Spellbinder Games

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File:SpellbinderGamesLogo.jpg
Spellbinder Games Logo

Spellbinder Games[1] is a Louisiana-based publishing company that produced Dreadmire. Spellbinder's company slogan is, "Your newest weapon in the war against reality." In 2005, Spellbinder published Dreadmire by Randy Richards.

History

Randy Richards claims that Spellbinder Games emerged from Spellbinder Books, a book seller and publisher which produced a trilogy of homebrew fantasy fiction novels in the 1980s -- The Persnackety Dragon, The Dimadon Lantern, and My Magical Maguffin, as well as a coloring book called Fantasmagoria -- which were never distributed professionally. Along with the home-based Spellbinder Books store, he claims that all original records of the books were lost to Hurricane Katrina in 2005. However, there is no evidence that any of these books ever existed, nor is there any record that Spellbinder Books itself ever existed.

He has further claimed in various places that Spellbinder Games operated a bookstore in along 30th Avenue in Gulfport, Mississippi. The only game stores that have operated on 30th Avenue in Gulfport in these areas were Zocchi Distributors (Gamescience) and Palewood Games & Gifts. There is no record of a company named Spellbinder Games located there or anywhere near. Of late, Richards had dropped this claim.

Randy Richards has stated that, in the spring of 2005, a New Orleans company called Apotheosis Publishing purchased Spellbinder Books, and a games division, Spellbinder Games, was launched. This company has never had any other product than Dreadmire. Neither Apotheois Publishing nor Spellbinder Books have ever been listed in a Louisiana telephone directory. The (866) 254-3705 phone number included with Dreadmire, which is also used on the Spellbinder Games domain registration[2] is actually the number for a company known as "Capable Electrical Devices" which is located in Largo, Florida.[3]

Dreadmire itself lists 2800 Milan, New Orleans, Louisiana as the address for Apotheois Publishing. However, this is the address of the Petty A.M.E. Church, which is just off Claiborne Avenue.[4] This building has no "Suite A" and had been abandoned since Katrina when the neighborhood flooded.

However, on the Spellbinder Games domain registration, the address for Spellbinder Games is listed as 2008 Milan, Suite A.[5] This is the address for Randy Richards' brother Rick, who lives in Apartment A. Lately, after the availability of this information online was revealed to Richards, he has begun claiming that Spellbinder games had an "emergency relocation into an empty uptown New Orleans rental property (owned by the Dreadmire author's brother)," after which "the company was able to publish its first RPG supplement, Dreadmire on December 23 of that year[6]" which was released in February 2006." He does not state where the company relocated from or why it relocated into a flooded area of New Orleans which was inaccessible during September of 2005 and had little supporting infrastructure after that until the date he claims Spellbinder Games published Dreadmire there. Even more tellingly, this claim does not explain why the Spellbinder Games website registration lists March 28, 2005 as the date one which Spellbinder was located at 2008 Milan.

According to Richards, once distribution of Dreadmire began, Spellbinder Games moved from its temporary New Orleans property and relocated to Baton Rouge, Louisiana in early 2006. The address he has used for Spellbinder, 1345 Aster, is a small one story residence he rents near the campus of Louisiana State University. It can be seen on Google (on the left of the image.)[7] According to Google, the only business here is "Dance Partners Photograpy & Video," Richards video business.

He is now claiming that in mid 2007, Apotheosis Publishing sold Spellbinder Games to a consortium of authors, which included Randy Richards, for an undisclosed sum. Richards has never disclosed the names of the any of the authors who supposedly purchased this company with him.

According to the most recent version of this story, Randy Richards was placed on staff as Project Director and Mark Williams remained available as a consultant. However, as recently as March of 2009, Richards was claiming that Mark Williams was "formerly the Special Projects Coordinator for Spellbinder Games, is now Editor-in-Chief and listed as part owner of the company."

Products

  • Dreadmire, a d20 book published under Wizards of the Coast's 3rd Edition Open Gaming License (OGL).
  • The Dreadmire Chronicles is a trilogy of books due out in 2009.
  • A Dreadmire Adventures supplement was put on hold due to the introduction of 4th Edition D&D.

External links

References

  1. ↑ http://mywikibiz.com/Directory:Spellbinder_Games
  2. ↑ http://www.whois.net/whois/spellbindergames.com
  3. ↑ http://tinyurl.com/bjynws
  4. ↑ http://tinyurl.com/bqru8c
  5. ↑ http://www.whois.net/whois/spellbindergames.com
  6. ↑ http://www.gamingreport.com/article.php?sid=19359&mode=nested&order=0&thold=0]
  7. ↑ http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&q=1345%20aster%20baton%20rouge&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wl
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