How does the process work? Read over these guidelines. Send in your writing sample and a signed NDA. Once your sample is approved you will have to read, sign, and return a writer contract. You wil then either choose a project, or be assigned one. You will have to provide us with an update on your project on the first of every month.

What do you get out of this? You will earn a 3% royalty on the sale (retail) price of each product you are published in, provided your work constitutes more than 50% of a book. If you write something smaller we will pay you a $20/page (after layout); partial pages will be paid as a percentage of a full page.

I. Introduction

SSDC is one if the fastest growing game companies in the industry, and has achieved a great deal of success since it's founding in 1999. SSDC's objective is to expand its product line, in the efforts to produce high quality games. The boys at SSDC, as we call ourselves, are actively seeking talented, creative, innovative free-lance writers and designers to help us in this endeavor. It is our hope that you will be one of them.

This packet of information is intended to answer many of your questions you may have concerning SSDC and our criteria for submissions.

Currently, we are most interested in producing supplements and adventures for Battlelords of the 23rd Century, and our post apocalyptic game Blood Dawn. In addition, we are interested in looking at innovative game designs as we expand our horizons into the field of non role-playing games.

The boys at SSDC are selective about materials that we might publish. In addition to the grammatical guidelines that follow, we demand that all submissions have been extensively play tested. This will insure that the material is coherent, playable, and fun. We want material with progressive ideas that explore new role-playing frontiers. The quality of our material has always been considered excellent, and we want to continue to carry on that tradition.

II. What is Battlelords?

Battlelords of the 23rd Century is a science fiction, science fantasy role-playing game. The setting of the Battlelords game is a foreboding universe in a distant future, which is grim, dark and deadly. The time of reckoning is 2279. The exploration and development of the known universe is progressing at a fantastic rate. The Galactic Alliance has prophesied the complete control of the universe by the turn of the millennium. Huge, powerful mega-corporations run it all from behind the scenes. The twelve races of the Alliance work as caretakers, shaping and expanding the horizon of knowledge, extending to touch the farthest reaches of space. Frontier Colonies populate neighboring galaxies: Andromeda, Fornax, Spirax (M33), and the Magellanic Clouds. Outpost dot M32 and the cluster galaxy of Talcos in Ursa Major, some 200,000,000 light years from Terra. A continuing battle rages to drive out the evil Arachnid presence. Strange reports of ghost ships, robot warriors, and evidence of ancient human cultures are whispered across the vast, empty stretches of nothingness to the hearts of the bold, strong and curious. There is a demand for warriors, for men and women with nerves of steel, carrying large scary weapons, to protect the innocent. The call for assistance can be heard across the galaxies, as colony worlds struggle to survive in a morass of conflict, danger, uncertainty and pain.

The omnipotent and ubiquitous mega-corporations respond to society's screams for help. They have just hired a few good men to get the job done, for a price. These individuals are known as Battlelords. Though they are from a dozen different races, with different views and attitudes, they all have one thing in common. They all believe that he, she or it can make a difference. These rough and rugged individuals hail from the vast savannahs of Cashouils, the infernal volcanic regions of Trishmag, the methane hell of Eridine, and the great seas of Pythos. They are matrix controllers, empaths, healers, bounty hunters, swordsaints, changelings, corporate mercenaries, spies, and soldiers. Each Battlelord has a personal agenda, yet they are thrown together in order to carve out a common destiny. A Battlelord's job is simple, do anything and everything to stay alive, and when in doubt Lock-N-Load!

III. Format of Submissions

All submissions should be manually typed or word-processed. Submissions should be on white - please no fancy colors - long grain, 8.5 x 11 paper. Submissions should be in accordance to these specifications:

• Lines are double spaces
• Do not place text on both sides of the sheet(s) of paper, you gain no brownie points if its double sided
• A 1 inch margin on all sides
• Paragraphs are indented 5 spaces
• Each page should have a header with your last name upon it, and the page number
• Maps, if included, should be on .24 inch graph paper, and should be drawn with a black, felt tip pen
• Please use Garamond Condensed, 10 point font if possible
• Books should be 108 pages minimum

IV. Submission Process

First, you must submit a proposal, along with the non-disclosure agreement. Please read the non-disclosure agreement carefully.

A proposal should include either a synopsis of the adventure or supplement, an overview of the game, or a description of the accessory. In addition, send an outline of the material if it is possible.

We will thoroughly review your proposal. If we are interested in your material, we will contact you and ask for a complete manuscript. In some cases, we will draw up a contract and set deadlines.

Second, after completing your manuscript and sending it to us, we will peruse your material. We will decide if your material is acceptable, acceptable yet needs rewriting, or non-acceptable. Materials not accepted will be returned with our regrets.

We remind you that courtesy dictates that all unsolicited material be accompanied by a self addressed stamped envelope.

V. Writing Guidelines

Submissions should be free from typographical errors. The best way to insure that a document is free from typos is to have an objective party read your completed material (friend, parent, teacher...). Running a computer spell checker program is helpful, yet these programs will not catch all spelling mistakes. Spell check programs usually miss:

• to, too, two
• their, there, they're

Allowing an objective party to proofread your material will greatly increase the chances that your material will be published. As a personal note, there is nothing more nerve racking than a manuscript full of spelling mistakes, typos and grammatical errors. Sloppy manuscripts show us that your skills as a writer are poor. Try to make an excellent impression, and have your material proofread thoroughly. First impressions are important, and our first impression of your talent will be based on your manuscript.

If you are truly serious about publishing material for SSDC then pay close attention to the following paragraphs. These paragraphs will briefly discuss the pet peeves of the submissions director and staff at SSDC.

A. Tense

The most important property that the principal parts of verbs show is tense, which refers to time distinctions that verbs express. I hate it when present and past tense verbs are mixed in the same sentence. Mixing tense confuses readers, and effectively destroys the flow of the sentence.

Incorrect use of tense:

He knelt in the great chamber drawing his sword.

In the above example knelt is past tense, while drawing is present tense. Correct use of tense:

As he knelt in the chamber he drew his sword.
He knelt in the temple after drawing his sword.
Inside the temple, after drawing his sword he knelt.

In the above example knelt is past tense, and drew is also past tense. Tense should always remain in the sentence, in the paragraph, and in the entire text. Don't frustrate us with hodgepodge tense use. Oh, by the way, we frustrate easily.

B. Dangling Prepositions

Writing colloquially, writing in a style that is similar to how we talk, is perfect for fleshing out characters; however, it is a poor choice for descriptive writing. Commonly, we end our spoken phrases with prepositions, "Who did you go to the movies with?" or, "What did you do that for?" This is fine, yet this is incorrect usage for written English. Careful rewording of the sentence can avoid this pitfall while maintaining the meaning.

• Who did you go to the movies with?
• What did you do that for?

Can be changed to...

• With whom did you go to the movies?
• What possessed you to attempt that maneuver?

C. Run-On and Incomplete Sentences

When writing sentences make sure that they can be finished in one breath.

While attempting to track down the killers, John and Frank crept silently through the underbrush, which was a dark shade of green, watching cautiously for the guards, who wore the dark uniforms of the X corporation, one of the largest and most dangerous corporations in the sector.

That was too long. In fact, things seemed to get a bit jumbled in that morass of words. By keeping sentences short and to the point, one can express oneself better, and the reader will better understand what he or she read.

By breaking the paragraph down into smaller, more mentally digestible sentences, the author can get the point across.

John and Frank silently crept through the dark, green underbrush, as they tracked down the killers. They watched cautiously for the dark uniformed guards. These X corporation guards were a real threat, for X corporation was one of the largest corporations in the sector.