With all the excitement around here this week about my most recent publication — 4 Seconds (still free to read over at Thrillbent!) — I experienced a pleasant kind of kismet when a special package showed up in the mail:

That elaborate box design signals what is inside, but this arrival is no less a surprise, as I didn’t expect to see this book for several weeks yet.

And on the reverse:

Yep, there’s no doubt about it … this box must contain my contributor’s copy of the Grimtooth’s Traps Ultimate Collection! Seems like only yesterday I was promoting the Kickstarter for this anniversary edition, and now it’s here!

Oooh. Slipcase. Very fancy.

Dead dinosaur leather? Hmm.

Inside the slipcase was a massive hardback, bearing largely the same front cover as the first printing of this role-playing supplement, over three decades ago!

And inside, the same cartoon that series artist Steve Crompton drew of a teenaged me, when I edited (and partially wrote) Grimtooth’s Traps back in the 1980s:

And that’s the kismet part! What are the odds that my very first significant professional writing sale would be memorialized in a lavish anniversary edition within days of my latest creation, 4 Seconds, being unleashed on the world?

A bountiful week, to be sure.

But there was one more surprise to come.

My copy thoughtfully included a piece of Steve’s original art from Grimtooth’s Traps. And how do I know it is original? Because that is my printing on the art, labeling this illustration for the “Going Down?” trap. It was so strange to see, and it immediately took me back to that first game design gig, with Flying Buffalo out in Arizona, where I helped launch Grimtooth’s Traps and wrote all sorts of wonderful role-playing things.

Thanks to Goodman Games for publishing this lavish and authoritative edition of Grimtooth’s Traps! I shall cherish it always … provided I can find a shelf strong enough to hold it!

Drop by the Goodman Games site and check out the details on the Ultimate Grimtooth Traps Collection (as well as their line of Dungeon Crawler Classics, and other old school role playing goodies. Tell them Longbox Graveyard (and Grimtooth the Troll) sent you!