Apologies for the radio silence from my corner of the ever-expanding Mongoose empire. Let's see what I've been up to, by poking the "recent items" folder on my laptop and seeing what comes up.

Hmm. 19 Skills, 32 Secret Society Missions, 39 The Quantum Traitor, and artnotes.doc - those are all part of the 25th Anniversary PARANOIA extravaganza. Some details about the all-singing bonus content CD are already circulating, but most of my work this month involved kicking the book into shape. It's not there yet, but I've handed it over to Charlotte to give my kickin' feet a rest.

Scoundrel Outline.doc demonstrates the highly complicated and professional manner in which files are named. I have not saved the spreadsheet in another window, but it may be called Scoundrel Wordcount, or possible Wordcount of Flaming Neurotic Doom, Mark XVII, depending on how long this cup of tea takes to kick in. Looking at the Scoundrel outline, I realise that one of the first things I've got to do involves looking back through Traveller Mailing List archives for discussions of piracy. I push the tea away - I don't think I want full consciousness yet.

Winterwood.doc is of no interest to anyone except the players in a D&D4e game I'm supposed to be running. At least, not yet.

In the distance, I can see hazy outlines for the IntSec and High Programmer books, but they're on the far side of Scoundrel. So, I'm off to raid shipping across the Spinward Marches...

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While checking The Computer's twitter feed, I notice from Allen's always interesting feed that PARANOIA writer, Star Wars Novelist and all-around good guy Aaron Allston is recovering from his recent heart attack, which is very good news.

The convention doesn't start until next Thursday, but I start travelling tomorrow. I'll be at the con all weekend, either at the Mongoose stand or running demos of Traveller/B5/Paranoia and/or Baron Munchausen...

So what have I been doing, I hear you asking. Well, the answer is, I’ve been rather busy, which is why I haven’t posted much of late. I’ve just come back from Conception 2008 in Dorset, a delightful RPG show, and before that we had our Earth-Centauri War campaign weekend in Swindon, which was a huge success, so well done me.

Other than that I have mostly been working on World at War, or Battlefield Evolution: World at War as it is now officially called. If you’ve been living in a mine for the last few months you won’t know that WaW is a World war Two miniatures game, initially set in the European theatre of 1944-45, or Late war, if you will. I’ve been working closely with well-known miniatures painter and gamer Agis Neugebauer, and I am wondering if this will be the first widely commercial set of WW2 rules written by a German. I rather hope so, but that’s just the romantic in me.

I’ve also been busy lining up corporate support for the game. To you and me that means convincing miniatures companies to supply us with miniatures in return for ad space in both S&P and the rulebook – that’s right, we are NOT doing minis for this one. The success of Victory at Sea showed us that we can produce games without a supporting line of minis, and when it comes to WW2 that is a significant advantage. There are a lot of minis already out there, so it’s not like you have to look hard to find some.

The two companies providing us with miniatures are Bolt Action Miniatures and West Wind, both prominent manufacturers and companies we are delighted to have WaW associated with. I’ve also been keen to link in with a terrain company, and I’m pleased to announce that Chris Rees of TableScape will be providing much of the dedicated studio WW2 scenery you will be seeing in future battle reports and articles, as well as in the3 rulebook, of course.

Right, that’s enough yacking. Agis and I are currently working out how to portray American artillery observers in the game. Time on Target, don’t you know…

RuneQuest: Land of the Samurai is finished and submitted to Mongoose Towers for the whole editing/layout/production process. I really enjoyed writing this book; the research was great fun, and especially researching a period a knew little about (Heian Japan, circa 1000), especially the political machinations, battles and feuds the key clans and families of the time got themselves into. Despite striving to be 100% historically accurate (always a tad difficult when penning something for a fantasy game), I have included a section and rationale for ninja, despite them being some 300 - 400 years too early. I've rounded-off RQ:LotS with a scenario too.

I'm currently hard at work on the Elric Companion, which is shaping up very nicely. You can expect to see all sorts of goodies expanding the core game, including Insanity mechanics, a stack-load of new creatures (many of which haven't been treated before in any version of the game), a Multiverse Plane generation system, Enchantments, and I'm planning to include a scenario based in the Jharkorian city of Sequaloris. The plot for this was partly inspired by events in a game I ran last weekend for my regular group. They successfully managed to completely alter the course of the Young Kingdoms' future history, and whilst I won't be striving for that level of intensity in the adventure, the way play panned-out has fuelled several fresh ideas to be worked into the plot.

Once the Elric Companion's finished, I start work on 'Castle Brass and the Kamarg' for Hawkmoon. Expect bull-fights, baragoon, ancient Magyarian sorcerers, weapons platforms, horned horses, and, naturally, flamingoes. Lots of marshy, mistral-blasted goodness.

Back to work...

Those of you who have followed my time at Mongoose will likely know I've dipped my toe into just about everything at some point. I started as a proofreader, then taught myself magazine publishing in 6 weeks to produce the first S&P, then I became Studio Manager when we overhauled RPGs, then I got the Wargaming department off the ground. I even organised a Christmas Do once...

Now I've moved on to Events & Conventions. We're looking at upping a gaming profile, you see. Obviously you know what this means. It's kinda like marketing but different. I get to make sure that when you go to a gaming con that Mongoose is there in some shape or form.

So something else new to learn! Watch this space...

Old Bear