Westeros: Digest

2009 Calendar On Amazon.com

2008-10-06T15:49:35-05:00

Dabel Brothers Productions have informed us that the A Song of Ice and Fire 2009 Calendar, featuring stunning artwork by Michael Komark that helps bring George R. R. Martin’s bestselling fantasy series to visual life, can now be pre-ordered from Amazon.com. The calendar is expected to be ready for shipping on December 12, just in time for the holidays.

Spending XP

2008-10-05T20:11:11-05:00

The first of the advancement commmands, +xp/practice, has been added to the game. A brief helpfile can be accessed via +HELP XP, and more information can also be found on the help wiki.

For the moment, use this command carefully. It has been tested, but at this stage we cannot be certain that everything works as it should. Make sure to take note of what your XP is before and after you use the command and also what your skills were at before and after. Report any oddities to us.

One area that needs fleshing out in the +help as well as the help wiki is guidelines for how this command (and the ones that will follow it) should be used. The basic idea is that it should be used ICly. If your character has not been doing something to advance a certain skill, then you should not be using the command to practice that skill. You don’t have to actually roleplay training a skill, but training (or at least learning more through using said skill) should be part of what your character does ICly.

If there are any questions at all, let us know.

Canty Art Completed

2008-10-03T12:31:32-05:00

Subterranean Press reports that Tom Canty has turned in the last of the art he was commissioned to provide for the A Feast for Crows limited edition. The art in question is depicted, in part, at the link above. Once Subterranean completes their review of everything, the book should be ready to be sent to the printers shortly afterwards. Subterranean also notes that only 30 copies of the Limited Edition remain to be ordered.

Forum New Account Registrations

2008-10-02T16:58:44-05:00

The recent cracking of Google’s captcha system (along with a number of other, similar systems) has led to an absolute flood of attempts by spam bots to sign up for the forum.

What does this mean for new registrants? For the time being, registration to the forum will require not just signing up via the sign-up page, but also sending an e-mail to us with the sign-up information you provided (user account name will be sufficient for identifying purpose) using the same e-mail account as you registered with.

It’s just impossible to wade through dozens of new sign ups (we’re getting a spam attempt approximately every ten minutes) and figure out which are legitimate and which are not at this time.

Official Site Update

2008-09-25T06:38:14-05:00

GRRM’s official site has been updated with a “Not a Blog” post concerning George’s participation in a fundraiser for the Barack Obama campaign. He, along with hundreds of other authors including Michael Chabon, Stephen King, Ursula K. Le Guin, Garrison Keiller, Amy Tan, and Jonathan Lethem are contributing packages of autographed books that will be randomly distributed to donors. His own contribution to the fundraiser includes some twenty books.

Official Site Update

2008-09-22T19:32:40-05:00

GRRM’s official site has been updated with a News item discussing the availabilty for pre-order of the Longclaw display sword made by Valyrain Steel. The lengthy news item includes information of future plans from Valyrian Steel, such as a display model of Needle, and a brief history of Jon Snow’s sword.

Happy Birthday, GRRM!

2008-09-20T04:18:51-05:00

Today is George’s 60th birthday. Happy birthday, GRRM, from your fans and friends at Westeros.org!

read on >>>

Another Map & Dorne News

2008-09-19T07:37:00-05:00

Another map has been added to the website, this one featuring the grid layout for Sunspear.

Sunspear? Yes, we have decided to move away from our original plan, which was to open Dorne—or Sunspear and the Shadow City, rather—after the end of the Conquest. Instead, it will be opening as soon as we can get everything needed sorted out. We think that offering people a chance to play in an occupied territory, not the least during the upcoming rebellion, might provide some great roleplay opportunities.

When is “as soon as we can”, you might wonder? Well, we have the grid built now, that was the easy part. Next up is descing the grid, and there’s also some code that will need to be tweaked to take into account two areas (most notably, +rumors and Influence). The most difficult part may be fleshing out the Dornish family trees, and right now Balerion has some other things to work on so he will not be able to get to that for a while, most likely.

If there are any questions at all about this, let us know.

The Living Dead anthology

2008-09-18T18:25:31-05:00

David Barr Kirtley kindly notes that a new anthology of zombie fiction, The Living Dead, contains a reprint of GRRM’s creepy science fiction story, “Meathouse Man”, part of a series of two or three stories in a science fiction setting where technologically-reanimated corpses are used in various capacities as labor, entertainment, and more. Other stories in the collection include reprints of stories by Stephen King, Harlan Ellison and Robert Silverberg (in a rare collaboration—I didn’t even know about this one!), Michael Swanwick, and many more. David also notes that he will appear with the editor of the anthology and another writer at an event in New York. You can find more information at David’s site.

