Domesday Book #13                                                             Home Up
Letter From the King

Here is a picture of the problems that led to the fall of the Castle & Crusade Society, according to Rob Kuntz. Verbatim and complete; all typos are Rob's.  Thanks to Frank Mentzer for this transcription.


Notice to the Membership

This is in part a reply to Mr. Hoegfeldts letter and some facts about what has been happening to the Society and is going to happen.

Roughly 2 years ago, Gary Gygax and myself decided to form a Society dealing with Medievilism.  I was was all for it and Gary had worked out some plans for advertising to get the idea spread around.  A little later issues #1 and #2 came out, free of charge.  These were meant to stimulate interest and to provide a basis for the formation of a larger newsletter.  People who received #2 were told that this was to be the last free issue, and subscription rates would soon follow.  A modest sum was offered, $2.00 for IFW members, $3.00 non-IFW.  (IFW sponsered the society and advertised it in the Messenger, which is why the special rates were offered to IFW members and still are.)  Numbers 3, 4, 5 soon followed to paid members, and the Society seemed to on it's way.  But, as life would have it, something just had to happen.  Gary Gygax, beforehand, had access to a machine that produced photo-offset.  Now, he had not, for reasons not pertaining to this notice.  Since we had no funds to buy a mimeograph or the like, the next best thing was to find somebody capable of producing a magazine for the membership, which had now risen to 31.

We found Chris Schleicher, the editor of a diplomacy 'zine named Atlantis.  A short while afterwards #6 soon appeared.  After that the irregularity started.  We tried desperately to get Chris back to one magazine a month status . That failed so we looked around for a new editor, none were to be found.  One member summed the whole mess up.  "When Schleicher prints the magazine the society continues, when he doesn't…"

About one year and 4 DB's later Gygax said goodbye and dropped out.  All but the very confident of the members lost interest in the whole works.  Looking back and asking why Chris did not publish the 'zine regularly is a very difficult question.  He said that there were no articles coming in.  This may have been true and in which case the fault would lay with the membership.  But, no ties or bonds were layed upon the members for the articles only polite requests for them.  Still none were forthcoming and the C&C was drifting into utter stagnation.

In March of this year I decided to try and put the C&C together once more.  Chris was told that his services were no longer required.  I at once ordered a mimeograph.  My brother hand typed 80 postcards and sent them to the membership, of which you all know about.  25 of the 80 cards sent out were replied to.  This discouraged both my brother and I but we kept up.  Along with about 40 of the cards a request for articles was given, two people answered.

The mimeo finally arrived after being delayed for 20 days, and we had a few articles.  These articles though were not enough for a regular sized DB.  So we waited sure that all our requests for material could not go unheeded.  But they did, except for the same two persons which kept on sending the stuff in.  Feeling that we could wait no longer we hurriedly assembled #12.  About July DB #12 was out to all members.  Immediately I received some of the questionaires and comments on the issue.  Most of the people that wrote to me seemed to be in agreement that the DB was not at all up to its usually higher standards.  This I am in full agreement with.  But here are the reasons why it was not:

1)  The mimeograph itself isn't the greatest in the world.  Infact it was the cheapest on I could buy from Sears.
2)  Articles, as mentioned berfore, were hard to come by.  This made the issue very short.  Out of the three, this was the greater problem and still is.
3)  This happened to be my first try at publishing a magazine.  There are going to be problems when this case arises.

This should give you some idea of what the society has to go through in order to get an issue of DB published and try to satisfy nearly 80 people.  Still some very important business has to be taken care of before the members can settle down to some fun and fully enjoy this organization.

PROBLEMS TO BE SETTLED:

Articles are definitely needed.  How happy I would be to see DOMESDAY BOOK back up to about 20 pages an issue.  This can be accomplished by any number of people interested enough to sit down and start plucking away at the typewriter at what interest them the most.  May it be Medievil History, Fantasy, weapons and their uses, ect., you send them in and they're sure to be published.  Again, for every 3 pages of typed material sent in one step in rank will be awared to the contributor.

No further back copies of DB's are available.  Little of what we had have been exhausted.  For those who have issues still coming, will either receive further issues of DB or they may also demand a refund for those issues not recieved.

As I said before most of the membership did not reply to the card requesting the number of issues they had coming yet.  This has caused great confusion in the societys records and this problem, if the members want a well operated club, should be rectified.  All you have to do is to skim through your DB's and report to us the number you have not received.  Simple as that.  This will help the club immensely and set it on the right track.  It takes a little time and a six cent stamp.

Thank you,
King Robert Kuntz I