah, we’re still giving away metal bandcamp codes with orders from both the EU and US webstores, and here is some metal right now for your listening pleasure. I was humming this the whole time while setting up the camera and lights for that Punchline video. And Crimson Glory has a new album coming in June…

oh, fun (for me) Crimson Glory story. They and Kamelot were doing a warmup gig in Tampa before their European tour together in 2000. Century Media was handling Noise Records’ releases in the US at that point, and I think it was Steve Joh at the label arranged for me to go to Florida (I was living in Atlanta at the time) to interview Kamelot at the gig. (I stayed at the family home in Kissimmee, and my mom’s boyfriend - favorite band: Rush - drove me over to Tampa where he got to see me be treated as a Somewhat Important Person by the organizers.)

Both bands were great (and I thought Wade Black handled the older Midnight material very well), although of course my tape recorder ate the tape for the Kamelot interview and we had to do it again by phone later. I was so embarrassed.

After the show I’m talking to a few people and Crimson Glory’s Jon Drenning comes up to us holding the latest copy of LotFP. “Why aren’t we in this?” As far as musician ego, A+ demonstration, but as far as making my and my work look like a Really Big Deal in front of a near-family member? Off the charts coolest thing that could have happened.

(… and luckily I could truthfully tell Drenning that I actually had tried to get an interview with the band for that issue, but I couldn’t get their record label to arrange it…)

I also saw Crimson Glory at Jalometalli in Oulu in 2012 with Todd LaTorre singing. Fine show as well. A fine festival, Jalometalli, they had Coroner and Vader and Unholy and Iron Savior and so many great bands that year… Jalometalli was the best, a real metal festival that fit my tastes. I’ll best remember that year’s festival for skipping out on The Devil’s Blood after just a couple songs to go see Jess and the Ancient Ones for the very first time, playing a festival afterparty gig at like 2am.

Fun times!