[S&W] Black Blade Publishing to publish S&W Core

[tacojohn4547]

PRESS RELEASE

Black Blade Publishing to become Exclusive Publisher of the Swords & Wizardry Core Rules and Knockspell Magazine

October 27, 2009 – Mythmere Games, developer and publisher of the ENnie-award winning Swords & Wizardry fantasy role-playing game, is pleased to announce an exclusive agreement with Black Blade Publishing to publish the Swords & Wizardry Core Rules and Knockspell magazine, and to lead the charge to get Swords & Wizardry into retail distribution. The first print releases under this agreement will be a softcover version of the 124-page Swords & Wizardry Core Rulebook and Knockspell #3.

Working with Studio 2 Publishing as its distribution partner, Black Blade Publishing expects the Swords & Wizardry Core Rulebook to start hitting the shelves of brick and mortar game stores by February of 2010. In addition, the in-print version of the Swords & Wizardry Core Rulebook will be available for purchase directly from Black Blade Publishing or through select retailers by late-October, 2009.

Electronic copies of the Swords & Wizardry Core Rulebook will be available immediately directly from Black Blade Publishing, and will be available very soon directly from Studio 2 Publishing, DrivethruRPG, RPGNow and YourGamesNow.

Print versions of Knockspell #3 are available for purchase directly from Black Blade Publishing, and issue #4 may be distributed to stores around February of 2010, at the same time as the core rules.

Electronic copies of Knockspell #3 are now available from Black Blade Publishing, and will be available very soon directly from Studio 2 Publishing, DrivethruRPG, RPGNow or YourGamesNow.

“The Swords & Wizardry fantasy role-playing game is about a lot more than a return to the way these games used to be played. Swords & Wizardry unapologetically throws off 30 years of re-imagining and so-called ‘fixing’ of the original rules, returning to the wonder and mystery of “free-form” fantasy gaming without complicated rules and long rulebooks. Black Blade Publishing is very excited to be publishing the key Swords & Wizardry titles from Mythmere Games. The quality of new products being introduced in the old school gaming community is amazing, and we are really excited to be a part of it.” -- Jon Hershberger, co-founder of Black Blade Publishing

Founded in 2008 by Matthew J. Finch, Mythmere Games is best known for the Swords & Wizardry fantasy role-playing game, the award-winning retro-clone of the original 1974 edition of the world’s most popular fantasy game. For additional information, visit www.swordsandwizardry.com.

Formed in 2009 by Jon Hershberger and Allan Grohe, Black Blade Publishing will begin publishing the Swords & Wizardry Core Rulebook in October 2009 under license from Mythmere Games. For additional information, visit www.black-blade-publishing.com.

Studio 2 Publishing has been serving the games hobby industry since 2004, serving game designers and publishers as a sales and marketing organization as well as providing fulfillment and inventory management services. For additional information, visit www.studio2publishing.com.

[tacojohn4547]

Beginning Tuesday, October 27, and for the next week, all S&W pdfs available thru the Black Blade Publishing online store will be discounted 10% off.

[greyharp]

Bugger, I was too impatient. Shame about the time difference, I bought mine on the 27th, but that was the date in Australia, not the US, so I was day too early. Still at a cheap $4, who's complaining? Not me.

[Restless]

Heh, ditto here, but it's quibbling over pennies.

[Mike]

Just downloading The Iron God's Tomb now... Looks good.

[tacojohn4547]

Sales of Knockspell #3 continue to roll in and orders of the dead tree version are shipping. I still have a backlog of orders, but will likely be caught up by the weekend.

Sales of back issues of Knockspell (pdf version) also continue to roll in, which is suggestive of new readers since those first two issues have been out in circulation for a while.

Jon Hershberger
Black Blade Publishing

[Mr. Darke]

Any chance of the back issues seeing print?

[tacojohn4547]

Nov 15, 2009 0:45:29 GMT -6 Mr. Darke said:

Any chance of the back issues seeing print?

We're starting down this road, Julian. The KS 1 & 2 content is all there and the interior book formatting is still good, naturally. But we have to retoool the covers for commercial printing, and then sort the scheduling with our commercial printer. But these are being queued up for printing very soon.

[Mr. Darke]

Great news. Can I safely assume that we will see all that we have before in print at some time?

[tacojohn4547]

Dec 1, 2009 14:25:08 GMT -6 Mr. Darke said:

Great news. Can I safely assume that we will see all that we have before in print at some time?

Yeah, I'm pretty excited about the Knockspell back issues. We've received inquiries about those being available in print, and I convinced Matt to turn some of those files around this week (honestly, it wasn't too hard to convince him of that). Knockspell #1 pre-press files have been sent to the printer.

The other S&W print titles, like Eldritch Weirdness 3 to 1, City Encounters and Tomb of the Iron God, will be migrated off of Lulu and over to the Black Blade web store as time and capital ($$$) allow us to have print runs done.

Spire of Iron and Crystal has already been printed and is available through Black Blade. The print quality of the new printing of Spire is really very good.

The S&W Monster Book is another title Allan and I would like to see become available thru Black Blade. But, there are some other lingering questions about that book, such as how much more art is really needed and such, that need to be answered before that one will be coming out. But I think it's only a matter of time (and money, of course).

[Ghul]

John, there was a slight mess-up with myth's layout guy for issue #1, and our map and a few illustrations that were supposed to accompany _Charnel Crypt of the Sightless Serpent_ were inadvertently lost. If your plan calls for newly laying out these earlier issues, please let me know and I will forward you the map by Claren and a few illustrations by Baggley. Best of luck!

Cheers,
Jeff T.

[tacojohn4547]

Dec 5, 2009 18:13:53 GMT -6 Ghul said:

John, there was a slight mess-up with myth's layout guy for issue #1, and our map and a few illustrations that were supposed to accompany _Charnel Crypt of the Sightless Serpent_ were inadvertently lost. If your plan calls for newly laying out these earlier issues, please let me know and I will forward you the map by Claren and a few illustrations by Baggley. Best of luck!

Cheers,
Jeff T.

Hey Jeff,

Good to 'hear' from you, man. 'Been a while.

Regarding Knockspell #1 and 2 going 'back' into print, we aren't revisiting the layouts, other than to split off the covers from the interior booklet. Whereas Lulu reqired imbedded covers in their print-ready files, our current printers prefer to have the covers as separate files. So, we'll have to manage with your hand-drawn maps for Charnel Crypt of the Sightless Serpent for the time being.


Incidentally, when you get a chance, please email or PM me your mailing address. I have something to send to you. Think of it as an early Christmas present.

Jon "tacojohn" Hershberger

[Mr. Darke]

If I may offer my opionion on the Monster Book; I don't think much more art is needed. One thing I like about S&W is that it has been art-lite and content-heavy. Which is odd since I do find game art fun. But with S&W I find that less is better.