Perfect Order

 We expect to receive Pokemon Perfect Order this Friday March 27. We will have booster packs and Elite Trainer Kits with a limit of 1 Elite Trainer Kit per person

Melf's Guide to Greyhawk

 Announced at Garycon is the upcoming release of Melf's Guide to Greyhawk, written by Luke Gygax, son of Gary Gygax and Melf's player in the original Greyhawk campaign in the 1970s,  Maybe releasing this December since there is an unannounced D&D release scheduled for then but more likely 2027

Castle Comic Club

 Starting April 7th we are replacing Ask A DM (since no one ever asked us anything anyhow) with te Castle Comic Club at 5:30 hosted by Brando.  Come in and discuss the comic of the month or whatever comic the conversation wanders to and take 10% off that month's graphic novel or comic series .

Pokemon Ascended Heroes

 We recieved a small shipment of Pokemon Ascended Heroes gift sets. In order to make sure as many people as possible get them, we are limiting purchasers to one (1) gift set. 

Buying or Trades

 Just your occasional reminder that we do not take trades or make purchases on  Tuesdays.  We generally have a number of shipments arriving then as well as comics subscriptions to process and pull.

Cryer From the Castle 3/17

 Brandon looks at this week's events at the store and new releases.

https://youtu.be/bqKiAVO4LmM

St. Patricks Day.

 

Come into the store this St. Patrick's Day, find a lucky clover, bring it to the register and exchange it for a prize.  No purchase necessary but limit 1 clover per person.

Pi(e) Day

 Stop n on national Pi(e) Day for some free pie, while quantities last, 10% off an assortement of math games and a free 6/7 promo card with your purchase of Math Fluxx.

Perfect Order

 We heard today that the next set of Pokemon, Perfect Order, releases March 27.  We will have booster packs and a limited number of elite Trainer Kits available for purchase.

Games Workshop New Releases

 The main new releases for March 28th are an updated Blood Bowl Elf team and the new issue of Spike magazine, with rules for them.  Please let us know by noon March 10th if you want any.

The masters of the passing game return to the Blood Bowl pitch with an elegant set of new miniatures.

Printed rules for the new High Elf team can be found in Spike! Issue 21, which contains fantastic content for all Blood Bowl players 

We will also have a number of GW novels ariving.

Gensys

 We will run a Yu Gi Oh Tournament on march 28 using the new Gensys system of building a deck.Somewhat similar to Warhammer 40,000, Yu gi Oh cards are now assigned points and players build a deck using the assigned number of points for the tournament.  Many cards cost zero point so you can put up to three in the deck at no cost, while more powerful cards cost 20 or 30 points limiting the number in the deck.

Lorwyn Eclipsed

 Looks as if we have a small order of Lorywn eclisped arriving tomorrow or Monday.  After that, according to WotC, we cannot expect a restock until the fourth quarter of 2026.  Why?  Because the company has a lot of product in the printing pipeline already:  reprints of Play boosters for Final Fantasy, Spider Man, Lord of the Rings, as well as the products releasing this year.

Games Workshop Pre-orders

 Here is the link to the list of GW pre-orders releasing march 21. Please let us know by noon CT March 3 if you want any

36th Anniversary

 This past month the store celebrated its 36th year in business and I figured I would take this opportunity to look back at some of the changes I have seen over the past three and a half years:

Credit card processing—Through most of the 1990s, cash was king (still is, but that is another topic). Credit cards were used, not debit cards as those came about much later and the process for using them was a lot lengthier that today’s insert or tap. Credit cards has raised number and names for use with a manual machine, not so fondly referred to as the “knucklebuster”.  Each machine contained a plate with the merchant’s processing information embossed on it. When making a credit card purchase, the sales clerk would fill out a multi-layered carbon, later carbonless, form, summarizing the items purchased and total amount charged, have the customer sign the form, then insert the card into the machine and slide the imprinter back and forth, imprinting the merchant and customer information onto the form. Since the clerk held the machine in place with one hand and slid the imprinter with the other hand, it was possible to strike the knuckles if not careful. Credit card processors would also mail out booklets every so often, containing lists of hundreds of thousands of fraudulent credit card numbers, which the clerk was expected to check before taking the card. The customer would get a copy of the form, the store kept a copy and a collection of copies from the day’s credit card sales got mailed off, usually daily, to the credit card processor. Happily those days ended in the late 1990s when even small stores got access to electronic credit card processing.

