The last few months have been busy ones, full of demos, readings, and radio appearances. The new year will bring a lot more events, so come visit us at demos and check out Leigh Grossman’s new fantasy novel, The Green Lion and The Golden Thorns.

Wildside Overseas!
In January Leigh will be in the Philippines, and he’ll be running a Wildside demo on January 12 from 3:00 to midnight at Residencia 8888, Pearl Drive, Ortigas Center, Pasig. There is a thriving metro Manila gaming community, and Wildside gamers should feel free to drop by their terrific website and chat a bit about Wildside gaming experiences. Look for plenty of pictures on the WildsideGame website after the trip.

Conventions.
On December 14-16, Leigh and a group of volunteers ran a series of continuous demos at Anonycon, a small gaming convention in Stamford, Connecticut. Friday night featured Myke’s perennial favorite “Genie Island,” as well as late-night mayhem in the form of Frank M’s “Wildside: Zombie Apocalypse.” (You can find material from both on the Downloads section of the Wildside Game site.) On Saturday, Leigh ran a surreal adventure set in a bureaucracy-heavy world where the gods not only walk the earth, but they constantly try to convince people to switch gods, like long-distance companies do in our world. Sunday saw more silliness, more zombie killing, and a generally fun time. If you’d like to see pictures from Anonycon, visit the Wildside Game events page, or click here.

Because of the Philippines trip, Leigh will most likely not be at Boskone this year (except maybe a flying visit on Saturday), so the next chance to see him at a convention will be at Lunacon in March. Since Leigh has turned over the programming reins to longtime Wildsidegamer Nuance Shaffer this year, he’ll be able to relax a bit more at this year’s con than over the past five years. Apparently word is getting out about some of the Swordsmith parties over the years, though.

If you’d like to volunteer to help run Wildside at a convention we’ll be attending, let us know. For that matter, let us know if you’ll be running Wildside at a convention we’re not attending, so we can list you on our events page.

Demos.
There was a crowd for both demos held at Matt’s Sportscards and Comics in Enfield, Connecticut in October and November, with two games running at once part of the time. (The gaming room at the back of Matt’s always seems to be hopping.) Some repeat visitors got a chance to roll up new characters and experiment with different skills and character traits, while others got to play the same character in multiple demos (and multiple worlds). Thanks to Daniel, Rob, Krissy, Sean, Jess, Katie, John, Kelsey, Lara, Brian, Sam, Zach, Michael, and all the others who stopped by, and we hope to see you again soon.

Dragon’s Lair, in West Springfield, Massachusetts, also hosted two demo. Jessica O, Katie R, Krissy D, and other friends who stopped by at the second demo got a chance to play in a world created by David B, a GM in training. Much like the Wildside system, Dragon’s Lair is a welcoming retreat into old-style gaming, with lots of gaming space and regular groups.

You can see pictures of some of the Fall demos here.

As always, check the Wildside events page for updated listings, or if you use Google Calender, search for “Wildside Game” to view or add our calendar of events. If you’d like to learn the game better, get your copy autographed by the author, or just drop by to say hello, feel free to come by.

Comings and Goings.
Fall intern Jessica O’Neil was terrific at organizing demos and the office in general, and helped keep everyone sane during a stressful semester. She will be missed (although she’s planning to make appearances at some demos and at Lunacon), but new interns Ricky Coughlin and Kim Lawson will be providing their own energy and expertise to the Swordsmith office.

Other appearances.
Leigh’s of The Green Lion at Southbridge Library in December was snowed out, and has been rescheduled for Monday, March 3 at 6:30 p.m. If you haven’t been to the readings yet, you should go to this one. Hear a preview of the exciting coming-of-age fantasy novel, and get your copy autographed by the author.

New things on the website.
More than a hundred new spells have been added to the free downloads section of the website, as well as to the searchable spell database. Also new in the downloads section are an expanded psi table and instructions for running former intern Frank Mohr’s hybrid Wildside: Zombie Apocalypse adventure.

New books.
Koboldly Where Gnome Has Gone Before and Crusade of Kings are both being edited now and will be available in February or March. (Wildside’s publisher is adding a new distributor and the titles will be released as soon as that is finalized. Of course, they’ll be available through the current distributors as well.) Koboldly, by longtime West Coast Wildside gamer Robert Altomare, is a pun-filled romp of an adventure suitable for convention play or folks new to Wildside, while Crusade of Kings is a rich campaign resource for GMs interested in building a setting based on the first three Crusades. Crusades author R. Scott Peoples is a Colorado historian best known for his popular weekly history column that appears on the DailyKos website.

Publishing and teaching.
While Leigh’s series of essays on publishing hasn’t been added to in a while, there are several new entries in the works now that some of the fall’s crazy deadlines have passed. He’s also teaching the book publishing class at UConn again this spring, along with his course in science fiction literature. The SF course will be repeated online over the summer; next fall Leigh will be teaching fantasy and writing.

Pointless cat digression.
Leigh’s agent, Val Smith, recently acquired adorable kittens, and all of her clients have been sent hopelessly cute pictures. All together now...awwwww.

Other demos and workshops.
We mostly run demos in the Northeast, but occasionally wander elsewhere as travel schedules permit. If you’d like to see a Wildside demo at your local store, drop us a line and we’ll see what we can do. We look for about 10 players - enough to run two games - at demos. And obviously the stores are happier if some of you show them some love by buying Wildside books. Occasionally we run full-day demos for specific groups that want to learn the game. (These demos are closed to the public and not listed on the events page.) Usually we do them here in northeast Connecticut. We’re looking at starting a series of all-day workshops for Wildside GMs, also here in Connecticut. If you’re interested in participating, drop us an email for more details.

Thanks for reading, and Happy New Year.
Feel free to pass this on, and we hope to see you at a signing, demo, convention, or other event soon.