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1:08 pm: Allan Sugarbaker says...
Serenity keeps flying at MWP in 2008

Fans of the Serenity RPG, take heart: Margaret Weis Productions has just announced its agreement with Universal Studios to bring more RPG support to the table. To that end, three new products are planned for sale in 2008: a collection of short adventures; Six-Shooters and Spaceships, which is exactly what it sounds like; and the Big Damn Heroes Handbook, a sourcebook full of “Character traits, campaign options, adventure ideas, new characters” and more. Check out the PR yourself below.

Margaret Weis Productions press release follows:

MARGARET WEIS PRODUCTIONS BRINGS MORE SERENITY
MWP to produce more Serenity RPG products for 2008!

October 8, 2007 (Lake Geneva, Wisconsin) – Margaret Weis Productions, Ltd. is pleased to announce it has reached an agreement with Universal Studios Consumer Products Group to produce additional role playing game products in support of the best-selling and critically-acclaimed Serenity Role Playing Game (based on Universal Pictures film by writer/director Joss Whedon). The three new products will go on-sale in 2008.

“The response for our Serenity products has been overwhelming,” says Margaret Weis, New York Times best-selling author and game publisher. “We have sold through four printings of the core book and won both the Origins Award and EN World Award. Since our last product hit the shelves, the fans have had one question: ‘When will there be more?’”

The first product will be a collection of short adventures, each designed to be easily inserted into an on-going Serenity campaign. “Variety is our goal with the adventure product,” says Jamie Chambers, Vice President of MWP, Ltd. and the author/designer of the Serenity Role Playing Game. “We want to feature both the familiar and the new – to give Browncoats things they’ve seen before and many things they have not. Ultimately that’s our goal for all three of our new products.”

Six-Shooters and Spaceships will be the second product to hit store shelves, introducing new ships, additional weapons, and unusual technology. “Serenity is ultimately about its characters,” says Chambers, “but to ‘keep flyin’’ crews need a ship, guns, and a few nifty gadgets.” All the ships will have full-color visuals and deckplans, while the gear will include diagrams, descriptions, and full game stats for the Cortex System game rules.

The last of the new products is the Big Damn Heroes Handbook, a game expansion that will open up many options for players and Game Masters alike. “The idea is to create or expand on ideas that we just couldn’t fit into the core book,” Chambers says. “Character traits, campaign options, adventure ideas, new characters, more Chinese – it’s all going to be in the book.”

All of the upcoming products will feature the exciting visual and verbal style of the original products, and will include the same design team. Margaret Weis will again be in charge of editorial content and she will write fiction vignettes for the books. The new books will begin releasing in early 2008, with a full release schedule coming soon.

About Margaret Weis Productions, Ltd. New York Times best-selling author Margaret Weis, author of Dragonlance and the Death Gate Cycle, leads her company into ventures for book and game publishing. The company has published official Dragonlance products for the d20 System, the Serenity Role Playing Game, the Battlestar Galactica Role Playing Game, and more. Margaret Weis Productions, Ltd. is based in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, the birthplace of hobby roleplaying games.

About Serenity
Joss Whedon – the Oscar®-and Emmy-nominated writer/director responsible for the worldwide television phenomena of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel – applies his trademark compassion and wit to a small band of galactic outcasts 500 years in the future in his feature film directorial debut, Serenity.

Based on Whedon’s cult hit television series Firefly (which has taken on a second life following its December 9, 2003, DVD release, winning new fans and critical praise worldwide), Serenity continues and expands upon the adventures of the memorable characters launched in the series, who are joined by new characters created expressly for the motion picture adaptation. Whedon acts as both screenwriter and director, with Barry Mendel (The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable and The Life Aquatic) producing and Chris Buchanan and Alisa Tager (of Barry Mendel Productions) serving as executive producers. The Serenity cast includes such returning Firefly cast members as Nathan Fillion as Captain Malcolm ‘Mal’ Reynolds, Gina Torres as Zoë Warren, Morena Baccarin as Inara Serra, Jewel Staite as Kaylee Frye, Adam Baldwin as Jayne Cobb, Sean Maher as Dr. Simon Tam and Summer Glau as River Tam.

The film centers around Captain Malcolm Reynolds, a hardened veteran (on the losing side) of a galactic civil war, who now ekes out a living pulling off small crimes and transport-for-hire aboard his ship, Serenity. He leads a small, eclectic crew who are the closest thing he has left to family – squabbling, insubordinate and undyingly loyal.

When Mal takes on two new passengers – a young doctor and his unstable, telepathic sister – he gets much more than he bargained for. The pair are fugitives from the coalition dominating the universe, who will stop at nothing to reclaim the girl. The crew that was once used to skimming the outskirts of the galaxy unnoticed find themselves caught between the unstoppable military force of the Universal Alliance and the horrific, cannibalistic fury of the Reavers, savages who roam the very edge of space. Hunted by vastly different enemies, they begin to discover that the greatest danger to them may be on board Serenity herself.

About Universal Studios Consumer Products Group
Universal Studios Consumer Products Group is responsible for global licensing and retail strategies as well as building brand recognition of the extensive catalogue of NBC Universal properties. Universal Studios Consumer Products Group is a unit of NBC Universal, one of the world’s leading media and entertainment companies in the development, production, and marketing of entertainment, news, and information to a global audience. Formed in May 2004 through the combining of NBC and Vivendi Universal Entertainment, NBC Universal owns and operates the No. 1 television network, the fastest-growing Spanish-language network, a valuable portfolio of news and entertainment networks, a premier motion picture company, significant television production operations, a leading television stations group, and world-renowned theme parks. NBC Universal is 80%-owned by General Electric, with 20% controlled by Vivendi Universal.

Serenity © Universal Studios. All rights reserved. Dragonlance is a trademark of Wizards of the Coast, Inc. Margaret Weis Productions, Ltd. is a trademark owned by Margaret Weis Productions, Ltd.