Pippin Skywalker wrote in to say that the official website has a place where you can enter to win various LOTR collectibles such as a Frodo plush toy and a leaf pin. The entry is on LordoftheRings.net.
Month: March 2003
March 25th is the date of (SPOILERS highlight to read all special occasions today) the downfall of Sauron, the Destruction of the Ring, and the New Year in Gondor!
The FIERCE Black Rider Tour
“The Nine have left Minas Morgul. They travel in search of The One Ring. They are tireless – they will never stop searching until they find it… “
Hey gang…Lao of Gondor here. It is with great excitement and enthusiasm to announce that THE FIERCE BLACK RIDER TOUR has officially begun! On March 23rd, the Nine Black Riders thundered out from the gates of Minas Norfolk, in the Black Lands of Virginia. Well, not really…but it is really hot there in the summertime – and you should see the size of the mosquitoes! Talk about fell beasts! Yet I digress…The Black Riders will be fierce, relentless, steely and their resolution will be swift…for they are bent on one single purpose: To visit a store near you!
The FIERCE Black Rider tour was created so that you and your community will have the opportunity to meet with one of Nine Decipher LOTR TCG representatives. This type of personal interaction will grant many of you: the players, retailers and shopkeepers – the ability to get to know more about Decipher and what plans the LOTR TCG holds for the future.
Each Black Rider will be on hand to conduct tournaments, demonstrations and events which will increase interest and visibility for your store and local playing community. They will also be able to field your questions and concerns regarding the state of the game, where it will be heading and what you can expect for the next expansions.
Each Black Rider will host a BOUNTY TOURNAMENT. This will be a Booster Draft event which will give you the chance to collect new cards and experience the fastest growing and most challenging style of organized tournament play.
Here is more information straight from Decipher about the details of the Black Rider Tour. Believe me…you don’t want to miss your chance to challenge a Black Rider – do you?
FROM DECIPHER:
BOUNTY TOURNAMENT– An event you don’t want to miss when the Black Rider comes to your town! Play in a booster draft bounty tournament during the Fierce. Tour, and you may be able to win extra prizes!
When a Black Rider plays in a bounty tournament, you will have the opportunity to win big prizes by beating him during that tournament. Also provided for the winner of each tournament will be cool Fierce. T-shirts with the Black Rider card on the back! Booster Draft “Bounty” tournaments will be organized in advance with participating retailers and posted on www.decipher.com. Plus, the Black Riders will be giving away thousands of exclusive promotional cards: an ALTERNATE IMAGE FOIL version of a year-four preview card – BLACK RIDER. While this card will not be tournament legal until its actual release, it is sure to see plenty of activity in casual-play and non-sanctioned tournament decks!
The focus of our Fierce. Black Rider Tour will be on major metropolitan cities within North America and Europe. We are already taking requests from retailers for visits all over the globe for the first leg of the Fierce. Black Rider Tour this spring. Of course, we will not be able to visit every retail location, but our focus on major cities will help us to go where the populations are the heaviest.
For more information on when and where a Black Rider will visit a store and town near you, click HERE to view the schedule of the FIRST LEG of the Black Rider Tour.
And now, it is time for all of you to meet the Black Riders…
Joe Alread
Joe is a part of the Trading Card Game Studio at Decipher. He is a key designer for The Lord of the Rings TCG. Joe has a long history with Decipher as a championship-caliber player of the Star Wars™ CCG and as a Product Champion in the late 90s. You’ll have to bring your A-game if you plan on taking a bounty from Joe!
Dan Bojanowski
Our very own Coordinator of the DGMA, Dan is no stranger to tournaments. Lucky for you, his lofty position in the world of tournaments won’t help a bit when he has a bounty on his head! Lucky for Decipher, Dan is an icy-cold gunslinger. You might be less ashamed if you simply conceded your tournament game to him before it starts…
Kyle Heuer
Kyle is the Promotions Coordinator for Decipher’s Marketing Group. You are currently seeing his handiwork if you are subscribed to the Battle of Helm’s Deep mailing list! If you’re not subscribed, then believe me, you’re missing out! Kyle is also a veteran of the “bounty tournament” format. If you don’t believe it, ask him about So Cal! By the way, this whole bounty idea is Kyle’s brainchild…make him pay for it!
Joeri Hoste
Joeri is one of the European Marketing Coordinators for Decipher. If you live in Europe and play Decipher’s games, then you have probably had contact with him. Joeri’s multi-lingual skills have brought Decipher closer than ever to its European playing community! That means you shouldn’t expect your country’s international editions of The Lord of the Rings TCG to faze him a bit when trying to collect a bounty on him!
Kevin Reitzel
Kevin is a longtime friend of Decipher, being that he was one of our early Product Champions for the Star Trek™ CCG, way back in 1997! It is no surprise that he heads up the entire Product Champion program for Decipher. Bring a beat-down for Kevin, or bring a Product Champion application, but don’t bring both!
