This is Gnome Stew’s 500th article, and we thought to ourselves, “What better way to ring in 500 than with a contest?”

But first, THANK YOU for reading, commenting, linking, and spreading the word about Gnome Stew. We love writing the Stew, and we’re thrilled at how well the site has been received by GMs all over the world — and how much mileage you get out of our articles and the excellent, thoughtful comments that accompany them. We wouldn’t trade our readership and this community for anything.

We’re hoping you’ll help us celebrate this milestone — a number that still makes me do a double-take every time I see it — with some sexy new taglines. Our taglines appear under “The Game Mastering Blog” in the header — chosen at random whenever a page is loaded or refreshed.

Want to see your taglines atop the Stew — and maybe win something saucy in the process? Read on!

The Prize

Grand prize: There’s one grand prize: a copy of the brand new Alpha Omega creature collection, The Encountered: Volume I, courtesy of Mind Storm Labs. Mind Storm sold out of all the copies they brought to GenCon — this is one shiny book.

Alpha Omega is one of my favorite new RPGs. I wrote about how to GM Alpha Omega a little while back, and it’s a damned fine game. Without hyperbole, The Encountered is one of the best monster books I’ve ever read — and I’ve got a couple dozen from various games sitting on my shelf.

My favorite thing about it is that it showcases each critter in context — as part of a scene, in its natural habitat, etc. It’s sumptuously produced, intuitively organized, and just plain beautiful all around. Mind Storm offers a 15 MB preview PDF, if you’d like a closer look.

Taglines, HOOOOOOO!: If the idea of seeing your tagline pop up on Gnome Stew is appealing, this contest is for you. We’ll select taglines from ALL entries (not just the winning entry) and incorporate them into the site.

Our basic tagline formula involves 1-3 of the following elements: 1) GMing-related, 2) gnome- or stew-related, 3) funny. The best taglines combine two elements — or all three.

How to Enter

Entering is easy, as always: just comment on this article and write at least one Gnome Stew tagline in your comment.

You’re welcome to include multiple taglines in one comment, and comment as often as you like; only your first comment will be eligible for the random drawing.

Please note that by entering, the tagline or taglines you submit become the property of Gnome Stew. You grant the site full copyright and intellectual property rights to submitted taglines, and just like our current taglines there won’t be any attribution as to who wrote what.

To comment, you’ll need a free Gnome Stew account. Registering is quick and easy.

Winning!

As we usually do with our contests, we’ll choose the grand prize winner at random. Make sure the email associated with your Stew account is real, since that’s how we’ll contact the winner.

We’ll select taglines to add to the site from ALL comments, not just the winning comment.

The contest ends at 9:00 PM Mountain time on Wednesday, September 30th, 2009, with the grand prize winner announced on the Stew a couple of days later.

Many thanks to Mind Storm Labs for donating our kickass grand prize — and good luck to all you dirty, dirty gnome-lovers out there!