The Monkey King

My Next Car

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 19:41:42 GMT

I've been idly dreaming about a new car lately. Maybe a diesel VW, a hybrid Honda, or an all-electric like the Zap Xebra or the GM Volt.

But I may have found a new contender in a Steam Car With 360 HP. Oh yeah baby.

Muppets Rule All Media

Fri, 20 Jun 2008 23:25:42 GMT

Man, some days the muppet goodness just rolls across the screen. First off, the Colbert Report hosts Cookie Monster to talk about his flip-flops on nutrition.

Then, the Muppet Wiki.

Emerson Said

Mon, 02 Jun 2008 05:35:35 GMT

It is a happy talent to know how to play.

Can't Sleep

Sat, 24 May 2008 08:03:20 GMT

So wound up from a long week that there's no way I can sleep. Some tea and sleepy music, maybe.

Life in the Slow Lane

Tue, 20 May 2008 02:28:12 GMT

Rode in today, because it was perfect biking weather, and learned that the biking season has truly begun. How do I know? I was passed on the uphill by not 1, not 2, but three cyclists all burning up the hill.

I was content to continue in low gear up and up. I save my strength for the downhills.

Kobold RSS

Thu, 08 May 2008 00:11:30 GMT

Trapspringers and tinkerers rejoice, there is now an RSS feed for the Kobold Quarterly blog, at http://syndicated.livejournal.com/kqrss/.

Two Wheel Flying

Tue, 06 May 2008 00:05:22 GMT

Rode the bike in this morning. Am now contemplating the shocking notion that I will need to ride it back.

Still hoping to buy an ordinary, aka penny farthing. I'm getting one of those or a tattoo when I finish Tales of Zobeck. Considering that a penny farthing replica costs $2500 (the brass plating is not optional for me), I'm thinking the tattoo is more likely.

Arts and Letters

Sun, 04 May 2008 03:58:36 GMT

For a writer, I don't actually write much. I type all day, but the physical act of writing words on paper, with ink, is one that is mostly reserved for checks and birthday cards.

Today was a notable exception. I attended a calligrapher's conference with my lovely bride, and we hung out with the writerly set. These are people who spend on pens, paper, and ink the kind of money I reserve for software or game supplements. I fell prey to a book called Fraktur Mon Amour (glorious blackletter!). shellyinseattle found pen nibs and materials obscure to me, and explained some of the basics. I was among an almost entirely female subculture, but a very friendly and literate one.

And I had a great time, because I got to participate in three mini-workshops, each about 2 hours long.

Bamboo Pen: The bamboo pen wrote the Torah, the Bible, the Koran, Sanskrit verse, and Roman records. It is still in wide use among Islamic calligraphers and a few canny Westerners. Take a big knife and a small piece of bamboo, file it to a chisel point, and you have a writing instrument that will outlast any quill and draw a sharper line than any bamboo brush. I enjoyed both making a tool and working with it, and I'm delighted that my bamboo pen writes REALLY BIG. Letters inches high are pretty good.
Biggest surprise for me with this pen was how smooth it was, and how it seemed to improve my usually crummy scrawl. While writers do obsess over pens and keyboards and notebooks, your tools do matter. And it's just fun to write with real ink instead of some miserable, soul-sucking ballpoint piece of junk.
Oh, and I got to handle a functional quill pen. It had been tricked out with a modern grip and speedball-style reservoir, but even a hot-rodded quill is a feather at heart.
Gold and Gilt: There's something about letters written in gold that elevates them above the run of common language. I've always wanted to have a book or text of mine illuminated, but, well, it's out of fashion. Now I know how to do it myself. Real gold is yours for the asking; working with it is .... easy to explain, but hard to master. I managed to gild a chocolate for Shelly without difficulty. Gilding wood was much more difficult, and gilding paper was even trickier (and can be done in at least three or four ways, depending on your style of adhesive).
The thing about the gold is that it does shine in a way that is impossible to scan or photograph well. In person, it is pure light and reflection, but capturing it kills the joy in it. I can see myself working up a capital or two, but it annoys me that I could not share it.
Seals and Wax: I have always love cylinder seals and way, ever since I took away a reproduction Babylonian cyclinder seal from the Field Museum as a young lad. I never quite got it to work with traditional sealing wax (which is brittle and hard to work with). This class let me play with fire, blowtorches, proper modern waxes, and a wild array of seals, from Hadrian to Aphrodite to beautiful letters, birds, skulls, and wolves rampant. The wax smells great when it chars, and I have a sense of what might work with props or my own correspondence. It doesn't take much practice ot make these work.
I think I could spend a lot of money on antique signet rings, seals, and the like. They certainly provide a deep satisfaction to finishing a piece or letter. "I have written, and now I have sealed it, and it is done." Yeah, if I could put a seal on email, I totally would.

