Directory:Spellbinder Games

Spellbinder Games is a New Orleans, Louisiana based publishing company that produced Dreadmire. In 2005, Spellbinder published Dreadmire by Randy Richards. The company also runs an online retail store.

Spellbinder's company slogan is, "Your newest weapon in the war against reality'."

Author Randy Richards bought into the company as part-owner in mid-2007, and was placed on staff as Project Director.

History

Spellbinder games grew out of Spellbinder Books, a publisher which produced a trilogy of fantasy fiction novels in the 1980s: The Persnackety Dragon, The Dimadon Lantern, and My Magical Maguffin, as well as a coloring book called Fantasmagoria. All are now out of print, and all records of the books appear to have been lost to Hurricane Katrina in 2005[1].

Spellbinder Games
Type	DBA
Founded	1975
Headquarters	Baton Rouge, Louisiana
Key people	Randy Richards: Project Director & part owner
Industry	RPG & other assorted media
Contact	SpellbinderBooks@aol.com
Reference	Randy Richards

In 2005, Apotheosis Publishing purchased Spellbinder Books, and a games division, Spellbinder Games, was launched. Despite the destruction of Spellbinder Books in August of 2005, the company was able to release its first RPG supplement, Dreadmire on December 23 of that year.[2]

Products

• Dreadmire, a d20 book published under Wizards of the Coast's 3rd Edition Open Gaming License (OGL).
• The Dreadmire Chronicles

Randy Richards

Randy Richards is a game designer and author of Dungeons & Dragons adventures and articles. His first published article, "Dark Magic in New Orleans," appeared in Dungeon magazine issue #71 in 1998; his book, "Dreadmire" (ISBN 0977338339) a campaign setting for the d20 rules system, was published by Spellbinder Games in 2005 and released in 2006.

Biography

Randy Richards was born January 9th, 1966. He originally hails from Chalmette, Louisiana, the location of the Battle of New Orleans. He currently lives in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where he runs a photography business and writes professionaly.

Randy Richards & Gary Gygax, at Gen Con in 1998

Randy Richards has been playing Dungeons & Dragons since the late 70s, but started in earnest in the early 80s. "In the 1980s," Randy says, "we had the Basic D&D boxed game in our Gifted & Talented class, and I used to play a Cajun halfling. The other kids loved it, especially the accent." Randy graduated from Chalmette High School in 1984, then from college in 1989, and moved to Tennessee. The move proved to be beneficial for Randy's career in photography. "People know me for my writing," he says, "but they don't know my day job is photography. Olan Mills, which operates out of Chattanooga, hired me to work for them as a kids photographer, then a glamour photographer, and finally a church directory photographer."

After five years in Tennessee, Randy was transferred to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and started his first family. "Thats when I first got published. I wrote "Dark Magic in New Orleans" for Dungeon Magazine. After receiving scores of complimentary letters from people all over the world, I decided to start writing on a regular basis. With all my traveling with work there really wasn't time, but while driving I would make notes on anything available: cardboard boxes, gum wrappers, paper cups -- anything!"

In the late 90s Randy hosted a series of Gen Con events, one of which included the co-creators of D&D, Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson, and other big names including Frank Mentzer, Lisa Stevens (later CEO of Paizo Publishing), and Anne Brown. "This got my name known in the industry, although at the time that wasn't my goal. I was just trying to have fun and spread the joy of gaming."

A few years later, Randy got the idea to write a book. "My daughter was getting older, and I wanted to have more time for her, so I decided to start my own photography business. The icing on the cake is that I had more time available for writing. I would copy the scrap notes down when I got home, and as I was reading through them I realized they started to form a swamp theme. That's when I started writing Dreadmire."

There were some false starts and delays before Dreadmire came to print. "First I submitted it to Necromancer Games, but we had creative differences and parted ways. Later... I was contacted by Spellbinder Games. They gave me a lot of control over the project. After my other experiences that was very important to me."

In April of 2008, Randy Richards was selected as "Business Person of the Month" by the Baton Rouge, Louisiana library system.