Mike Reynolds
Mike is truly a veteran of The Lord of the Rings property. Decipher was lucky enough to acquire him as a designer for The Lord of the Rings TCG. His previous experience is on the old LotR game – Middle-earth: The Wizards. Mike has been integral on the development of the booster draft format for The Lord of the Rings TCG. Word is that Mike’s pretty good at the game too. You’d better be honing your booster draft skills if you want to collect a bounty on Mike!
Marcus Sheppard
Marcus is the other part of our two-headed marketing monster in Europe. He works with Joeri Hoste to make sure that all of the parts of the marketing machine are working smoothly in the United Kingdom and on the European continent. If you’re a Product Champion who is slacking off on your duties, expect a call from Marcus. If you’re a Product Champion who is doing his job well, expect a call from Marcus. If you’re planning on winning a bounty game against Marcus, expect to make other plans!
Sean Smallman
Way back in the day, Sean developed and maintained our tournament reporting system. Sean even goes back so far that he was a playtester for the Star Wars CCG before its launch in December 1995! Sean now heads up our International Distributor Marketing programs, and manages the Star Trek™ brand. There is documented proof that Sean is a lunch-time-playin’, pick-up-game-winnin’ The Lord of the Rings TCG player. There’s no doubt that Sean is going to be a tough bounty to capture!
Kendrick Summers
Decipher’s Marketing Manager and Brand Manager for The Lord of the Rings, Kendrick might be best known for his role as Decipher’s very own Gold Leader. Rumor has it that he used to fly around the world in first class, just trying to play Decipher’s games in the most exotic of locations! You can be sure that on this tour, Kendrick will be flying in prop-commuters and driving ultra sub-compact rental cars to get to your neck of the woods! It’s been said that he has a killer Lightfootedness deck with an Uruk Shaman shadow strategy that is out of this world! Look out!
Actually, Kendrick expects to be giving away LOTS of bounty display boxes on his leg of the Fierce. tour, so break your plans for that week and show up at his tournaments!
For complete scheduling information regarding the Fierce Black Rider Tour, please visit the Tour Calendar HERE.
If you wish to follow the daily events of the Black Rider Tour and experience the excitement of the Bounty Tournaments in other areas of the US or Europe, then please click HERE.
If you wish to have a Black Rider visit your area, or if you need more information regarding the tour, please contact DECIPHER for the most current scheduling information regarding this promotion.
They Will Never Stop Hunting You! Actually in this case, I think the Black Riders are the Hunted! Have fun at the Bounty Tournaments.
Lao
The first Tolkien Reading Day was March 25th, 2003. It was created by the Tolkien Society as a day to encourage the reading of Tolkien’s works, and it is hoped to have it integrated into school and library settings in addition to being celebrated by fans personally.
Xoanon here from California, Kayjay and I are still trying to recover from the Two Towers: One Party last night! Take a look at my small report and selection of pictures! [More]
Xoanon here from Southern California. Kayjay and I are still in the hotel room recovering from last night’s amazing Oscar Party at the Hollywood Athletics Club. Most of TORN is here with us in the hotel including Jincy, Corvar, Calisuri, Gamgee, Gandalf, Thorongil, Arathorn with Lady T. All os us are trying to wake up after staying out all night last night.
I’ll give you a quick run down on the party with a promise of a more in-depth report and a whole slew of photos when I get back to TORN HQ.
This year we took over the Hollywood Athletics Club (HAC) as opposed to last year when we had only a select few rooms to play with. The main room was a gigantic auditorium complete with an amazing speaker system and a ceiling mounted screen where we presented the Oscars. This was one of 3 main viewing rooms, along with other smaller TVs all around the club. We had the main hall and registration area set up as Fangorn Forest, complete with trees and errie lights to give it that dark mood.
The entire club was Middle-Earth themed, with rooms called Edoras, the Golden Hall, Rohan, Henneth Annun and The Dead Marshes.
The Dead Marshes was of particular interest. Once a swimming pool, this room now housed a dance floor and bar. We transformed it into a viewing room with dry ice all around to give it a haunted look. Truly wonderful!
The lineup for the party went out the door, around the block and down the street! TORN staffers and volunteers were ready when the doors opened at 4pm. ABC aired it’s usual pre-oscar blitz with red carpet coverage. Food was laid out for our many guests, with free beer, wine and soda all night. Quickbeam was our emcee again this year and after a fairly shaky introduction (all in good fun) he stepped onto the main stage in the Golden Hall to welcome everyone to the party!
The Oscars began at 5:30pm, while many of our 1100 guests were still making their way into the club. The night started off with a bang when TTT won for best visual effects!
TTT also picked up best sound editing later on in the night. It lost to Chicago for best film however, but we were content to know that next year will be ours!