I'm not sure any of this makes me a better writer of prose. But it might make my letters, cards, and contracts more interesting in the mail. Lots of fun to make things with substance, color, and heft when so much of a writer's life is pixels and bits. Oh, someday I shall have my own scriptorium, and my inks shall be lapis lazuli, oak gall, and madder rose.

Great News for Cellulosic Ethanol

Fri, 25 Apr 2008 17:31:39 GMT

Sometimes, a research result promises a lot for the future. This one, about cyanobacteria that produce glucose which can be continuously harvested from a saltwater-fed solution, made my day.

If it scales up (and it's a big if), give Prof. Brown his Nobel prize now. And hurray for the University of Texas.

Origins Nominations

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 07:05:22 GMT

My Polish is rusty, but this year's Origins Award ~~nominations~~ semi-finalist list appear to be loose on the Web. Maybe this was announced earlier, but without seeing the form in Dragon, I was bound to miss it.

I'm nominated as an editor for the first time in my life, for Kobold Quarterly. I'm in truly astounding company in the Non-Fiction category, with James Lowder for Hobby Games: the 100 Best!, with Robin Laws for 40 Years of Gen Con., and with many other worthies. Mr. Lowder pulls a nice trick by also being nominated as an editor in the Fiction category.

In the RPG category, I'm happy to see both aaronace's Suzerain and freeportpirate's Guide to Freeport, plus Ed Greenwood's Castlemourn and Paizo's Rise of the Runelords... And the Traditional Card Game category seems full of greatness. Well, it really was a good year, wasn't it?

Congrats to all the ~~nominees~~semi-finalists!

Miniature Or Miniatures Line

Alien Invasion
Brigade Games

DAG1039 Forsaken Deathstryke, Banger
Dark Age Games

DAG1033 Forsaken Lucky
Dark Age Games

DAG3025 Skarrd Raze #2
Dark Age Games

DAG4010 Brood Mandible
Dark Age Games

DAG1032 Forsaken Hephzibah
Dark Age Games

George R.R. Martin Masterworks - Premium Miniature Line
Dark Sword Miniatures, Inc.

Titanius Fury
Dragonfire Laser Crafts Inc.

Bronzeback Titan, HORDES: Evolution Miniatures Line !
Privateer Press

Dark Heaven Legends Fantasy Miniatures
Reaper Miniatures

Miniatures Rules

Classic Battletech
Catalyst Game Labs

Dark Age: Essence
Dark Age Games

Saganami Island Tactical Simulator
Ad Astra Games

Forces of WARMACHINE: Pirates of the Broken Coast
Privateer Press

AT-43
Rackham

AE-WWII Core Rule Book
Darkson Designs

Song of Blades and Heroes
Andrea Sfiligoi

Frontiers
Asmodee

Babylon 5: A Call to Arms Second Edition
Mongoose Publishing

Rezolution: Outbreak
Aberrant Games

Publication, Fiction

Astounding Hero Tales
Hero Games
Edited by James Lowder

Dragons of the Highlord Skies
Wizards of the Coast
Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman

Duty Calls
Games Workshop
Sandy Mitchell

Fire at Will
R! oc
Blaine Lee Pardoe

Flight From the Dark
Mongo ose Publishing
Joe Dever

Frontier Cthulhu
Chaosium
Edited by William Jones

The Orc King
Wizards of the Coast
R.A. Salvatore

Ravenor Rogue
Games Workshop
Dan Abnett

“The Shae Mutiny,” (from No Quarter #11)
Privateer Press
Doug Seacat

The Time Curse
Margaret Weis Productions
James M. Ward

Publication, Non-fiction

40 Years of Gen Con
Atlas Games
Robin D. Laws

The Art of Warhammer
Games Workshop
Edited by Marc Gascoigne and Nick Kyme

Battlegames Magazine
Battlegames, Ltd.
Edited by Henry Hyde

Confessions of a Part-Time Sorceress: A Girl’s Guide to the Dungeons & Dragons Game
Wizards of the Coast
Shelly Mazzanoble

