In This Issue * Imagine Con 2000 * Lost Souls (Cthulhu Live) * Nemesis (Magic) * New stuff in our store * Spring contest * Writing for us

SKIRMISHER is going to Imagine Con!
It has been three long years since the Skirmisher staff has been to a convention, ever since that unfortunate episode at Magnum Opus Con, when one of our people went on a drunken rampage, collapsed under a decorative plant, and had to be delivered to his room on a luggage cart. So, it figures that we are really excited about Imagine Con 2000, a humongous four-day fantasy, science fiction, horror, comic, and toy convention that promises to be a fantastic event.

Imagine Con 2000 will be held April 20-23 at the Virginia Beach Pavilion in Virginia Beach, Virginia. This makes it pretty easy to get to for people in the Mid-Atlantic region, and a lot easier to get to for those of us on the East Coast than GenCon, the only thing we know of that might be bigger this year.

A lot of big names from the worlds of sci-fi and fantasy will be there, including artist Larry Elmore, special effects wizard Terrence "T-Man" Masson, Writer Kevin J. Anderson, and (best/worst of all) Dungeons & Dragons creator Gary Gygax.

Highlights of Imagine Con will include celebrity appearances, book signings by authors, "how-to" seminars, movie screenings, contests, a gaming competition with cool prizes, and more than 200 vendors of comics, fantasy, horror and sci-fi accessories, and toys.

Events will include the Imagine Con awards, where attendees get to pick the winners; an Independent Edge Films "Scream" Test conducted by award-winning film producer Michael D. Fox and his crew, the winner of which will be cast in an upcoming feature film (costumes encouraged!); an art show and print shop where people can show and sell their artwork or prints; seminars tailored to miniatures gamers and modelers; book and art signings; and auctions.
Gaming will also play an important role at the Con, as well it should. There will be special areas for roleplaying games, miniatures gaming, collectible card games, around-the-clock open gaming, computer gaming, and--increasingly omnipresent at conventions--a number of live- action roleplaying games (LARPS).

LARPS will be a big deal at Imagine Con and will include the largest Star Wars LARP ever, an obligatory Vampire LARP, and the piece-de-resistance, a mind-bending Cthulhu Live mega-event that will run over three full days for 24-hours a day and incorporate elements of the not-yet-released Lost Souls supplement (described below).

Other features will include live musical and theatrical performances; miniature painting, Lara Croft look-alike, quick draw comic sketch, best diorama, best new amateur game system, and masquerade contests; and two video rooms (running 24 hours a day, naturally), one dedicated solely to Japanese Anime' and the other running theme films on a daily basis (Horror on Thursday, Fantasy on Friday, and Sci-Fi on Saturday).

The Skirmisher staff will be running a booth, where we will be recruiting writers and selling vintage and hard-to-find games, and our editor-in-chief, Michael J. Varhola, will be speaking on a number of panels about author H.P. Lovecraft, demonstrating the Skirmish miniatures game system, and selling signed copies of his books.

To register for the convention, see its schedule of events, or get more information, check out the Imagine Con Website. Try to make it! And if you do, come by and talk to us at booth 627.

Cthulhu Live: Lost Souls
(Fantasy Flight Games, May 2000; by David Salmon, Robert McLaughlin, Eric Kesler, Steven Dustin, Peter Devlin, Christian Matzke)

Cthulhu Live, a live-action horror roleplaying game based on the works of the immortal H.P. Lovecraft, pits players against ancient evils from distant stars and extra-dimensional space who hunger for the souls and life energy of our fragile Earth. An addictive work of interactive fiction, Cthulhu Live is now in its second edition and has grown into an international network of fans of Lovecraft horror and live-action roleplaying.

The second sourcebook for Cthulhu Live, Lost Souls takes the game into new depths of nightmare. Expanding the revenant character concept introduced in Cthulhu Live: Shades of Gray, the Lost Souls supplement focuses on the ongoing struggle between light and darkness within every human soul. Dozens of depraved cults and veiled societies are detailed for roleplaying, including traditional favorites from Lovecraft's fiction as well as many new sects and organizations. Player characters may opt to be willing servants of the Great Old Ones, searching for personal power or abjectly worshipping these eldritch nightmares as they fight to maintain a thin facade of normalcy to conceal their madness and the darkness of their souls. Other players may be members of the veiled societies, initiated into the true nature of the universe, and desperately fighting the Great Old Ones and their human servants to hold back the inevitable apocalypse.

Cthulhu Live: Lost Souls introduces new rules, skills and character templates to support live-action roleplaying in this grim shadow world. Essays and articles examine the psychology and motivation of cults, while the dozens of cult and society profiles offer a wealth of new roleplaying options. In cooperation with Pagan Publishing and the Delta Green partnership, Lost Souls includes profiles of Delta Green, the Karotechia, and new organizations suitable for play in Delta Green campaigns. The expanse of cult and society information makes Lost Souls more than just a Cthulhu Live supplement, but an invaluable sourcebook for Chaosium's Call of Cthulhu roleplaying game, as well as other table-top and live-action horror role-playing games on the market. Cthulhu Live: Lost Souls will be available in May, 2000. For more information, check out the Cthulhu Live Website.

Nemesis: Opponents for Everyone
One of the coolest expansions ever for Magic: The Gathering is the recently released, 143- card Nemesis set. Skirmisher has been exploring this expansion through a series of features, including a detailed question-and-answer section, our list of the set's Top-10 best cards, and a gallery that shows uncropped versions of some of the best art of the Nemesis set.

Check out these features, an overview of the card set, and more on our Nemesis homepage, at http://www.skirmisher.com/nemesis.htm.

Spring Contest: Create a Nemesis Deck
Alright Magic players, here's your chance to show the world you know how to put together a winning deck. Our spring contest is to create a deck for Magic: The Gathering using as many Nemesis cards as possible. Each entry should include a list of all the cards needed to create the deck, which set each card is from, and at least a few sentence describing the deck and how to use it. Points will be given for creativity and effectiveness, and thematic decks will have an edge. Decks taken directly off the Dojo will be automatically disqualified (show a bit of imagination!).

Decks can be submitted to us via email as ASCII Text or Rich Text Format attachments, or copied-and-pasted into the body of a message. The owner of the winning deck will have the choice of receiving either an Exodus preconstructed deck or a Skirmisher T-shirt.

Skirmisher Game Store
We have expanded, improved upon, and added hundreds of items to our online gaming store
over the past few months. Subjects that have received special attention include roleplaying
games (RPGs) and board games and include the following (click to enter):

Enter our main store page at http://www.skirmisher.com/store.htm.

We have also added dozens of items to our "Specials" section of vintage, out-of-print, and hard-to-find games. Items of note include accessories for the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, Dragon Dice, and Europa games; signed copies of Cthulhu Live and The Writer's Complete Fantasy Reference; and a number of collectible trading cards.

Go directly to our Specials section at http://www.skirmisher.com/specials.htm.

Write for Us!
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