Credit Card Use—Along with the change in credit card processing, we saw an increase over the years in the use of credit cards themselves. Through the 1990s, the majority of our sales were in cash and purchases were comparatively small, in the $10 to $30 range On an average day, we would use the knucklebuster 5 to 10 times a day. On a typical day today, 75 to 90% of our sales are made with credit or debit cards with average up to about $25 but a $200 to $500 sale, unheard of until the advent of the trading card game, is not uncommon. Also common today are high school students and younger with their own credit cards or, more often, some form of phone based payment.

Trading Card Games—Prior to Magic, and later Pokémon and Yu Gi Oh, as well as the dozens of other trading card games that sought to capitalize on their popularity (anyone remember Super Deck or Towers in Time?), the game store served a very niche market, primarily young men aged 12 to 25, especially in college or military service. At the time Games Workshop’s business model targeted boys aged 10-12, who the company expected to play for about 4 years, then move onto other interests, like girls. Women did play but they accounted for about 10 to 15% of the customer base. TCG’s, especially Pokemon, vastly expanded the typical game store’s customer base, bringing in hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of new customers and exposing them to the hundreds of other games available.

Pokemon Day

Join us for Pokemon Day on Feb. 27th . We will have Ascended Heroes booster packs for sale as well as a limited number of Pokemon Day gift Sets and tins.  Limit one of each per purchase.  Ask for a free prize pack and sticker sheet.

 

RIP Jean Rabe

 

I was saddened to learn of the recent death of Jean Rabe (See “RIP Jean Rabe”). She had been in poor health for the past  couple of years with an extended stay in the hospital last year but had recovered enough for the hospital to discharge her to return home to her husband Bruce and her beloved pugs last fall.

I knew Jean initially from her stint coordinating Glathricon, an now defunct gaming convention in Evansville Indiana (See “From RPGA to Award Winning Author”). She worked as a journalist there, her primary focus covering crime in the city while pursuing her avid interest in role playing games. When a position opened up in the RPGA (Role Playing Game Association, the precursor to today’s D&D Adventurer’s League, she applied for and got it, becoming RPGA co-ordinator and editor of the Polyhedron, the house magazine of the RPGA. As part of her duties, she also took over co-ordination of Winter Fantasy, an annual convention focusing on RPGA events located in Milwaukee for most of the 1990s and in Fort Wayne, Indiana since 2009 . Wanting to focus more on her own writing, she left the RPGA in 1994, pursuing a career as a freelance writer and editor, often with TSR but also with FASA, editing the BattleTech magazine MechForce and writing some stories set in the Star Wars Universe for West End Games’ Star Wars Adventure Journal. TSR also tapped her to write the first sequels to the original Dragonlance series, the Dragons of a New Age trilogy as well as another half dozen novels set in the world of Krynn

Rather surprisingly, at least to me, despite her involvement in the RPG industry, she only worked on five modules of which I know:  Child’s Play, Terrible Trouble at Tragidore, Krynnspace, Vale of the Mage and Swamplight. Her preferences leaned more towards writing and editing genre fiction, with three Endless Quest books, a Shadowrun novel, three collaborations with Andre Norton and several other books tied into assorted fantasy role playing settings as well as spending a bit over a decade editing a number of anthologies for DAW. Her peers thought enough of her to elect her Grandmaster of the International Association of Media tie In Writers in 2020 and editor of the SWFA Bulletin, the bimonthly magazine for the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. In more recent years, her focus had turned to mysteries with the publication of The Love Haight Files, co-written with long-time friend Don Biggle and the Piper Blackwell mysteries, set in a rural Indiana that Rabe knew well from her time in Evansville.

The last few times I ran into Jean were at Chambanacon, a SF relaxacon in Champaign Urbana where she appeared as a panelist talking about her recent works and Quincon, a small gaming convention in Quincy Illinois, which she and Bruce both attended, not as writers but as Pathfinder players. Both avidly played Pathfinder, online and in-person. Her most important job, as she saw it though, was pugmother to her two pugs, Hunny and Missy and her social media feed was filled with pictures of them.

Jean was one of the friendliest people I ever knew and the world is a little darker without her. Thanks for the stories and the friendship, Jean.

Games Workshop New Releases

 Here are the new releases for March 14th 

The Empire of Grand Cathay has made its power known in the Old World, but back on home turf disaster has struck. Only the citizens and warriors of the Northern Provinces can stand against the barbaric horde that threatens the Bastion’s sanctity. You’ll be able to bolster the defence, or expand your existing Grand Cathay army, with the Defenders of the Great Bastion Army Reinforcement set, which will be the first place you can get these 53 new miniatures. Profiles for all of the above units will be present in Arcane Journal: The Breaching of the Great Bastion, an upcoming 48-page supplement that focuses on the defence of Grand Cathay by the commonfolk of the Northern Provinces. Click here for more

The hulking shock troops of the Mechanicum Myrmidon Destructor Host make their way to the age of darkness in plastic with multiple modelling options and strong in-game performance this versatile and highly anticipated release will be in demand amongst your Horus Heresy community. Also available this week are the Skitarii Battle Pilgryms, Marshal and Vultarax, available separately for the first time since their recent launch in the Skitarii Battle Group.