Grand History of the Realms
Wizards of the Coast
Brian R. James and Ed Greenwood

Hobby Games: The 100 Best!
Green Ronin
Edited by James Lowder

Kobold Quarterly magazine
Open Design
Edited by Wolfgang Baur

No Quarter Magazine
Privateer Press
Nathan Letsinger, editor-in-chief; Eric Cagle, editor; Josh Manderville, art director

Polymancer Magazine
Polymancer Studios
Edited by Andrew Bernstein

Second Person: Role-Playing and Story in Games and Playable Media
MIT Press
Edited by Pat Harrigan and Noah Waldrip-Fruin

Roleplaying Game

Grimm
Fantasy Flight Games

The Savage World of Solomon Kane
Great White Games/Pinnacle Entertainment Group

CthulhuTech
Mongoose Publishing
Matthew Grau and Fraser McKay

Star Wars Saga Edition
Wizards of the Coast
Owen K.C. Stephens and Rodney Thompson

Witch Hunter: The Invisible World
Paradigm Concepts
Henry Lopez and Erik Weiner

Battlestar Galactica
Margaret Weis Productions
Jamie Chambe rs

Suzerain
Talisman Studios
Miles M. Kantir and Zach Welhouse

Faery’s Tale Deluxe
Firefly Games
Patrick Sweeney, Sandy Antunes, Christina Stiles, and Robin D. Laws

Colonial Gothic
Rogue Games
Richard Iorio II and Monica Valentinelli

Comix the RPG
Shiny Red Button Games

Roleplaying Game Supplement

Legend of the Five Rings: Emerald Empire
Alderac Entertainment Group
Shawn Carman, Richard Farrese, Douglas Sun and Brian Yoon

Pirate’s Guide to Freeport
Green Ronin
Chris Pramas, Robert J. Schwalb, and Patrick O’Duffy

Shaintar: Immortal Legends
Talisman Studios
Sean Patrick Fannon, Aaron Rosenberg, and Chrystyne Novack

Castlemourn
Margaret Weis Productions
Ed Greenwood

Delta Green: Eyes Only
Pagan Publishing
Dennis Detwiller, Adam S! cott Glancy and Shane Ivey

Pathfinder: Rise of the Runelords
Paizo Publishing
James Jacobs and Wayne Reynolds

Ruins of the Wild: Dungeon Tiles 4
Wizards of the Coast
Bruce R. Cordell

Autumn Arbor Campaign Setting
Arbor Productions
Lee F. Szczepanik Jr, Erin Szczepanik, Anna Lunsford, Mordechai Luchinsky and Michael Kuhn

Codex Arcanis
Paradigm Concepts
Team Paradigm

Ars Magica: Societates: House of Hermes
Atlas Games
Erik Dahl, Timothy Ferguson, Andrew Gronsky, John Post, Mark Shirley, and Nick Simmonds

Game Support

Dungeon Life: Bendy Walls
Z-Man Publishing

Gamemastery Flip Mat: Tavern
Paizo Publishing

Crystalline Counters
Three Sages Games

Hollow Earth Expedition GM Screen
Exile Game Studio

Dr. Wizard’s Patented Elevation Indicator
Stratus Artworks

Call Of Cthulhu Dice Set
Q-Workshop

Check Your Six! Flight Stands
Noble Miniatures

The Chronicles of Ramlar - Originsl Soundtrack
Bailey Records

Bleach Trading Card Game Metal Deck Box
Score Entertainment

Collectible Card Game

Bleach
Score Entertainment
Aik Tongtharadol (lead designer), William Harper (rules editor)

Legend of the Five Rings
Alderac Entertainment Group
Mark Wootton (lead designer), Charles Urbach (cover artist)

