Read This and Help!

Please Help Save Palladium from Going Under

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An open letter from Kevin Siembieda, President & Owner.

A Crisis of Treachery

At a time when Palladium Books’ future has never looked more promising, we have been dealt a crippling blow.

For legal reasons, I cannot go into details about exactly what happened. Suffice it to say that betrayal of trust, theft, and embezzlement has inflicted what we estimate to be $850,000 to 1.3 million dollars in damages to Palladium.

It is a blow from which Palladium cannot recover. At least, not without YOUR help.

Out of options . . .

I have borrowed tens of thousands in loans and sunk every dime I’ve had into Palladium Books. I’m selling everything I own to keep Palladium going. That’s the real reason I’m selling my 25 year old toy collection, art and other items at the Palladium Open House.

But it’s not enough.

For the last year I had kept Palladium going with the hope that something would break in our favor. After all, we had all kinds of exciting things going on behind the scenes, and the huge loss seemed, for a while, like something we could overcome. Then a string of misfortune.

A series of unfortunate events

- The truly wonderful Rifts® videogame – Rifts® Promise of Power – was stillborn. The N-Gage platform never took off in North America. That meant the N-Gage and Rifts® Promise of Power would NOT be available on the mass market in the USA and Canada. Finding it anywhere in North America required an act of God.

- There would be no Nokia royalty-based revenue stream.

- Nor would there be a Nokia videogame sequel and the money that might come from it.

Note: Nokia treated me nothing short of GREAT. They lost truckloads of money on this venture. We’re both the victims of marketing fallout. Please don’t blame these wonderful people for Palladium’s woes – circumstance just didn’t make them part of our solution.

- Minimal gains into the book trade (Barnes & Noble, Borders, Hastings, etc.). PSI’s (Publisher Services Inc.) efforts to get Palladium RPG products into the book trade have been slow to say the least. Although we are confident PSI will be a good partner and get us into many national bookstore chains, it is taking much longer than anticipated.

- The Rifts movie? Stalled. Until Jerry Bruckheimer has a script he loves, the movie can’t get the green light. That makes perfect sense, but it doesn’t help Palladium’s bottom line right now.

- There were discussions with a company interested in doing a Rifts® MMOG but it didn’t pan out.

- Other potential deals have moved forward at a snail’s pace or have fallen to the wayside.

- Going public with this appeal may very well cost us getting the Robotech® license renewal.

- It doesn’t help that the role-playing game industry is in a slump and going through a transitional phase.

- Palladium has a team of amazing writers and artists brimming with ideas and enthusiasm. We have dozens and dozens of ideas and opportunities that will knock your socks off, but not the money to implement them.

- Palladium’s writers and artists have been troopers, waiting months to get paid, but their generosity is not enough.

- Treachery and skullduggery from within threatens to put us out of business.

Please help save Palladium Books®

I struggled and struggled with whether or not I should turn to YOU for help. Palladium and I have always had a close relationship with our fan base. Everything we do, we do with you in mind. We buck the trends, keep prices low, produce The Rifter®, and try to bring happiness with our annual X-Mas Grab Bag offer. We love gaming and gamers.

The irony is, we should be doing fine except for the treachery that has crippled us.

It was actually trusted fan-friends and freelancers who gave me the idea to turn to you, the people who are most important to our survival on so many levels.

Time and time again, each person I spoke to would be stunned by the news that Palladium was facing the possibility of closing its doors soon.

Time and time again, the person would say something heartfelt like, “I can’t believe it. I can’t imagine a world without Palladium in it. Kevin, if I had the money I’d give it to you in a heartbeat.”

I heard this so many times, almost word for word, that it gave me an idea. What if I went public and told all our fans about our trouble? Would they help?

It seemed like a viable solution, but was it right to ask our fans for . . . a helping hand?

My friend, Teresa Mead, helped me decide that this was the best solution when she said to me, “Kevin, I know your fans, and I think they’d be angry if you didn’t turn to them. They care about Palladium. If they find out they had a chance to save it, but Palladium’s gone because you didn’t ask them, it will make them furious. They’ll feel cheated and betrayed.”

I thought about that a lot, and I think she’s right. So here’s goes.


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How you can help

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Purchase the limited edition print “A Megaverse® United”

- I, Kevin Siembieda, will draw a special, pencil drawing with key characters from our entire game line to be made into a simple, black and white, toned piece of artwork, 11 x 14 inches, printed on a good quality paper.

- Each print will be hand signed by me. I’ll indicate which number that print is (i.e. #1, 2, 100, 1000, 2010, etc.). I don’t know how many there will be in the end; I pray for thousands!

