Greetings, all:

Since posting (in the Nesirie thread) the other day, I've been contacted via
private email by several members of this list asking me to post some
information of general interest. So here goes:

(1) What was the status of the Shadow World trilogy and guild book at the
time BR was put on hold?
To the best of my knowledge, Shadow Moon was partially written. Blood Spawn
was written and partially edited. Design on Charge of the Cold Rider had not
started yet, though as the climax of the series, we had notes and ideas about
what it would contain. The guild book had not been started at all.
A little while ago, someone posted to the list asking who owns the
copyrights to these items. TSR owns all rights and therefore has sole
decision over what happens to these materials.

(2) What am I working on while BR is on hold?
As I think most of you know, when WotC took over I did not join the exodus to
Seattle. I do, however, maintain a freelance relationship with the company.
My latest editing project, THE SYLVAN VEIL (Dragonlance), recently reached
store shelves.

(3) Did I really say that Azrai's body is floating in the Astral Plane with
the rest of the Cerilian gods?
Alexander MacLeod has gently reminded me that not only did I say this, but
apparently I was recorded on audiotape! Given what strange circumstances
surrounded that utterance, I'm not surprised I can't remember saying it. It
was at a Shadow World seminar at Gen Con '97--Sunday morning, my last day as
a TSR employee and my last seminar with Ed Stark. We were looking forward to
it in a bittersweet sort of way, but when it came time to begin the
seminar--no Ed. So I started without him, but all the while the thought,
"Where in the Abyss is Ed?" was looping through my mind. As it turns out, a
scheduling error had the seminar listed as taking place in two different
locations--and Ed was at the other one, running a seminar with a different
group of people and wondering where in the world *I* was :)

Anyway, that distraction explains how I came to violate my own
Be-Ambiguous-About-Azrai rule. I would, however, like to state two caveats.
First, game information is only canon if it's printed in a TSR product--if
and when BR is revived, those in charge can and will make their own decisions
about Azrai, regardless of anything that may have been said in a convention
seminar. Second, that cataclysm at Deismaar did some really weird things on
both sides of the Shadow World/waking world border. Even if Azrai's body was
blasted into the Astral, that doesn't mean some Shadow World incarnation of
him didn't spring into being at the same time. (Or that it did.)

Heck, I know what you're all really after here--you want to know whether the
Cold Rider is Azrai. Well, I'm not saying! ;)

Carrie Bebris