If you have no idea what I'm talking about, over the last 4 days either through massive incompetence or intentional malice by some disgruntled employee, Lion & Dragon had been effectively rendered unreachable not once but TWICE, just as it was celebrating a month on the top-10 list, which it of course lost as no one could find the book anymore.
First, all the good news; and basically, this is all about YOU. Against ALL odds, and in spite of essentially losing all its viable links TWICE in the last 4 days, Lion & Dragon has made it back into the top 15! As of this writing, thanks to all the people who came forward and purchased the game, it went from being way down at #30 and dropping, all the way up to currently #13 and rising on the bestseller list for RPGnow.
I want to thank all the people who have stepped up and helped spread the word. The ones who bought the game obviously, but also the ones who made the effort to share the links to the new L&D URL and telling other people about what had happened.
So, we may now be finally at the end of all this. Maybe.
Today I got another email from RPGnow, a fairly curt and formal one. All it said was (again I quote) "After talking with my tech team it seems the forwarding is not something our site can be set up to do", meaning that I'll have to try to find any of the non-working links and replace them with current links myself.
However, they did also make a promise to me that "I can assure you that the current link will not be changed and should be considered stable from here on out so please feel free to use the current link for any future promotion".
OK, RPGnow, I'll have to trust you on that one, after you previously told me to change all the links and then summarily altered the URL.
As for any other kind of compensation for what happened? They stated that they'd only speak with my publisher about that. That's fine, it's obviously dismissive but fine, because I trust Dominique Crouzet will take the right tactic.
And more importantly, really, because what I'm focused on is something they already said they can't or won't do for me, which is to restore the position of my book. Only YOU GUYS can help me with that.
We're very, very close to breaking back into the top 10 bestseller list! So please keep sharing the link and checking out the book!
If you haven't bought the book yet and want to, please do! And thanks! But if you can't or won't buy the game you can still help by sharing this link to L&D on all your social media!
And thank you all again. There was one really good side to all this: it truly showed me who my friends are, how great the OSR is, and even helped me get to discover some new friends I never knew I had.
To close, here's just a few of the 1001 reasons why you should buy L&D, by the way:
Reason 104: In Lion & Dragon, magic-users who study Alchemy end up being able to make Byzantine Dragonfire flame-throwers. And yes, this is historical.
Reason 209: Lots of unique magic items based on real myth, including the sword of Roland.
Reason 521: People always argue "but you can't have real magic & real miracles & faeries & monsters and still have cultures that look anything like the real middle ages!"
I always answer: "If you don't have ALL that stuff, whatever you've made won't look anything like the real middle ages."
Reason 830: Magic users who learn curses/battle-magic techniques can also make copper-plated sticks (wands, staffs or rods) that blow shit up, all Tim-the-Enchanter style. They're called "blasting rods", and were detailed in some historical grimoires.
Reason 999: If Lion & Dragon gets back on RPGnow's Top-10 list after all this, it will piss off all the right people.
So, keep buying and sharing the new link to Lion & Dragon! And if you're one of the people who discovered the book in the last while, please let me know what you think of it. Thanks again, all.
RPGPundit
Currently Smoking: Ben Wade Rhodesian + Image Latakia
Citations for the "blasting rods"?
ReplyDeleteWell, it's origin is in the PGM (or at least, it's earliest known concept) though it's not referred to as a 'blasting rod' there. The actual term probably originated with the Dragon Rouge, which is a later grimoire.
DeleteThere's also folkloric references in parts of England with viking influence to what might have been its equivalent in norse magic: staffs of blackthorn which were engraved with the rune thurisaz.
Glad it all worked out in the end.
ReplyDelete