Gorefest Gazette Volume 1, Issue 1 Wednesday, Dec. 7, 2016 If you're reading this Wednesday night or Thursday, thanks a lot for staying on top of the news with a fresh, hot-off-the-press copy of the first Gorefest Gazette! If you're reading this on Friday or Saturday, that's good too! Thanks for checking! As a reward for being such great players, attached to this issue of the Gazette is a coupon redeemable for cold, hard gee pee. But, you've gotta act fast to claim your prize by logging into the game room and typing, "I'd buy that for a dollar!" If you do so before midnight Central Time on Thursday, you've got yourself some more jingle in your character's pocket: $100. Miss the first deadline? Don't worry, you can redeem this coupon for $50 before midnight on Friday, and $25 before Midnight, Saturday. Comments in the game room are time stamped, so we'll know when you made it. But that's not all! No, sir. The first two players to turn in their coupon will get a raffle ticket! What are we raffling? Oh, you're gonna dig it, but the details are still being finalized. Right now, all I can say is that it's going to be a totally rad piece or pieces of treasure. More will be revealed in upcoming issues of the Gorefest Gazette ! Without further ado, I'll sort some of the breaking news into "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly:" The Good Glad to see so many players so often in the game room recently! Feels like old times. During the course of the last few weeks, I've done a whole lot of planning, mapping, and creating NPC's, puzzles, traps and treasure. Last night, Chris pointed out that each of our standard combat encounters have usually taken us about one play session, while major battles have taken us roughly two. If that's true, the current dungeon—and you've all previewed its general layout—should take longer than 18 weeks. Yes, that's more than four and a half months and that doesn't count the inevitable breaks here and there. Since we're already starting very late, it may be our only dungeon this season. That's okay, though; it's large and diverse enough that it should keep everyone's interest! With all this advance planning, my sessions should be much more consistent. Since I can no longer plan before sessions very well as they are at noon rather than 5 p.m., this extensive preparation is essential to me being able to run good sessions. The down side for me is that there's so much I'm bursting to reveal, things like sinister monsters, the treacherous puzzle, and of course my artwork. I'm as anxious to play as anyone! The Bad Speaking of times and dates, this coming weekend I'm moving my girlfriend into my country house where I currently live. It's the fact that we have to do so around her work schedule and the city where she lives is almost two hours away that would have kept me from the table this coming Sunday, the 11th. Our newest member, Allen, joined with the express notice he would be gone either this weekend or next, I forget, but it doesn't matter as I am celebrating Christmas with her family in a city three hours away that Saturday and we're spending the night, so I'll be gone on the 18th. The Sunday after that is the 25th, Christmas, and I'm celebrating it with family here at home. The Sunday after that is January 1, New Years Day. I, for one, would like to be having a drunken good time! That all means we're looking at a mid-January 2017 beginning. Look for further details in upcoming Gazettes. Of course, the game room is always open and usually Chris and I are online. We seem to informally meet every Sunday at noon nowadays, and that's great! I really enjoy seeing everyone. Let's keep that up. Maybe we'll have a gladiator fight or two. Secretly, I hoped to start on Dec. 4, but we didn't have the players so that wasn't possible. Regardless, I was wary of breaking for two weeks due to Christmas and New Years after three only sessions. I know everyone is anxious to play! You can bet I am too! Thanks for your continued enthusiasm for Gorefest Dungeon! But, these things do take time. Planning and artwork for 18 weeks worth of five-hour dungeon delves takes a whole lot of work! The Ugly As of Monday, we now have a full roster and are no longer accepting new players. Here's the current list: Name Title Position Stripe Richard D. Sharpe Primary Game Master Dean of Players GM Chris D. Co-GM Dean of Characters Player—Legitimate Hobbes, human Holy Warrior Carnwennan Archie First Player Player—Elmer Rhubarb, half-elf Scout Luke C. Mascot Player—Zeth, human Swashbuckler (Proposed) Allen S. Probie Player—Razin D'Tor, human Cleric (Proposed) Naryar Frenchman Player—Merideth, high elf Wizard (Proposed) In other news, I'm working toward getting a monster compendium up in the forums and a list of hirelings from Dungeon Fantasy 15, Henchmen as well. Dungeon News Here's a preview of a room in the dungeon that I'm currently calling the "Cannibal Kitchen:" It, like every other room in the dungeon, is of course still a work in progress. I use GIMP , which is basically a free version of Photoshop, textures from around the Web, and objects usually from the Dundjinni forums to create my maps. Everything is to scale. That's not easy to accomplish on such a small resolution! One pixel equals almost two inches. I literally take a tape measure to similar things (furniture, bottles, doors and hallways, etc.) in my own house. On that front, I'm strongly considering buying about $25-$30 worth of Gabriel Pickard and David Hemenway's artwork to help me in my process. It will save me a lot of time and effort as well as make the dungeon look better. Previously, I commissioned a breathtaking map from Hemenway before the end of the first season. After spending more than an hour to cross the pit in the entryway, we never even got into the first doorway! It still has a purpose, but once again, I can't image we'll get to it this season. Thanks for reading! — Richard D. Sharpe
