Nebulith and Red & Pleasant Land Are Now Available in the US, Happy Halloween

Here is the Nebulith in the US webstore. 

And Red & Pleasant Land is here.

You Can Now Order Nebulith & Red & Pleasant Land

Here's a flip-thru of Nebulith, my new Far Eastern book.

The books are available here. The Nebulith seems to disappear at about a rate of one an hour so at the current rate they'll be gone long before Halloween, much less Christmas, so if you're thinking "I'm eventually gonna get one no matter what" probably sooner's better than later.

Everyone who has seen it (including at least three people who hate nerd stuff and don't know what it is) is like "God damn that's a nice book". Judging from the fate of all my previous RPG books, it would probably win some Ennies if it wasn't now against the rules for me to win one.

Red & Pleasant Land is also being reprinted now, available here, thanks to Molly Scanlon at Fierce Ponies.

Frostbitten & Mutilated, is still available here.

Also, some people do not know Maze of the Blue Medusa is still available here.

And Demon City, the best horror game ever written, is here. Here is a long review of it.

The 500-page Compendium is no longer available and never will be, unless you go to some extraordinary lengths. Email me--zakzsmith AT hawtmayle dawt clam--if you want to be assigned an epic quest.

Life here still completely sucks as a result of the ongoing smear campaign. The best thing to do to help is, instead of buying any of these books, get on the internet, go places you don't want to go, and fact-check a bunch of shitty people you don't want to talk to. But most people would rather spend money than do that, so ok.

Bye.

We Talk About Carcosa, Realms of Chaos, Book Design, Record Collecting and more

James Edward Raggi IV, owner of Lamentations of the Flame Princess and I made a video--the second episode of "Educating James"--we start out talking about the relationship between his record collector mentality and the design of LotFP books and move on to talk about a bunch of other game and game-adjacent things.

00:00 Intro 00:46 James’ Record Collector Rant 04:17 Vornheim As Zine 06:08 James Vs The Human Race 11:04 On Fancy Game Books (including Carcosa) 17:05 Zak’s Favorite Fancy Books (Including Realms of Chaos and Mayfair’s DC Heroes) 23:38 On Book/Product Design (including Nebulith, the LotFP core book, Vampire: The Masquerade, Deities and Demigods, AD&D Dungeon Master’s Guide) 33:50 Design and Characters (including Seclusium of Orphone) 41:16 Vibes 44:34 James Talking About Vinyl 46:07 More Book Design (including Outcast Silver Raiders) 47:59 Fascination (including Warhammer Fantasy and TSR UK) 50:43 Keep on the Borderlands modules 54:26 The Hobbit Movies 58:00 The One Thing James Hates (more about record collecting--and tunnels) 1:00:53 Coda (including Akira Kurosawa’s Ran)

The next episode will be spicy--we argue about free speech.

HP Lovecraft, Racism, and Educating James--New Video

A new webseries (?)

Zak and James attempt to discuss Lovecraft and racism, while also bringing up: Jordan Peele, Lovecraft Country, Kingdom Death, Alien, Jaws, nerdy introversion, Taxi Driver, James’ Lovecraft-movie picks, Blue Velvet, James’ fear of stuffed animals and the sea, turn-of-the-century WASP atheism, avant-garde fiction and band-aids, amateur press associations, PG Wodehouse, Bertrand Russell on romanticism and Hitler, deer are scary, a plot hole in Lost Boys, X-Men vs Dracula and more

The Demon City Hardcover Is Now Available To Everyone

You can get your copy of Demon City, the world's best horror RPG here.

Also there are currently two adventures available for 20$ each on pdf--email zakzsmith AT hawtmayle dawt calm for those.

For more info on the game, check out this tag.

Frequently Asked Questions About The Compendium

So lots of people have questions about the Compendium! Here's a newer flip-thru video:

 Here's the details of its contents.

Apparently many people are thrown by the fact this 400+ page book is free! And still available--but only until the end of the year.

Basically all you have to do is join a bunch of social media sites I describe and be active on them. You are under no obligation to talk about me or the book, just be there. (This detail seems often missed.) This helps there be a lower proportion of psychotic trash internet people in RPG spaces. Or, if you don't wanna, pay 1000$. (Some people did that.)

Email me for details: zakzsmith AT hawtmayle dawt calm

Many people (including some in charge of internet platforms named) had the appropriate response:

Many were shocked and alarmed that people wanted this book.

Adam Muszkiewicz asks:

No, Adam, if you don't wanna get on social media, the Compendium is 1000$, not 100$.

That's my VenMo, Adam

Also Adam, what does "subverting social media" mean? 

Will aka "Rivetgeek" asks:

Uh, Rivetgeek, California--where I live and have successfully sued--is noted for having particularly strong Anti-Slapp laws. It's the first state that comes up when you Google "strong anti-Slapp laws". Anti-Slapps have been brought against me and they lost because I am not Exxon and some gamer who lies about abuse in my field to my potential allies, business contacts and customers is not a random member of the public, they're committing textbook defamaton. Or, as they call it in the UK trade libel.

I've been a defamation plaintiff longer than I went to art school at this point. Don't play internet lawyer with me.

On Something Awful, Malcolm Sheppard asks his fellow goons:

They're....not getting paid Malcolm. And they don't have instructions to post anything other than whatever they want.

I am not sure you understand the concept of "obedience". You're such a rebel.

On the same site, Dwarf74 asks:

It says "I am very sure nobody is going to do Zak's posting obstacle course, because it's a whole lot of work, and it's all stupid".

