Gaming Guest of Honor – Veteran GM Dustin Smith – Star City Savages
Dustin Smith is a long-time writer, gamer, and published author. Through the development of Star City Savages flagship product, The Drowned War, Smith was inspired to expand the game’s universe into a series of novels, the Binary Abyss Series. The first two novels, Lex Talos and Dark Passage, are currently available for purchase at amazon.com. He lives in Roanoke, Virginia, with his wife and cat.
Author Guest of Honor- Mike Allen
Mike Allen is an author, editor and publisher of science fiction, fantasy and horror. He has written 12 books and edited 26. His volumes of horror tales, Unseaming and Aftermath of an Industrial Accident, were both finalists for the Shirley Jackson Award for Best Story Collection, and his dark fable “The Button Bin” was a nominee for the Nebula Award for Best Short Story. As an editor and publisher he has twice been nominated for the World Fantasy Award, for his genre-bending anthology Clockwork Phoenix 5 and for Mythic Delirium, the magazine of poetry and fiction he edited for 20 years. With his wife Anita, he runs the Mythic Delirium Books publishing imprint, based in Roanoke, Va. His forthcoming books include dark fantasy novel Trail of Shadows and horror collection Slow Burn. He can be found on Instagram @mythicdelirium and BlueSky @mythicdelirium.bsky.social.
Cosplay Guest of Honor – Sarah Oliver
Sarah Oliver, a nurse by day and an avid artist and cosplayer by night. Her majors include Sports Medicine, Occupational therapy, and Athletic training. But don’t let that fool you, she loves all things SciFi, anime and video games. She is a new mother who is juggling work and play, along with endeavoring to start her own bissness. Her art specializes in 3D mixed media, paint, paper crafts, and charcoal portraits. She’s been cosplaying since 2004, has competed and won awards in many masquerades since and was interviewed by Roanoke Times in 2014 about her cosplay. She is an advocate for anti-bullying and gender stereotypes in the cosplay community and is a safe place for anyone who needs it.
Artist Guest of Honor – Lucy “Lucky Hodgepodge” Sams
Based in the Charlottesville area, Lucy S. is the nonbinary artist behind Lucky Hodgepodge. They specialize in character illustrations, with a focus on fantasy and furry characters. Lucy is an avid Dungeons and Dragons player and game master, running their own homebrew world with a group of friends. Their dream is to have their art featured in a TTRPG source book one day. While they draw much inspiration from traditional fantasy and folk tales, Lucy adds much of their own perspective into things they create, including their love of animals. Lucky Hodgepodge is built on sharing Lucy’s art and interests with others, hoping it brings the same kind of joy to you as it does to them.
Media Guest of Honor – Brian Watts
Brian Watts – Is a Native American actor born on July 23rd, 1995, in Lexington, VA. Taking theater-arts classes throughout his life, Brian became a voice actor in 2016, beginning with working with fan-dubs and fan video game projects. Before then, Brian was an accomplished but not yet published writer for a World War III novella called ‘The Day of Wakening’ written in honor of his aunt. Brian has since been in games such as Warthunder as the Tank Commander, Ready or Not as the Accomplice, Level Zero, Broken Arrow, The Mortuary Assistant, Pine Harbor, Project Nightmares, Ground Branch, SCP: Fragmented Minds and others. He has also voiced for animated projects in the past such as Ajaka: Lost in Rome, Michinoku Toge & 2-Land.
CrashCityCon 2024 is August 23-25, 2024 at the Berglund Center Special Events Center!!!!!!!