Out of the Suitcase #54: Farewell to Lee Gold's Alarums & Excursions - Chaosium Inc.
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Out of the Suitcase #54: Farewell to Lee Gold's Alarums & Excursions
Posted by Michael O'Brien on 7th May 2025
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Chaosium President Rick Meints shares stories from a life-time as a collector of all things Chaosium.
In June of 1975 – the same year Greg Stafford founded Chaosium – Lee Gold published the first issue of Alarums & Excursions.
Sadly, I just found out that it has ceased publication just shy of its 50th anniversary, and over 590 monthly issues.
You perhaps may not be familiar with what an Amateur Press Association (APA) is, as they have faded into history due to the rise of the internet and social media. APAs were usually physically printed on a monthly basis and contained around 75-150 pages of material. They relied on contributions to sustain themselves and usually offered a free copy of that issue to each contributor. Most also offered paid subscriptions.
Each contributor wrote between 2-12 pages. Often, each contributor would write up some new material for whatever game(s) they were interested in, and also devote a lot of their page space, sometimes almost all of it, to commenting on what other people had published in previous issues. Each contributor typed up their article and mailed it to the APA’s editor.
Alarums & Excursions was one of the longest running, if not the longest running APAs ever. It won numerous "best amateur magazine" awards, especially in the 80s and 90s, including being inducted into the Origins Hall of Fame in 2022.
Many Gloranthan luminaries published articles in it, including Greg Stafford, Steve Perrin, Stephen R. Marsh, David Dunham, John Sapienza, Bill Keyes, Rudy Kraft, Jennell Jaquays, Rob Heinsoo, Mark Galeotti, Robin D. Laws, and Chris Bell, to name just a few.
In addition to A&E, Lee Gold became the first female RPG writer to be professionally published when Land of the Rising Sun by FGU debuted in 1980. She later also wrote GURPS Japan for Steve Jackson Games and Vikings for ICE.
Lee is a legend in the LA Science Fantasy Society, a published novelist, and an active filk musician. Alas, her failing eyesight has forced her to retire from publishing, with both A&E and Xenofilkia last month at the end of April.
Thank you Lee for your many years as the editor and contributor to both.
On a personal level, I started adding RuneQuest and Gloranthan related A&E articles to the first edition of Meints Index to Glorantha in the 90s. Even back then I knew cataloging all of them would be a daunting task. Thus far I have only gone through the first 200 issues or so, which at least covers all of the RQ2 and much of the RQ3 era. Only a fanatical completist with deep pockets would seek out and buy actual printed copies, especially since many of the earliest issues had print runs of around 200 copies. Fortunately, PDFs of ALL A&E back issues can be purchased from Lee Gold for $2 each.
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