- EVERYONE who purchases the print will see their names appear in the back pages of a major book listed as “Heroes of the Megaverse®!”

- The print will sell for $50.00 plus shipping and materials (envelope, protective cardboard, etc.), probably about $2.00-$5.00 by regular first class mail.

- We need those sales NOW!!! If 4,000 or 5,000 people all order that darn print within a month or two, it should give us the money we need to get back on our feet! Without a shot in the arm of some big cash, and fast, I fear Palladium is gone. That kind of jump start should carry us through the year and should enable us to do the other things we need to do to keep the company going for years to come!

YOU can make a real difference

This is one of those rare moments in life when YOU, as an individual, can make a real difference. You can be a real hero by purchasing one of those prints and encouraging every Palladium gamer you know to do the same. Spread the word online, at conventions, at game stores, everywhere. Encourage every Palladium fan who has ever enjoyed our games, purchased a Grab Bag, or visited us at a convention to run home and place an order.

I would never ask this great kindness of you if I didn’t think it would really work to save Palladium and keep us going for years.

This is easier than it may sound.

Four or five thousand may seem like a big number, but that’s not even close to the number of gamers who purchased the Rifts® Ultimate Edition within the first few weeks of its release!

Palladium has a mailing list of 14,000 fans who buy from us throughout the year.

We sold 2000+ Christmas Grab Bags last year alone.

We get 25,000-50,000 hits on the website every month, with some months exceeding 100,000!!!

Millions of gamers around the world have played our games over the years — Rifts®, Ninja Turtles®, Robotech®, Palladium Fantasy RPG®, Heroes Unlimited, Nightbane® and others. MILLIONS!

With YOUR help Palladium CAN survive, but we need a rapid infusion of cash. That means we need YOU to spread the word about Palladium’s situation and encourage others to buy a print too. And as soon as possible.

YOUR help is real

Any amount we can sell will make a difference. 2000 prints sold is a big help and “should” enable us to limp through the rest of the year working toward getting into the book trade and launching new products that can make a difference. 4000 prints sold “should” free us of the most crushing debt, and help get us standing on our feet. 5000 prints or more should help enable us to release a range of amazing role-playing games, sourcebooks and related products. With the cash we need, Palladium can do all of the following.

Release the stockpile of exciting new sourcebooks and products created by Palladium’s unbelievable crew of talented freelance writers and artists.

Palladium can release new RPGs and publish more products for ALL its game lines, hopefully boosting overall sales and making Palladium strong again.

Palladium can reprint key titles.

Palladium can expand vital advertising.

Palladium can keep doing the X-Mas Grab Bag that makes Christmas that much brighter for so many people.

With your help, a little luck and hard work, this will be the boost we need to keep Palladium going for years and years to come.

Without giving away too many secrets, we’ve been looking into a number of exciting licenses and new product areas you guys and gals have been asking for over the years, including novels, comic books and toys. Things that would already have been in production except for the crisis of treachery.

YOU will be a bigger, intrinsic part of the Palladium Megaverse than ever before. You’ll be true champions who did something noble, kind and significant.

YOU have my word that fans will always come first and I will repay you by keeping Palladium’s quality high, our prices reasonable, and giving back whenever I can.

What else can you do?

- Come to the Palladium Open House and celebrate the past, present and future, buy back-stock items, toys, art and rare collectibles.

- Keep supporting Palladium by purchasing our games at stores and online from Palladium Books.

- Spread the word about Palladium’s role-playing games to other gamers. The greatest sales tool there is, especially in this age of the internet, is “word of mouth.” Encourage others to play Palladium games, run games and demos at your favorite game store or local game convention.

- Take advantage of online offers and sales, like the 25th Anniversary items.

- Tell stores that you want our books and wish they’d carry them (but only if it’s true).

- Share your thoughts and ideas with us.

- Forgive me for having to bother you with our troubles. I hope this appeal doesn’t offend anybody. I’ve run out of options.

- Please do not try to assess blame or blast the person or persons who may be responsible. It can only lead to more trouble for Palladium. Besides, we need you to focus on the positive with us. Palladium CAN be saved with some help from its friends.

If Palladium Books should come to an end, I have no regrets. I’ll know I did everything possible to keep going and do right by everyone. I have nothing but wonderful memories I will cherish forever. Palladium Books has allowed me to touch the lives of millions of people, meet thousands of fans, and become friends with scores of wonderful people.