The Spoils
Tenacious Games, Inc.
Josh Lytle (lead designer), Patrick Meehan (lead artist)

Stargate TCG Online - Base Set
Comic Images
Evan Lorentz, Paul Dennen, Chuck Kallenbach, Scott Martins, Chris Woods(game design); Steve Thoma, Colton Hoerner (graphic designers)

Board Game Or Expansion

Pillars of the Earth
Mayfair Games
Michael Rieneck and Stefan Stadler

Kingsburg
Elfin Werks
Andrea Chiarvesio and Luca Iennaco
!
Qwirkle
Mindware
Susan McKiney Ross

StarCraft: The Board Game
Fantasy Flight Games
Corey Konieczka and Christian Petersen

Last Night on Earth, The Zombie Game
Flying Frog Productions
Jason Hill

Chang Cheng
Teknigames
Walter Obert

AmuseAmaze
HL Games USA Limited
Ethan Goffman

Battue: Storm of the Horse Lords
Red Juggernaut
Jim Long

HeroCard Orc Wars
TableStar Games
Nico Carroll

THUGS!
Tiny Mantis Entertainment
Nik Mikros and T. W. Cooney

Traditional Card Game Or Expansion

Walk the Plank
Green Ronin Publishing
Brian Hess and Evan Sass

Before the Wind
Mayfair Games
Torsten Lansbogt

Escalation
Z-Man Games
Reiner Knitzia

Lifeboat
Gorilla Games
Jeff Siadek

Cutthroat Caverns
Smirk and Dagger Games
Curt Cove! rt

Bankruptcy
Tangent Games
Geoff Habiger and Coy Kaissee

You Don’t Have More Cows
Fuller Flippers
Dane Fuller

Zombie Fluxx
Looney Labs
Andrew Looney

Infernal Contraption
Privateer Press
Matt Wilson, Jason Soles, Kevin Clark, Erik Breidenstein

Minions
Cloud Kingdom Games
Rick Smith

My Los Angeles Gallery Awaits

Fri, 18 Apr 2008 17:49:10 GMT

My artistic double life, exposed at last.

And the spelling is so.... close.

Alas, I Follow the Mob

Fri, 11 Apr 2008 22:03:48 GMT

I've created a twitter account: monkeyking.

Lord Byron Said

Wed, 09 Apr 2008 20:54:26 GMT

Men become wolves on every slight occasion.

Back to the Trees

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 18:40:06 GMT

Thank you to everyone who sent me the assault with a deadly hedgehog story. I'm glad the assailant is being charged and may do time.

But the animal story I really like today is about the Squirrelman and his treehouse. Very sad news, but a well-done bit of human interest reporting.

The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate

Fri, 28 Mar 2008 04:15:51 GMT

If you love the Arabian Nights, you should check out Ted Chiang's wonderful short story, "The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate", posted as a freebie at F&SF.

My Inner Voice Says BWA-HA HA!

Sat, 22 Mar 2008 02:34:24 GMT

So I've a had week of dead batteries, crippling flu, and nightmarish whiplash projects at the day job. This makes for a Cranky Monkey King.

Fortunately, this is also the week that my copy of My Life With Master by Paul Czege arrived. I read it in a single sitting, and I'm itchy to play.

It's an indie RPG of the kind that my old buddy Lester Smith once brought into the TSR office on a regular basis. In other words, normally I wouldn't have dug this one up (my FLGS takes few flyers on indie games), but hey, I had been hearing about it for years on the grapevine. Then BoingBoing plugged it, and whaddya know, it's amazing. I'll save the full report for after a game session, but let's just say that it reminds me of The Whispering Vault in the best possible way.

I am halfway to finding my top hat, brass goggles, and frock coat, just so I can run a manical session or three of this game. Why? Well, there's all the edition-zealot noise in D&D-land for the last few months (and the prospect of more to come), and there's my sad ponderings on whether the GSL will be released before GAMA. Combined, they put me in a generally foul mood about traditional heavy-tome, wargaming-derived RPGs. A little character-heavy, scene-chewing hilarity might be just what the doctor ordered to inject some fun into the genre.

And if that works out as planned, I think I may just go pick up Bacchanal next. These indie games are tasty, like thin mints.