Maps Added

2008-09-16T18:31:58-05:00

Long overdue, maps have finally been added to the website. We had more ambitious plans for the maps, but those proved too difficult to execute, so in order to get something up there we started from scratched and produced new, simpler maps. Some tweaking is still needed on these (the large version is very large, and the smaller a little hard to read), but its something at least. Find them here.

Logs Posted

2008-09-15T16:02:10-05:00

The two primary RP logs from the Dornish Bread Riot have now been posted! You can find them here.

HBO Purchases Ice and Fire TV Rights

2008-09-10T06:11:42-05:00

GRRM shares encouraging news on his “Not a Blog”, stating that HBO has exercised its option and has bought the full television rights for the proposed A Song of Ice and Fire TV series. HBO could have chosen to extend its option to buy the rights, so its committing itself to purchasing the rights is a very positive sign. GRRM cautions, however, that this is still not the greenlight for production that will bring the show to fruition. Anything can still happen, but it’s a good sign. In related news, he adds that Spain and the Czech Republic are leading contenders for the location shooting if it goes into production.

Armageddon Rag Praise

2008-09-08T20:26:05-05:00

George R. R. Martin’s Armageddon Rag has received some interesting attention on the Internet, starting with author Jo Walton praising the novel at Tor.com, which led Cory Doctorow to link the article and offer his own praise for GRRM’s newly-reprinted horror/fantasy novel about the culture and music of the 60’s.

Miniatures Wave 1.5

2008-09-08T04:30:48-05:00

Dark Sword Miniatures has posted pictures of all ten George R. R. Martin Masterworks Wave 1.5 figures, mostly featuring wildlings sculpted by Jeff Grace some of which have previously been featured on GRRM’s “Not a Blog”. Particularly eye-catching is Tom Meier’s inspired take on Daenerys Stormborn, inspired by Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus. The update includes information on further miniatures in the series to be sculpted by Grace, including all the Stark direwolves and Mance Rayder. Tom Meier is very busy at present, but when he has time will continue to produce figures for some of the most well-known characters in the series.

Tier Quota Status

2008-09-03T16:54:38-05:00

There is currently (at the time that this message is posted; for up-to-date information, see +cdb/quota) 2 slots for tier III characters available. As one of these slots just opened up, there will be a 5 day request period from the date of this announcement. If the slots are not taken within 5 days, they will remain open and available on a first come, first serve basis. Please see the quota helpfile for further information about how this works.

Wild Cards Campaign Setting Released

2008-08-30T06:24:23-05:00

Green Ronin has put out a press release announcing the availability of the Wild Cards Campaign Setting written by John Jos. Miller, one of the original Wild Cards authors:

read on >>>

Consent & +Prefs

2008-08-28T12:46:00-05:00

The consent helpfile has been significantly reworked, partially as a result of our decision to remove the Consent, Death, Mature and Plot options from +Prefs. Consent between players is now always more or less full consent, whereas consent between staff and players is more limited. Updated +helpfiles for +prefs will be installed shortly, and the new consent helpfile can be found here.

Make sure to read through and please let us know if there are any questions.

ASOIAF: The Adventure Game Information

2008-08-21T07:44:35-05:00

Via Board Game News, some official information concerning Fantasy Flight Games’s in-development board game, A Song of Ice and Fire: The Adventure Game notes that it’s being designed by Eric Lang, who also designed the popular A Game of Thrones Collectible Card Game.

New Miniatures Preview Photos

2008-08-21T07:35:08-05:00

As previously reported, Dark Sword Miniatures had a new series of miniatures in the George R. R. Martin Masterworks collection on display. GRRM has followed this up with a post at “Not a Blog” containing photos of a number of the wildling miniatures sculpted by Jeff Grace.

Official Site Update

2008-08-19T10:02:11-05:00

GRRM’s official site has been updated with a News item discussing the Songs of the Dying Earth anthology, with an almost-complete list of stories and contributors. Other updates include an update to his forthcoming Appearances and a pair of posts to his “Not a Blog” discussing Worldcon, work on A Dance with Dragons, and the entry of Brett Favre into the New York Jets.