– Kevin Siembieda, Publisher – Spring 2006

Copyright 2006 Palladium Books Inc. All rights reserved.
This Press Release may be used and portions reprinted with Palladium's permission for the purpose of news and promotion. Rifts®, Megaverse® and Palladium Books® are registered trademarks of Palladium Books Inc. and Kevin Siembieda. Heroes Unlimited, Powers Unlimited, Beyond the Supernatural, Tome Grotesque, Beyond Arcanum, Splicers, MercTown, Merc Ops, Dinosaur Swamp, Chaos Earth, NEMA and all other titles and names are trademarks of Palladium Books.

The Iran Crisis and the Korea Effect

Sorry about the delay. I couldn't access my blog for a few days there. Some of you have read this as I posted it elsewhere today.

Anyone who thinks that the actions of Iran in its enrichment of uranium are random or uncalculated could use a good head soak.
Iran's defiance of the UN and the US, as well as Europe and Russia, are a clear and calculated stalling tactic meant to hold things off long enough to actually develop a nuclear bomb, with which it can hold the world politically hostage.
I'm not saying they even intend to actually USE a bomb, but they want the bomb because it comes with political currency.
Were you the leader of Iran, you'd do it as well.
Look at the examples we have to go by. In recent history, Pakistan, India and North Korea have all developed nuclear weapons despite clear restrictions against nuclear proliferation.
How many punative measures have been taken against them?
How many airstrikes on their arsenals?
How many sanctions?
Instead, Pakistan got to buddy up to the US, despite being a dictatorship that is at times oppressive and being the country most likely to be harboring (however unwillingly) the most wanted man on planet earth. India got a nice fat nuclear power deal. And North Korea refuses to deal unless somebody can put something nice and juicy in the hand it's got out.
The one country that demured and actually did NOT have them, got invaded.
So, from Tehran's perspective: Have nuclear weapons, get cool stuff for free. Don't have nuclear weapons, get the 3rd tear-assing across your territory in tanks, kicking the ever-lovin' snot out of you.

Hrmmm....decisions, decisions.......

Is it really that hard to see why Tehran has chosen the path it has chosen?
If you were them, would you do any different?
It's not that I trust them with a nuke...oh hells no. I don't trust ANY nation in the Middle East with nuclear weapons, and that goes for Israel too.
It must be the heat or something, but rationality and peace doesn't seem to enter into the local politics.

But you can't, from a tactical perspective, blame Tehran for wanting the bomb. Where's the penalty, historically, for having nuclear arms?
Name a country whose development of nuclear weaponry got them shafted by the international community....
.
.
.
I'll give you some time....
.
.
.
Yeah. Not a single one. The only country that HAD nuclear weapons and gave them up was South Africa. And it wasn't really threatened over it by the international community.

Now, look at how America handles its non-nuclear enemies...such as Afghanistan, home of the Taliban and Al Queda, and Iraq. Neither had nukes, both got invaded.

The irony is that all the country's trying to urge Iran away from nukes, the U.S., France, Russia, and China, all HAVE THEM.
Now, I want you to think about this. You're going to build a gun. In a neighborhood of about 100 folks, only 10 of the others have guns. One has just mugged two of your closest neighbors who didn't have guns. Now, the neighbors who have guns are telling you that you should not build one. That it would be bad for you to have one.

Isn't that like when you were a kid and your friend had an ice cream cone, and saw you staring, and said: "Oh! You don't want THIS ice cream! It's sooo yucky! *slurp, slurp* MMMmmmm, absolutely horrible! Hey! Don't even THINK about stopping that ice cream truck! *slurp*"

Iran knows the U.S. is spread thin and that the public has no will to go to war over this. We'll be very suspicious of any attempt to invade YET ANOTHER middle eastern country rumored to have, or be working on, WMDs. In the words of our own president, "Fool me once...shame on you...fool me twice....but fool me can't get fooled again!"

Who Iran should have to worry about is Israel, but Israel giving an islamic middle eastern country the smackdown right after a Hamas political victory in the occupied territories, and after the US and Europe have decided to try to starve Hamas out by cutting off aid until it complies is not like throwing a match into the powderkeg, but like lighting your head on fire and trying to use the powderkeg to douse it.

This is a lose/lose situation. Because Iran isn't the most stable and secure country. It's bad enough that Pakistan and North Korea have nukes. Those places aren't paragons of stability, and our good friend Pakistan has already shown itself to not quite having stellar security over its nuclear secrets.
But nothing short of an outright attack is going to stop them from building a nuke, I believe, and the consequences of that may be as bad as them being armed.
It is another example of the failed policies of this adminstration on the foreign front and how we'll be reaping the costs for a long time to come.
Had we focused on al queda until we caught bin Laden and used more sense when dealing with Iraq, we'd have been in a better position to, let's be honest, bully North Korea away from its nuclear program, which in turn would have set a different benchmark. Were our armies not tied up in Iraq, and if bin Laden were in chains or a shallow grave that marines were using as a latrine, where he should be, the threat of force would be more potent against North Korea.
The last thing China wants to see is the US heading into NK. They'd have put the REAL pressure necessary to force NK to back off. Then the record would be: unarmed country, not attacked. Armed country, scared off by world powers. And Tehran would have had an entirely different playbook.

