I, Wolfgang Baur, eccentric game designer, receive letters from Kobold fans all over the globe. Kobold Quarterly and Open Design products are being played and enjoyed in North America, South America, Europe, Africa, Asia and Australia. This Fall I will release the Midgard Campaign Setting, a worldbook featuring seven fantastic regions of mystery and adventure.

The other evening I had an epiphany that connected the two: to celebrate the monumental occasion of Midgard’s release, I am launching the Kobold World Conquest Challenge.

From July 1^st through July 30^th, gaming groups from North America, South America, Africa, Europe, Asia and Australia can enter the Challenge by doing the following:

1. Take a photograph of your group playing an Open Design adventure with our kobold mascot Jiro at the table (download him here and print him out)
2. Email it to [email protected] with the subject line WORLD CONQUEST CHALLENGE

I will randomly choose one winner from each continent to receive a prize package with PDF copies of:

• Courts of the Shadow Fey for Pathfinder RPG (forthcoming)
• Midgard Bestiary for Pathfinder RPG, AGE System, and Dungeons & Dragons, 4^th Edition
• Northlands
• Streets of Zobeck
• Zobeck Gazetteer for Pathfinder RPG
• Kobold Quarterly #1
• Complete Kobold Guide to Game Design
• Origins award-winning Kobold Guide to Board Game Design

But what of the mysterious and forbidding seventh continent? The icy waste where dwell giant shoggoths, shape-shifting aliens entombed in crashed saucers, and ravenous dire penguins?

When will Antarctica know the kobold’s tread?

The Antarctica Challenge

Be the first to send me proof that you have run an Open Design game in Antarctica and I will give you more than $700 worth of books from my personal library — many of them signed by their authors.

Special Antarctica Challenge Rules

The Antarctica Challenge is in effect for one year, beginning at noon Pacific Standard Time on July 1^st., 2012, and ending at noon Pacific on July 1, 2013. The starting month of July is the dead of the Antarctic winter, to increase the challenge level!

The gaming group must include at minimum two living, conscious human beings — a Game Master and a player — who are in each other’s physical presence somewhere on the continent of Antarctica for the duration of the game. Google Hangouts in Antarctica do not count as “present”.

The GM must run his or her group through an Open Design adventure published in one of these sources:

• Midgard Tales (forthcoming 2013)
• Journeys to the West (ships September 2012)
• Streets of Zobeck (available now)
• The Lost City (available now)
• Courts of the Shadow Fey (available now)
• Tales of the Old Margreve (available now)
• Dark Deeds in Freeport (ships 2013)
• Red Eye of Azathoth (available now)
• Tales of Zobeck (available now)
• An adventure in an issue of Kobold Quarterly magazine (available now)
• Any future Open Design or Kobold Quarterly adventure published within the year that the Antarctica Challenge is in effect

“Through an Open Design adventure” is defined as at least 30 minutes of play during which dice are rolled to determine the outcome of a character’s actions in accordance with the rules of the roleplaying game that the adventure was designed for, OR to which the gaming group has adapted it; including but not limited to Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, Dungeons & Dragons (any edition), 13th Age, Call of Cthulhu, Old School Hack, and AGE System.

Valid proof will consist of the following, submitted to [email protected] with the subject line ANTARCTICA CHALLENGE:

• An audio or video recording of actual play at least 5 minutes in length, during which dice are rolled to determine the outcome of a character’s actions.
  • If a video recording is provided, a minimum of 5 still photographs of the gaming group and their environs must also be submitted as evidence, 3 of which of which must show at least one member of the gaming group outdoors so that all can plainly see they are IN ANTARCTICA. Canada does not count. Dire penguins will confirm your GPS positioning.
  • If an audio recording is provided but no video recording, a minimum of 10 still photographs of the gaming group and their environs must also be submitted as evidence, 6 of which must show at least one member of the gaming group outdoors.

The $700 prize package will ship only to an address within the continental United States. It is very, very heavy.

If you accomplish this astounding and legendary feat, the following prizes will be yours:

Antarctica Challenge Prize Package

• Faiths of Purity
• Faiths of Balance
• Inner Sea Primer
• Halflings of Golarion
• Carrion Crown Poster Map Folio
• The Harrowing
• Tomb of the Iron Medusa
• The Godsmouth Heresy
• We Be Goblins
• AP13: Shadow in the Sky
• AP 19-24, the full run of the Legacy of Fire series
• AP 39-40, City of Seven Spears, Vaults of Madness
• AP45-47, Broken Moon, Ashes at Dawn
• Rival Guide
• Lords of Chaos
• Inner Sea World Guide (hardcover)
• GameMastery Guide (hardcover)
• Frostburn
• Expedition to the Demonweb Pits
• Tyrants of the Nine Hells
• Heroes of Horror
• Darkmatter
• Midgard Campaign Setting
• Kobold Guide to Game Design
• Your Whispering Homunculus

Good luck!

Yr obt. servant,

Wolfgang Baur, Eccentric Game Designer