Actually so far lots of people have. Enough that: 

After
(click to enlarge)

The folks who want The Compendium helped take this blank map and turn it into a crowdsourced dungeon on our discord. 

Before

Email me if you want it: zakzsmith AT hawtmayle dawt calm. We're working on a hexmap now.

And it's weird you call it an "obstacle course" because we all know guys like you are on this many sites and you post all the time.

Over at RPGGeek John Whyte asks:

He feels it is "highly unlikely 7 people paid 1000$ for a book". You're right, it is highly unlikely because it's now 10 people. Well, one is in the middle of Western Unioning and one is on the fence, so 8 officially.

John: if you want proof--please do ask! I am happy to provide it.

John Whyte also wanted the Case Number of the case where this happened to his fellow New Zealander:

It's Civ-2021-044-169 District Court North Shore Registry, John! Thanks for asking!

The other sleuths over at RPGGeek are also shocked to hear one of my friends who helped me check misinformation on their thread has the same IP address as me. I guess they don't know that in big cities lots of people have the same IP address and also: my players who hang out with me know about your smear campaign. You've been doing this for six years, John. They go to court and talk, under oath, about how you guys lie.  Of course they're gonna defend me online.

Claytonian asks:

Clay, I think you made a mistake, the Terrible Take contest was a contest--contests aren't mandatory! If you thought you had to enter, then I'm super sorry. Please contact the office for a free fruitcake.

As usual, the OSR Discord is an endless source of fascinating questions!

mtb asks:

"I am not sure why if you have non-psychotic trash internet people as fans you need to worry about other communities filled with psychotic trash internet people who are not your fans?"

mtb, the reason is just because you are not in a community doesn't mean they can't... I don't know, say, smear people outside their community on the Internet for example?

I would've thought that would be a pretty obvious reason to worry about said communities.

TDF Asks:

So TDF from the OSR Discord thinks Miss A is fake?

Dear TDF, it's Zak!

Hi! I can see you! You read my blog!

If you think she's fake: email me (zakzsmith AT hawtmayle dawt calm) and ask for proof! I can introduce you--I can, in fact, show you all our messages going back for years! I can show you pictures of her!

Please see a therapist.

Carson Asks:

Carson, what are you smoking? Cases? There's only one case where you cold have "read" anything in the public record about my personal life--and I won that one--the other two have no public documentation except:

and (most recently):

Bearer of a Demented Ass Asks:

Click to enlarge--its kinda long

and then asks...

So, this is your theory of what should happen:

1. When someone in your community lies on the internet, we should let that go

2. We keep letting it go so they eventually lie about something real important, like rape

3. You spread that lie all over the internet

4. Their victim loses everything because of the lie

5. The victim meekly accepts this, then begins a new life as a right-wing pundit 

6. If they don’t do that and instead point out that you lied and try to get their life back, you call them a narcissist

Go fuck yourself.

Hey everybody else: get a book.

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It Will Be Here, It Will Cost 0$, And Then It Will Be Gone Forever

The hardcover, full-color, 8.5x11", 400-page Compendium is now available. Until Jan 1. Then it's gone. And it costs 0$.

Fifteen years in the making, it includes:

-All of the illustrated Cube World material--fully re-designed to be easier to read, cross-referenced, with notes, including adventures in Voivodja, The Southern Daimyos, The Peacock Isles, Drownesia, Nephilidia and more.

-Dozens of pages of unpublished new material.

-The entire aborted Violence In the Nympharium scenario--re-laid out, redrawn, and deluxified

-An entire illustrated megadungeon--with dozens of levels--which my players have been in and out of for the last 2 years. Designed to be the be-all-end-all dungeon of its kind, with every kind of cool dungeon monster and environment represented in its dozens of levels.

-New completely crawlable maps of the chivalrous continent of Broceliande. Likewise--my players have been in and out of here for the last 2 years.

-Tools and tables to use all of this stuff.

That is--it basically has all the material for my campaign that isn't in another published book, everything in all the Cube World pdfs, and more.

Email me if you want it: zakzsmith AT hawtmayle dawt calm.

Also: The Cube World pdfs are no longer available (aside from the unillustrated utility ones like Book of Jerks)--all that material is now only available in the illustrated Compendium.

None of this will be on sale after January 1st.

And all you pirates--this will not be available as a pdf. It's available in this hardcover only.

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Hell Sent Me Back

I'm back publishing games with Lamentations of the Flame Princess. Details about all that here.

Right now there's an adventure available at Gen Con--In The Night Fortress. It is free at the LotFP table booth 2937.

I've playtested it a few times and I kinda love it, because it has a central problem to solve that can be got past socially, magically, with combat,  with trickery or a bunch of different ways, but is weird enough that it will probably require all three.

Y'know how the tooth-sacrifice door that James wrote in Death Frost Doom was cool because every time you ran it you were like "I wonder how they're gonna get a tooth..."--well this adventure is kind of all that way. Kinda accidentally. It's very much a "Oh how are they gonna do this?"adventure.

I am very happy with it.

Also it has cheetahs. They were fun to paint.

So, yeah, there will also be some new LotFP stuff from me. Big stuff? Yeah.

One more funny piece of news:

Remember Fiona Geist from Dr Weisman's article? The one who said in the audio that she wanted LotFP to go bankrupt and she'd buy it for pennies on the dollar and then had that whole rant about how her co-harasser was a jerk?

Well she just walked up to James and Gen Con and was like "Hi!". 

Not like "I'm so sorry I was in that whole hatemob and then admitted it on tape" just "Hi!".

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