All TORN staffers were on a rotating schedule. We hopped around from the silent auction room, to the TORN shop, to VIP rooms and more. It was at around 9:30 when KayJay and I were manning the TORN Shop that Tookish popped in to tell us that John Rhys-Davies (Gimli) had arrived. We were quite surprised by this since he had never confirmed that he would be coming. We didn’t even know he was in the US. We patiently did our full hour at the TORN Store then shot upstairs to greet him. He told us that he was working on a small piece for the BBC, and found himself in LA at the time, so why not!
Craig Parker (Haldir) was next to arrive with a very excited Bruce Hopkins (Gamling). They were greeted by press asking questions and adoring fans behind baracades begging for photos. Bruce embraced me like a long lost friend, and was an absolue mad-house of energy. He was fired up from the moment he arrived, and indeed stuck around well after we left!
Billy Boyd (Pippin) and Dominic Monaghan (Merry) were the next to arrive. The roof nearly came off the ceiling when they turned the corner and were greeted by the adoring fans. We followed Billy and Dom up into the VIP area where they unfortunately made their way into the smallest room at the club! They were surrounded by fans and well wishers who wanted photos and a handshake.
About 30 minutes later we heard that Sean Astin (Sam) and his wife had arrived. Little did we know it but as we walked to the VIP entrance we passed right by them. Sean was amazingly gracious and dressed to the hilt in a tux as he had just returned from the Academy Awards. A throng of adoring fans converged around him. When one of them mentioned how they loved his short movie ‘The Long and Short of it’, he gave them the good news; His short will be seen on the theatrical version of TTT to be relased this August!
Sean immediately wanted to know where Billy and Dom were and we led him to the room they were hunkered down in (still the smallest room in the place). They then all decided to head down to the main room in the Golden Hall and thank all the fans at the party.
The next few minutes was a buzz of bodies, corridors and flashing lights as we led Billy, Dom, Craig, Bruce and Sean (John Rhys-Davies had already left) down to the main hall through secret back entrances. Kayjay and I were then lost amid the swimming masses of body-guards and HAC staff. The next thing I knew, Andy Serkis (Gollum) had arrived and was on stage with Barrie Osbourne, Mark Ordesky, Alan Lee, Jim Reigel, Randy Cook, Grant Major and a whole slew of other WETA talent that was present at the Oscars. How and when they arrived was a mistery to me.
Sean Astin played Emcee for the moment and introduced everyone on stage. The roof nearly DID come off as the crowds cheered for the Oscar winners. They all came to the mic to thank the fans and TheOneRing.net for all the dedication and love. Barrie Osbourne had arranged for Peter Jackson to call in from New Zealand to thank everyone ‘in person’. Peter and Fran, along with a whole slew of other NZ talent had opted to stay in New Zealand this year, much to our dissapointment. Peter came on the PA system over a phone line from New Zealand and the crowd erupted in applause. The only problem is that PJ couldn’t hear us very well, and we couldn’t hear him! It turned into a comedy routine with Sean Astin on the mic saying ‘Peter?’ and PJ on the loudspeakers saying ‘Yes?’. With a big ‘thank you’ (the only thing we could hear) Peter left the loudspeakers and the LOTR gang left the stage.
We escorted a few of the talent back up to the VIP room while some gathered their limos and headed off into the night. Mark Ordesky and his wife were kind enough to stop by and say ‘hi’ before leaving for the night.
Kayjay and I headed back to the VIP area and I finally got my chance to shake Barrie Osbourne’s hand. We had been playing phone tag in the morning, and I almost missed him at the party. We spoke about ROTK and what they have in store for this coming spring and summer re-shoots. Chris and Dan Hennah were also in attendance. I had met them in Toronto a few months back at the TTT Exhibit. They were as kind and genuine as ever, giving me a few details on the sets they are building and the number of folks currently employed at WETA (scheduled to increase soon).
I was led to our interview room where Craig Parker was signing Oscar posters for us (almost mis-spelling ‘Haldir’ in the process). We spoke for a while about New Zealand, Canada and accents. I mentioned to him the droves of emails I receive daily from a group of Haldir obsessed women who are petitioning for more Haldir in the TTT Extended DVD. He got a kick out of that, but thought that we’d seen the end of Haldir, Extended Edition or not.
By this time it was coming on to 2am and Kayjay and I (along with the rest of the staff) had been at the HAC on our feet for almost 12 hours. We were beginning to look like zombies as we gathered our things and made our good-byes. Bruce Hopkins was haming it up with a Hobbit standee when we arrived downstairs to leave. He wished me well and asked us not to leave, but at this point I was starting to loose the feeling in my toes. So we departed.
We will have other, more extensive reports about the party last night, on this and other websites. I know I’ve got a ton more to write about. And a whole camera full of pictures to post. For now I’ll leave you with these 12. Enjoy!