Pokemon Day

 Pokemon Day is Feb. 27 and marks the day the Pokemon video game first released back in the 1990s. We will celebrate this year by giving away Pokemon Prize packs and sticker sheets on the 27th to anyone that comes in and asks for one.  We will also hold a drawing for a Mega Evolution Gift Set. You will get one ticket for the drawing by coming in and asking for it, one for wearing a Castle Perilous shirt, Pokemon attire or a costume, one with your Preferred Customer card and 1 for each 2 stamps earned on a Castle CArd.

Cryer from the Castle 2/17

 Cryer from the Castle for the Week of Feb 17

https://youtu.be/i9OEN0I2aEk

GW New Releases

 GW releases for Saturday, March 7th 

The Ossiarch Bonereapers march out to collect their infamous bone‑tithe with brand-new miniatures and updated rules. The new Battletome: Ossiarch Bonereapers expands their lore and introduces fresh tactical options for commanding these relentless tax collectors of the Mortal Realms. New kits such as the War Chariot, Mortek Triaxes, and Mortis Reapers are great additions to the range, fleshing out the army with versatile units that will appeal to customers of all experience levels. A new Spearheadand a dedicated Regiment of Renown make it easier than ever for newcomers to start a new army, or for veterans to expand their collections.

Collectors of Warhammer Underworlds will be delighted by the release of a brand-new Ossiarch Bonereapers warband, Thanatek's Tithe, and a new Rivals deck, Nexus Of Power.

36th Anniversary

 

Thanks to everyone who came out for our 36th aniversary celebration on Feb 15. We opened the store door's on Feb 14 of 1990 and frankly I am a bit suprised we are still around after all these years.

Cryer From the Castle

 Cryer from the Castle for the week of 2/11

https://youtu.be/qBclRomTQms

Castle Quick Take

 Castle Quick Take for the Root RPG

https://youtube.com/shorts/q7lVB-8E8Vc?feature=share

Games Workshop New releases

 For Feb 28 release  Let us know by 8 p.m. Feb 9th if you want any so we can get orders in

The Maelstrom: Lair of the Tyrant, is the next narrative supplement coming to Warhammer 40,000. It begins at the centre of the galaxy as vulnerable worlds are pillaged by traitors and xenos, and great heroes must brave this nightmare realm of the Maelstrom. Two new themed, added-value Battleforces, including brand new miniatures, feature the forces of the tyrant Huron BlackheartandPrince Yriel.

Not enough?!? How about two Maelstrom Battalions? The Drukhari join the raiding fun along with the Leagues of Votann using the distractions to secure viable acquisitions

Valentines Day

 On Valentines Day we will have cookies and  a couple of specials.  All of the two player games on our front display will be 10% off. In addition, if you bring in a receipt from Quick Magic Gardens or Cristaudos dated 2/12. 2/13 or 2/14, we will take 10 % off your entire purchase.

Cryer from the Castle 2/4/26

Comics and events at the store for the week.

Games Workshop New Releases

 

New Releases for Feb 21.  Let us know by Noon Feb 3 if you want any

Step into a clash of arcane power as two rival factions battle for dominance in the Mortal Realms: the radiant Lumineth Realmlords and the ever‑shifting Disciples of Tzeentch. Both armies are led by powerful wizards, making magic a major focus on the tabletop. New Battletomes and added-value Battleforces make it easier than ever for newcomers to start a new army, or for veterans to expand their collections.

Castle Catch Up 1/29

Brandon looking at this week's comics

Pokemon Day

Pokemon Day takes place Feb. 27 and we will have a number of free Pokemon items and gift sets for sale.  Pick up a copy of the Carbondale Times, draw your favorite Pokemon in the appropriate box, bring it in on the 27 and we will give you a free Pokemon Prize Pack. 

Cryer from the Castle 1/28

Brando with this week's Cryer from the Castle

GW New Releases

 For Feb 14.  Suprise your valentine with the gift of Chaos:

PRICELIST

The Chaos Space Marine added-value boxes are here! They are a great opportunity to expand or start a collection. Ask us how best to stock them. Click below for information on the content of these boxes: Read more