March roars in like a lion, bringing in the latest news about the North American Discworld Convention! So much, in fact, that it has taken us the full month to get this newsletter finished. This time we’ve got tons of news regarding games, guests and merchandise (and a bit about Wisconsin’s time in the news spotlight)!


No foolin’! Prices to increase on April 5.
Thanks to kind words from HarperCollins AuthorTracker, Made of Fail, io9’s Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy, and numerous other friends, we’re getting more and more members signing up to join us for the shenanigans. Currently we’re up to 650 members and counting.

Keep in mind, membership prices will increase to $95 on April 5, so if you’re still on the fence about attending, hopefully this will encourage to join up for the fun and games.

Gorgeous New Merchadise!
Cast in solid bronze, our new “Owl Logo” pendant is made to resemble our clever little Ankh Morpork convention logo. It is around one inch in diameter, and is available as either a pin or pendant. For those of you looking for something even more rare, you may be interested to know that this Pendant is also available in Sterling Silver! If you enjoyed the Silver Turtle Pin featured at the 2009 NADWCon, you may want to keep your collection going with this extremely rare and beautiful piece of jewelry.
These high quality pieces of fine jewelry will be made to order with very few available for sale during the convention. Check out our convention merchandise page to see for yourself! The price of precious metals is on the rise so we suggest placing your order as soon as possible because we may be forced to raise our prices in the near future.

Can’t Attend? Support the NADWCon and you can still get convention exclusive merchandise!
You all really seem to love the merchandise we are offering. However many people have told us that they are not able to attend our convention, but still want a Shirt, Car Plaque, or Plushie of their own. We are sorry that we can't sell you these items outright; we have an agreement that they remain convention exclusive. What we can do, though, is send them to our Supporting Members, if they agree to pay for the shipping costs. We are sorry that we can't sell our merchandise to just anyone who wants it, but we hope this will help some of you get the items you desire.  

Got ideas?
The ever-capable Denise Connell, of the Seamstress Guild and the Seamstress Guild Party from NADWCon2009, is now hard at work formulating a fun and exciting program of convention events for all to enjoy. As she develops this schedule, she would be happy to hear from any folks who would be interested in putting on or helping to run Discworldian events for convention attendees.

If you are interested in helping with programs, or have a programming idea that you think might be fun to add to the schedule, please contact Denise at programming@nadwcon.org.  When contacting Denise, please include your name, preferred contact information, any programming ideas or what help you might like to give, and any skills, background, or experience that might fit you for the role for which you are volunteering (including if you helped out in some manner during the 2009 convention).  Our convention is made better by the involvement of our many enthusiastic attendees, and we would love to hear from you if you'd like to get involved!

A Change in Announced Guests
We are sorry to announce that while the estimable Bernard Pearson will most definitely still be joining us for the fun and frivolity of the 2011 convention, his other half, the lovely Isobel Pearson, has decided that someone needs to stay behind in jolly old England to mind the shop, the cats, and all the rest.  However, while Isobel will surely be missed at the con, we are delighted to say that in her place we will be hosting two other members of The Discworld Emporium, Ian Mitchell and Reb Voyce!

As we are assuming inquiring minds always like to know more about all of the wonderful guests they may be meeting at the con, here is a bit about our newest two:

Ian has learnt an awful lot over the past years working with Bernard and Isobel Pearson at the Discworld Emporium, perhaps most notably a cruel and unusual new vocabulary. He accidentally became a Fine Arts graduate which may some day come in useful; in the meantime he continues to make silly things in the name of Discworld. He enjoys his continuing involvement in Discworld Stamps, sculpture, and artwork, and is currently helping to illustrate Ankh-Morpork, a new Discworld board game from Treefrog Games.

Reb, once introduced by Terry as his hairdresser, has had her life hi-jacked and couldn't be happier! A 'grade-1 grown-up', she does her best to keep Ian and Bernard’s noses to the grindstone and fingers out of the till. The pair were recently made partners at the Discworld Emporium, so there's no escape.

Ever want to run Ankh-Morpork? You’ve got  the chance now!
We are delighted to announce that a prototype of the exciting new Discworld game, Ankh-Morpork, will be available for preview and demonstration at NADWCon2011! Please read on for a message from Martin Wallace of Treefrog Games.
...

Just over a year ago one of my gaming friends suggested Discworld as a possible subject for a
boardgame. This September, that idea will become reality for the gaming public. In the space of a year I have read 99 percent of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld novels, come up with a hopefully decent game, and made a whole bunch of new friends.

The game is set in Ankh-Morpork, which needs no introduction. The background story is that Lord Vetinari has vanished, with no explanation. There is now a power vacuum to be filled, and your aim is to oblige. You will be randomly assigned a secret personality at the beginning of the game, which will tell you what you need to do to win. If you are one of the three lords (Selichii, de Worde, Rust) then you want to take control of a certain number of areas. If you are Dragon King of Arms then you want to cause trouble. If you are Chrysoprase then you want to make money. You could be Lord Vetinari and secretly back in the city, which means you want to get your minions in a certain number of areas. Finally, you could be Vimes and aim to maintain the status quo, i.e. don’t let any other bugger win. The fact that you do not know what other players are aiming to do creates the right amount of paranoia.