Wayfaring Paladins

Tue, 18 Mar 2008 05:21:25 GMT

It's been one of those days that started with a dead battery. Not me, dragging myself out of bed for coffee: a literal dead battery in the car. As it turns out, you need to replace those suckers every 80K miles or so.

I knocked on some neighbor's doors, but they were all gone to work already, so I called the roadside assistance folks. They sent a freaking Paladin. I kid you not, Paladin Roadside Assistance showed up, namely a smart fellow named Tom who does what the tow companies do, but better and cheaper. He doesn't tow anyone, just does tires and batteries. He arrived BEFORE the confirmation call from the dispatcher came through. I'd link his site, if he had one.

I loved getting the dispatcher call telling me he'd be there in 15 minutes when the Paladin was already there, cables hooked up. Awesome.

shellyinseattle got us a new battery not long after that. But really, how often can you rave about a tow company like this?

Great name, too.

Return'd from the Sandwich Isles

Tue, 11 Mar 2008 03:51:11 GMT

I'm back from vacation, and everything around Seattle seems oddly grey and dark (including the citizenry).

Who painted the place gloomy while I was gone? Put it back the way it was, people.

I got a phone call on March 4th informing me that Mr. Gygax had passed away, which certainly made me think about his great creative endeavor, D&D. I never met the man (and now, sadly, never will), but he influenced my life hugely, even in the echoes and whispers that were all I knew about him in the TSR days, long after he had left the company. He was a presence and a True Name and (by all accounts) a character.

And yet time does its dirty work constantly and inexorably. Together with the loss of Dave Sutherland last year, I get the sense that the first generation of RPG greats is reaching a certain age. I feel this loss distinctly; the founder is gone: now what? I may need to send Dave Arneson a "thank you for inventing RPGs" while I still can.

In the chattering spaces, though, life goes on. John Wick made some very astute comments on what makes an RPG and tells the story of his own brush with Mr. Gygax. Chris Pramas gives his take on what 4E design really reminds him of (hint: MtG).

I'm particularly taken with Wick's assertion that 4E will be a boardgame rather than an RPG. It certainly continues the movement back toward wargaming that D&D took in some iterations of 3E, and the emphasis on using miniatures and so forth. Maybe it really IS time for me to run Ars Magica instead. Interestingly, Mr. Gygax disagreed with this view of games as storytelling, by the way, a point repeated in the excellent Wired magazine article about him.

Assume for sanity's sake that I haven't heard anything much from LJ or the media in the past couple weeks, if it didn't involve a phone call around dawn. What did I miss?

Snorkeling and Funky Foodstuffs

Tue, 04 Mar 2008 07:09:59 GMT

I've done no diving since the last report, but lots of snorkeling, both at Kapoho Kai (an abandoned set of royal fishponds) and at Muhakona (an abandoned sugar company harbor). I've seen needlefish, more trumpetfish, Hawaiian skipperjacks, rockfish, and a bunch of species I can't identify. The one with black flapping "wings" was really odd, like a Babylon 5 ship design. Yes, I am geeky enough to compare tropical fish to SF series. Plus some HUGE Moorish idols, and sunken tires, harbor chains and a bit of a shipwreck.

I've also sampled more of the weird foods around here: Poha berries (think gooseberries that mated with, oh, kumquats or something), kava (a sedative drink made from a local tuber that tastes terrible, but is very calming indeed), and durian fruit ice cream (amazingly great, with lots of umaa and a strangely savory sweetness). And the fish continues to be fresh and great, except for the sushi, which is better in Seattle.

Can't have everything. More later.

The Shore Dive

Sat, 01 Mar 2008 20:38:18 GMT

I did some snorkeling and then another scuba dive. This one was a shore dive rather than a boat dive. The downside of a shore dive is that you have to carry your tanks from a truck down to the shore and into the water. Worse, you carry them up after a longish swim. The upside is that you get down to depth more slowly as you follow the seabed down, and my ears didn't suffer at all while equalizing.

The dive did start oddly, with us in freshwater springs that made for a halocline. The resulting lack of visibility resembled turbulence, but it was just the mixing of salt and fresh.