Gaming Industry

Richards is active in the gaming industry, giving seminars and hosting panel discussions at various conventions. Common topics of his seminars have included the "Random Fandom Trivia Challenge," "How to Get Happily Published," "Science vs. Magic," "World of Greyhawk," "Dreadmire," "The Future of Gaming," and other gaming industry subjects. His latest project is Dreadmire Adventures, an adventure-book expansion of the campaign setting he created.

Randy Richards & Gary Gygax, at Gen Con in 1998

Richards is also the former editor of the Greyhawk Grimoire, an online publication devoted to the World of Greyhawk campaign setting; and is the founder of the World of Greyhawk Fan Club, which once claimed to be "the largest Greyhawk fan organization in the world." The organization claimed among its members such luminaries as Gary Gygax, Dave Arneson, Rob Kuntz, Frank Mentzer, Len Lakofka and Jim Ward. In 1998 Randy sponsored the "Celebrity Greyhawk Dinner" and "Greyhawk Celebrity Panel Seminar." He has written numerous online fan-fiction adventures set in the Greyhawk campaign setting, including "Slerotin's Tunnel" and "Suel Imperium: Age of Glory".

In 2002 there was a dispute between Necromancer Games, who was scheduled to publish Dreadmire, and author Randy Richards. As a result of this dispute, the author parted ways with Necromancer Games.

In early 2006, Randy Richards was the subject of an interview for Gloomwing Magazine, a gaming, art and short fiction periodical. Later in 2006, Randy brought his manuscript to Spellbinder Games, a publishing company that was looking to produces game books. Several other books have been announced on their website for publishing in 2009, including original novels set in the Dreadmire world.

Guest Appearances

Randy Richards has been a guest at local gaming and fantasy conventions across the U.S., including Dragon*Con as a D&D author guest in 1998 and 2006; Gen Con where he hosted panel discussions with Gary Gygax in 1998; Crescent City Con as an Gaming Guest in 1998 and 2001; BabelCon as an author guest in 2006, 2007 and 2008 (scheduled); ConCarolinas as a Gaming Guest in 2006, 2008 and 2009; CoastCon as a D&D Guest in 1998, 2000, and 2006 and was elected to their board of directors that year. Richards was subsequently elected to the board of directors of the Science & Engineering Education Foundation, the organizers of BabelCon in 2006. He was re-elected to his directorship within that organization in 2007 and 2008, and elected as an officer of Star One Delta, a local science fiction organization, in 2008.

TV Appearances & Community Activism

In February of 2009, an interview with Randy Richards appeared in InRegister Magazine.[3]

In January of 2009, the Metro section of the Advocate newspaper featured a photo and caption of Randy Richards at a science fiction meeting. [4]

In April of 2008, Randy Richards was selected as "Business Person of the Month" by the Baton Rouge, Louisiana library system[5].

Randy Richards has appeared in TV commercials[6] for Cox Cable, and in a local TV newscasts[7] in Baton Rouge and New Orleans for his tour after Katrina. He placed third in the Adult Landscape category of the LUMCON 2006 Bayous of Louisiana photography contest.[8] His Hurricane Katrina photographs are part of the Louisiana Bucket Brigade's "Life in the Wake of Katrina" tour.[9][10] In addition, Randy Richards has appeared as the subject of two newspaper articles (Template:Citation/core) and (Template:Citation/core).

Published works

• Dark Magic in New Orleans. Dungeon #71 (TSR Inc., 1998).
• Dreadmire (Spellbinder Games, 2005).
• Suel Imperium: Age of Glory. Available online: [11]
• The Impossibly Precarious Balancing Truck,' part of the nationally traveling photo exhibit Life in the Wake of Katrina (scroll to bottom of page)
• Dreadmire Adventures (Spellbinder Games, 2008).

External links

• Dreadmire product website.
• Randy Richards at the Pen & Paper Database
• Randy Richards' Camera Krewe, Photography, Video & DJ