The game is built around a deck of cards, which are mostly well known characters from the books. You play a card, do what it says on it, then refill your hand back to five cards. The cards allow you to place minions on the board (the people who will do your dirty work), remove other minions (with assassins) build buildings, earn money, and lots of other stuff. The actions on the cards are tailored to fit the character of the personality they represent, thus CMOT Dibbler may or may not make a profit, the Fire Brigade will not burn your house down for a reasonable sum of money, and Detritus will put a halt to trouble in a forthright manner. The characters you have to be careful about playing are the wizards, as when you do you also have to draw a random event card. There are no ‘good’ random events. The game ends either when a player achieves their victory conditions or the deck of cards runs out (when Vimes will win if he is in play).

This project is the largest one I have ever undertaken, and without the help of an amazing team of people it would still be just an idea. The kind people at the Discworld Emporium (Bernard and Isobel Pearson, Ian Mitchell, and Reb Voyce) have been instrumental in making sure the artwork is spot on. Ian spent over 300 hours producing an incredibly detailed map of the city. To help with the many card illustrations (one hundred and thirty two unique cards) I managed to convince my regular artist, Peter Dennis, to help out. He has kept up an amazing work rate and turned out some absolutely stunning images (which have passed the Sir Terry Pratchett seal of approval). Finally, Paul Kidby has kindly allowed the use of his artwork on the box cover. My own humble contribution to this project has been to do my best to treat the characters created by Sir Terry in as respectful a manner as possible. I wanted to design a game that captured the feel of the city, rather than paste the theme onto a Monopoly variant. Sometime later this year I will find out if I succeeded in this endeavour.

The Watch are coming to a small screen near you!
Sir Terry Pratchett and Special Guest Rod Brown, Managing Director of Prime Focus Productions, recently announced they have come to an agreement for the unprecedented and exclusive worldwide television rights to create brand new storylines for the iconic characters of Pratchett’s phenomenally successful Discworld series.

This is the first time that Pratchett has granted a production company the international rights to his characters and world, for the creation of new stories exclusively for a television audience.

The main focus of the series will be set in the bustling, highly mercantile, largely untrustworthy and always vibrant city of Ankh-Morpork and will follow the day-to-day activities of the men, women, trolls, dwarves, vampires and several other species who daily pound its ancient cobbles (and, of course, Igor in the forensics department), also known as the City Watch. These richly developed and highly compelling characters will feature in a ‘crime of the week’ episodic storyline.

For more information, check out, http://paulkidby.com/news/index.html.

Helping out our convention goers:
In our registration area you will find a list of memberships for sale by registered attendees who find they have an extra one, or are regrettably unable to attend themselves. Some of these may even cost less than the current convention price, so be sure to check them out. You might save a few dollars, and you will certainly help out a fellow Discworld fan who finds they can’t attend the convention.

We have also included, in the hotel information section of our website, a place for members that are looking for someone to share their room. If you have booked a room but have an extra bed, contact our hotel liaison and let them know that you want your contact information to be put on this list. You may be able to find someone to help you split your hotel costs.

Is your trip to Madison going to be by car? Then you may want to have your contact information added to the Road Trip section of our Travel and Tourism page. You may be able to find someone else coming from your general area that would be willing to help pay some of these rising gasoline costs.

Costumes, Costumes Costumes!
The Maskerade section of our website has been updated recently, for those of you with questions about the details of our Maskerade, check it out. If you still have questions, contact our Maskerade Director at - Maskerade@nadwcon.org

What's been going on in Madison lately?
We understand some of you are concerned about the political situation currently going on in Madison. There has been a lot of news coverage about our state Capitol lately, some of it positive, some of it negative, all of it eyebrow-raising.

Since the convention committee consists mostly of Madison natives living with this political situation let us reassure you that the NADWCon is still taking place without a hitch. The convention space, food, hotel rooms, guests, entertainment, etc. have been booked. We accepted your registrations and fully intend to put on a great convention for you.

Our downtown area has been very busy the past couple of weeks. The current state budget controversies have resulted in some very strong willed, but also incredibly peaceful protesting around our Capitol. There have been more than one hundred thousand people expressing differing opinions downtown but there has been virtually no violence, and almost no arrests.

Even if the NADWCon 2011 were going to take during the height of the downtown protests, we would still put it on. Right now, the worst thing going on downtown is that it’s a little more crowded than usual. However we have more than three months until our convention will take place; that is a long time for the situation change.

When you arrive in Madison in July, we cannot say that you won’t see any protesters around our Capitol. We are a young, hip, college town with a major government facility displayed right in the middle of it. Expressing political views is part of the background of our city, and there is almost always someone holding a sign in protest of one thing or another around our Capitol.

What we can predict is that by July, the current situation will be vastly different. The budget situation will likely be resolved, and you can do what the rest of us in Madison do after a big political event, which is enjoy the atmosphere, buy a snarky politically charged t-shirt, and take lots of pictures.

By July the crowds will be different, but probably not smaller. The annual Art Fair on the Square will be taking place at the same time as our convention, and it draws in more people than even our current number of protesters. No one ever said our city was boring!

That is it for this month’s NADWCon 2011 news. Now if you will excuse us, we want to climb these cool palm trees that have suddenly sprung up in our fair city!

Josh Goes - Chair
Jon Lemeornd - Vice Chair
Vivian Obarski - Online Coordinator