And in my case, you dive within a few hundred yards of a mother whale and her calf. Visibility was about 60 feet, so we didn't see them underwater, but I heard the mother and calf singing and speaking the whole time I was underwater. It's an unmistakable sound, and made a heck of a soundtrack for diving.

Recent sea life spotted: a swarm of needlefish, a trumpetfish, a razor fish, nine sea turtles, and the usual assortment of colorful stripes and spots, including the reef trigger fish. The razor fish is an odd one, apparently a very rare breed, with a sort of horn or lure projecting from its forehead. The other divers were very excited by this one, but I didn't know what all the fuss was about until we got to the surface.

My Ears Have Been Through a Lot Today

Sun, 24 Feb 2008 06:16:17 GMT

Today was one of those days that's all about the ears. I got up, went down the mountain to the harbor, got on the boat, and headed out for my first scuba dive.

As it turns out, I'm one of those divers who gets a sharp stabbing pain in the ear on the descent, so I was slow getting down to depth (in this case, about 40 feet underwater). Once there, though, I enjoyed myself throughly. I saw some dragon wrasse, two white-tipped reef sharks, a nudibranch, a luminescent flatworm, a porcupine fish, a peacock grouper, and swarms of other fish. I got comfortable with the idea of breathing underwater, and got used to the way the currents work along the formations, and the idea of changing one's buoyancy by breathing correctly.

Of course, no one tells you just how LOUD air bubbles can be underwater, rippling past your ears. Or the fact that whale song is audible underwater, as long as you aren't breathing too deeply at the time.

The second dive was even better than the first, and over much too quickly. On the way back up, my ears were fine right until I got to the surface, when everything sounded muffled for a while.

Does the sea call to me? Well, it's very different from snorkeling, as you just aren't worried about air in the same way, and you can reach sea life that is inaccessible to the casual snorkeler.

In other words, I'll be going back, ears be damned.

Machiavelli Said

Sun, 17 Feb 2008 17:59:07 GMT

It must be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to plan, more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to management than the creation of a new system. For the initiator has the enmity of all who would profit by the preservation of the old institution and merely lukewarm defenders in those who gain by the new ones.

Paperwork

Wed, 13 Feb 2008 20:19:07 GMT

If someone had told me about the sheer volume of paperwork involved in a publishing enterprise, I might have thought twice. Licenses, taxes, contracts, schedules, invoices, A/P, and A/R: no one loves this stuff, exactly, but it's vital if even a wee little hobby publication is to survive and prosper. So, I'm learning to loves the paperwork. Ugh.

To compensate, I'm enjoying the simple pleasures of editing, and even more so the joy of working with communal enterprises (as discussed today on the Technium). Kevin Kelly has thought through many of the issues that Wikipedia encounters, and that smaller hiveminds like Open Design run into all the time. Recommended.

Cover song of the week: Ooedo no Hikeshi, a composition by Deepu Purpru (hat tip: scarlettina).

My Second Life at Wordsmith Hall

Sun, 03 Feb 2008 21:24:33 GMT

It's Superbowl Sunday, so I will naturally have an appearance today at 3:30 at Wordsmith Hall in Second Life. It's essentially a chat forum about writing and game design, and anyone can attend online.

What is Second Life?
Second Life is a 3-D virtual world entirely created by its residents. One of those residents is Michael A. Stackpole. He hosts writing groups and other events at ThirdLife Books and Wordsmith Hall.

What is ThirdLife Books?
ThirdLifeBooks is the hub of a community of like-minded individual interested increativity and exploring their full potential across a variety of mediaand areas of interest. It's a home for readers of fantastic fiction,for writers both beginning and accomplished, gamers, podcasters and anyone else who enjoys intellectual stimulation, is curious and just enjoys hanging out with a lively group of their peers. ThirdLife offers classes, writers' groups, contests, meet the author events, and other reasons to get together.

How to attend.
If you would like to attend this event, sign up for a free account at Second Life, then download and install the SL software on your computer. Once you have an account, fire up the software and click on this link, and you will be taken to the castle.

Everyone attending this event will have the opportunity to join the Second Life Kobold Army, and receive a special (FREE) t-shirt only available during the event.

Hood Ornament

Sat, 02 Feb 2008 22:34:15 GMT

My favorite hood ornament, ever.

Too bad about the price.