Free Events at the Dragon's Den

So we run several different FREE events at the Dragon's Den. Several of these events are run every week and can be found on our calendar of events, but others events run once a year and fall about the same time every year.  Here are some of the BIG once a year FREE events we host here at the Dragon's Den:


FREE Comic Book Day: Diamond comics offers to stores a chances to be a part of FREE Comic Book Day. We can offer many different comic books for FREE that day including Mavel, DC, Dark Horse, and many of the other independent publishers.  There are also some other give aways that stores can get including Heroclix minis, grading guides, and so much more.  We have also had several different artists and authors who have come in to do signings during the event.  This lists includes:
Herb Trimpe - Artist for the Hulk, and many more Marvel Comics
Mark Texeria - Artist for Ghost Rider, Moon Knight, and more
JM Dematteis - comic book and TV writer (Kraven's Last Hunt!) 
Nick Tapalansky - Writer Awakening
Alex Eckman-Lawn - Artist Awakening 

We are hoping to make this years FREE Comic Book Day even better then ever! We have a few great ideas to make this year memorable and exciting... but I'm not going to ruin the surprise and tell you about them now! You will need to come back in the future and read the blog or check our website!

FREE RPG Day: Impressions Advertising and Marketing has created this fantastic event and gets some of the best FREE RPGs for players to check out and play.  We used to just have some of the RPGs for handing out, but last year we started running some of the adventures during the event for players to try a new game! Over the past several years Pathfinder (Piazo), and Dungeons & Dragons (Wizards of the Coast) have offered up some fantastic FREE suppliments or adventures. Here is a list of some of the fantastic games or companies that had product for FREE RPG Day:
Dungeons & Dragons (Wizards of the Coast)
Pathfinder (Piazo)
Hollow Earth
Call of Cthulhu
Chessex

This years sponsors for the event are:

• BlackWyrm Games
  Sample HERO Adventure
• Blue Panther
  Sample Card Tower
• Eden Studios
  Silver, All Flesh Quickstart & Adventure
• Fantasy Flight Games
  Gold, TBA
• Goodman Games
  Silver, DCC RPG Quickstart
• Green Ronin
  TBD, DragonAge Quickstart
• Guild of Blades Publishing
• Paizo Platinum
  TBA
• Pelgrane Press
  TBD, Trail of Cthulhu Adventure
• Pinnacle
  TBD, TBA
• Troll Lord Games
  Bronze, C&C Quickstart and Adventure
• Valkyrie Games
  Sample, Stellar Horizons Quickstart
• White Wolf Publishing
  Gold (10 per box), TBA
• Wizards of the Coast
  Platinum (15 per box), D&D Adventure 

 Sean "Striderlotr" Banks

Signings at the Dragon's Den

We have a lovely lady coming in to do a signing here at the Dragon's Den, Christy Hemme. She is a model, singer, and former professional WWE wrestler.  She currently conducts backstage interviews for TNA’s television program, iMPACT!  Her professional wrestling career began after winning the 2004 Diva Search competition held by WWE. She subsequently wrestled for TNA Wrestling, retiring at the end of 2009. As a model, she has been the cover girl for Maxim, Playboy, and Rolling Stone. She has appeared in commercials for AT&T, TrimSpa, and was a spokesmodel for Hawaiian Tropic.

Christy Hemme is in Pougkeepsie for an event at the Hudson Valley Civic Center. Hemme will be at the Dragon’s Den to give autographs, pose with fans for pictures, and answer questions about her career.  Photos of Hemme and other merchandise will be available for purchase in-store. We welcome fans and customers alike to come on in during the appearance of Christy Hemme at our store!

Over the past few years we have gotten several people in to do some signings, as well as drawing some on the spot art. Here is a list of the past artists, writings, and actors we have had in the store for visits.  Some of these visits have been for specific events such as Free Comic Book Day (the first Saturday in May each year) while others have been set up because of events in the area.

Herb Trimpe - Artist for the Hulk, and many more Marvel Comics
Mark Texeria - Artist for Ghost Rider, Moon Knight, and more
JM Dematteis - comic book and TV writer (Kraven's Last Hunt!) 
R.A. Salvatore - Author... do we need to list all his books???
Kris Williams - Ghost Hunters
Ami Bruni - Ghost Hunters
Brandon DiCamillo  - Jack Ass, Cattle Bag
Nick Tapalansky - Writer Awakening
Alex Eckman-Lawn - Artist Awakening

FREE RPGs and More

There are many free Role Playing Games (RPG) around the internet.  Many of these games are online MMORPGs, but there are some that are traditional paper and pencil RPGs that have been created by players that have an interest in gaming and making games. Some of these games do involve other peoples copyrighted material, so remember that as you look around at all the interesting free games.  Below I'll list some of the sites that have FREE RPGs, online and print.

Online:

http://www.bestonlinerpggames.com/ - This site is loaded with free games. These range from MMORPGs, Fantasy RPGs, Adventure RPGs, Horror RPGs, Action RPGs, and Sci-Fi RPGs. Great for finding a whole bunch of different games to give a try.  Many of the games are not traditional RPGs, but they do offer some fun.

http://www.kabam.com/ - These are Facebook games, but maybe worth a mention. Facebook offers many different games to distract and entertain. Kabam offers several RPG type games with Atlantis, Ancient Rome, and Camelot as themes.

http://www.rpggames4free.com/ - This is another online RPG site.  They break down their list of RPGs into different catagories, including fantasy, adventure, browser, flash, and text.

Print: 

http://www.1km1kt.net/ - This is a massive site filled with FREE RPGs games.  They have some that MMORPGs listed as well, but many are paper and pencil downloads.  They have over 500 FREE RPGs listed in the free catagory.

http://www.thefreerpgblog.com/ - This blog offers posts and discussions about FREE RPG games.  They link to Delicious (a social bookmarking site) so to have all the links to all the games in one place.

http://www.homebrew.net/games/ - This site is dedicated to only paper/pencil download RPGs. They have a nice sized list and the author has been searching for these RPGs for over 10 years.

Other:

Brikwars: http://www.brikwars.com/downloads/BW2005.pdf Ever wonder what to do with all those extra lego and mega-blok? Well Mike Rayhawk created a game that uses those little minifigs to play some fun miniature games with! This is a link to the PDF rule book.  Here is a link to the suppliments which include other minifigs, and blank minifig cards: http://www.brikwars.com/supplements.htm. If you want to see the website that has all the information... here you go: http://www.brikwars.com/.

There are so many more RPG games out there, and as we have time we will continue to add more.  For now, enjoy the list and find a new game to try out... oh and by the way, we will be giving Brickwars a try at the Dragon's Den.