Yakima Gold

So we spent most of the day in Yakima today (that's in Yakima County, Washington...named for the Yakima nation, which was the largest American Indian population west of the Mississippi prior to several bloody massacres at the hands of the U.S. Army). It poured rain, which didn't stop me and the boy from heading out on foot to explore the town. Nice as the hotel was (fantastic biscuits and gravy!) it was boring to hang around and the baby just did NOT want to nap. Something about the excitement of being alive and all, I guess.

However, the rain DID stop our (my) initial plans to hit up a few used book stores that I found on line...they were just too far from our base o operations and I did NOT want the boy to get pneumonia. Fortunately, we stumbled across a little collectibles shop called Ron's Mini-Mall and found a couple nice pieces of swag for the collection.

First up was a copy of the collected issues of DC's The War that Time Forgot...another 1960s piece of weird extravaganza featuring WWII soldiers in a Lost World (i.e. dinosaur) setting, reminiscent of the Turok Son of Stone comics I remember from my youth. Although the collection is black & white, printed on cheap pulp, and hopelessly dated, it is EXACTLY the kind of thing I am in the mood for right now with my recent dinosaur fetish. I'm going to have to clear some shelf space next to Xenozoic tales for this bad boy. Apparently, another comic company is putting together a similar-themed "re-boot" using 21st century soldiers of a Special Forces type, to be issued later this year. Whatever...I just need to know how many Thompson machine guns it takes to bring down an allosaurus.

[my Out of Time micro-game has been downloaded more than 120 times, by the way...still intend to get back to answering the questions/concerns certain readers brought up]

The second thing I picked up, though, was even MORE interesting. In one locked shelf, I found something that looked suspiciously like role-playing games (they were next to a big bowl or two of dice), but that I'd never heard of. Turns out it WAS a role-playing game I've never heard of: Chris Weedin's Horror Rules: The Simply Horrible Role-Playing Game. After some inquiries I was able to discover Mr. Weedin is a local author (well, he lives in Selah, just outside of Yakima) and he writes/designs RPGs for his own (indie) company. Horror Rules has been around the Yakima area for a few years (the copyright is 2003) and they have an annual Horror Rules tournament over Halloween, no less. The little old lady who was giving me the low-down said it was "quite different but a lot of fun." If she was a regular participant, she is definitely the oldest RPG gamer I have ever met.

Anyway, I picked up a copy of the basic game (Weedin has another nine or so supplements for HoR that adds on various genres and such), and I'm about halfway through it. And so far, it ain't half bad. I'm not much into horror role-playing, though I have a bit of experience with both Call of Cthulhu and InSpecters. Horror Rules seems about halfway between the two in terms of tone and technicality.

And it's barely 100 pages long (including a sample adventure). Nice.

: )

Anyhoo, I'm sure all be posting more on that later...if you're interested in Weedin's stuff you can check out his (very nice) web site, which has buttons to browse and order. Considering the quality of the book, his prices are pretty low...I don't know if he's nutty or if printing costs are cheaper in Eastern Washington, but I should probably find out as it might be worth the gas to get out there for my next print run.

So, yeah...back in Sea-Town now, safe and sound after a nice little visit over the mountains. Books to read and wine to drink (visited a couple wineries on the way out of town and picked up some good stuff). It is pouring rain in Seattle which means autumn has officially started in the Pacific Northwest. Personally, I love it. But I'm kinda' weird.

; )