My big goals

Everyone has one or two big goals theyd like to achieve in life. Mine is to become a published novelist.
I can't remember when exactly I first wanted to be a novelist, but it's been a desire of mine for a very long time.
I had honestly hoped to achieve it by now. Not that I'm disappointed in my life, I've reached quite a few goals.
I wanted to fly, and I did that for a while, though I didn't get my license.
I wanted to become a reporter, and I did that for a very long time. I also wanted to work on Capitol Hill as a reporter, and I reached that goal. I did that for about three years and realized that there was only one thing left to do: write a book.
All I want is to see my name on the spine of a book, maybe on its own little display stand at the entrance to Barnes and Nobles. So much of my imagination has been sparked by authors such as Edgar Rice Burroughs, J.R.R. Tolkien, R.A. Salvatore, Ann McCaffrey, and Robert Heinlein. I'd like to be able to do that for some kid somewhere. Just take his mind out of his world and set it free.
I learned a lot from those authors growing up, particularly Burroughs and Tolkien.
Growing up during the "Crack 80s" in Detroit, it would have been easy to slip into some really bad stuff. But I was probably almost idealistic. I knew the world was bigger than that. Now, my family and church had a lot to do with that as well, but quite a bit of it was due to John Carter's repeated rescues of Dejah Thoris, and Sam and Frodo's braving the veil of Gorogoroth.
Being able to do the same for some young mind, I'd feel as though I did something with my time on this rock other than take up oxygen.
Although I admit that I'm already proud of my stint as a reporter, and that I've had an effect on things. Due to an interesting twist of circumstances I'm responsible for at least one paragraph of Congressional language.
Not too shabby, I'd say.
But I got a lot of life left in me. I want to do more. I want to be remembered, read, and discussed, long after I'm gone. I'd also like to do a screenplay or two in there, as well as a role-playing book. The latter I missed by a hair. But the opportunity on that one may rise again in a couple months.
I want immortality. Several hundred years from now I want a tri-vid Discovery Channel special about me and my works. Long after I'm gone to whatever awaits us on the "other side" I want to be remembered. I want someone who's not a direct descendent to do an essay on me. I want some kid in the inner city, wondering if there's more, to open my book and find the answer in those pages.

Bad eating habits

Well, I'm at about the halfway point of Lent and I haven't had a single bite of red meat. I'm holding up pretty well, all things considered. I haven't flipped out and cut anybody's head off (for which rae is greatly appreciative). And I haven't snuck off to have a burger. However, I'm tired of friggin' chicken.
I don't want to dig on too much swine. That stuff'll kill ya. But still for Easter Sunday, forget the traditional meal I want a big ole del monaco steak grilled by my homeboy, Vox (a.k.a. the patron saint of grillin', but that's another story).
Somehow, through all this, I've managed to put on weight, which is freakin' me out.
My doc is checking to see if my thyroid's acting up, but she thinks its busy season at my job. See, whenever we stay late they give us dinner. However, their selection isn't exactly health conscious. There's a fried chicken night, a pizza night and a lasagna night, among others. You aren't thinking balanced meal, you just shovel that crap down and keep workin' (I can't partake of lasagna night because it has ground beef).
We have a free membership to Gold's Gym, but do you know how hard it is to get your butt to the gym for lunch when you're pulling OT every day?
Things should lighten up this week however, and I'll be able to hit the gym if I can motivate myself, and start eating home cooked meals that make some sense.
What I'd like to do, actually, is do my low carb diet again. Last time I did that I lost 40 lbs in about three months. Not Atkins, mind you, but I just cut out about 80% of the carbs I'd normally eat and upped the meat and green vegetables and ruffage. I also took vitamin supplements to keep things in balance.
But rae is Italian. She'd go into a coma without pasta. I casually mentioned it and you should have seen the look of utter terror on her face. I think she broke out into a cold sweat.
So, I'll do it the old fashioned way...hit the gym. It's just a matter of finding the motivation to sacrifice my lunch break for it (the gym is only a block away from my job). It's approaching summer and I'd like to get rid of the extra pounds.
Eventually, I'd like to settle down at about 170 lbs. That was the weight where I was in the best shape of my life. I was also doing an hour and a half of aikido every couple days at the time though, so that made a big difference. It's been about 10 years since then, but hey, shoot for the moon, right?