At Phoenix Vul-Con 2012, we're bringing you A-List guests that span the full spectrum of the Strategy Gaming Hobby.  To ensure top-notch guests, we've cast our net far and wide for guests from around the world.  To bring some of these folks to you, we're utilizing Skype to "pipe them into" the Gamer's Lounge as Virtual Guests.  You'll also find On-Site guests in the Gamer's Lounge for scheduled talks or casual visits.  The initial list of guests is impressive, but keep checking back as we'll be adding more guests as we approach the convention.

Andrea Angiolino

Andrea Angiolino is an Italian strategy game designer. He started his career in strategy gaming in 1982 with a column about role-playing games and boardgame reviews in the Italian game magazine Pergioco. He has written several books, most of which are about games. He is also the first Italian author to publish a choose-your-own-adventure gamebook (in 1987). He became a professional game designer in late 1980s, designing boardgames, role-playing games and supplements, magazine games, and computer games, as well as games for training, advertising, radio, television, fairs, and shows. He did a good part of this as a member of C.UnS.A., a group of Roman game inventors. In 1999 the Italian

Stephen Missal

Artist, Wizards of the Coast, Cuthulu

  Artist Stephen Missal, born in Albuquerque, N.M., has been a college instructor specializing in life drawing and painting for over three decades.  For many years, his main illustration orientation has been fantasy/ horror themed art. Missal has lived in Scottsdale, Arizona with his wife Elizabeth since 1988, and is currently a full professor in the Media Arts and Animation Department at the Art Institute of Phoenix, where he began teaching in 1997. Missal is also a trained forensic artist, and is the forensic reconstruction artist for Maricopa County (including Phoenix and surrounding cities), where he works (pro bono) for the Maricopa Forensic Lab and Medical Examiner.     

Andy Chambers

Game Designer/Author, Warhammer 40k, Dust Warfare

  Andy Chambers is a veteran writer for the Warhammer 40,000 universe with more than twenty years experience creating games dominated by giant robots, spaceships and dangerous aliens. He worked at Games Workshop as a games designer for  three editions of the Warhammer 40,000 miniatures game, as well as titles like Warhammer Fantasy Battle, Necromunda, Space Marine, Titan Legions, Epic, Gorkamorka and Battlefleet Gothic. More recently  Andy moved into the PC gaming world to work on the hit real time strategy game Starcraft 2 by Blizzard Entertainment. Currently Andy is writing novels for Black Library and the Dust Warfare tabletop miniatures rules for Fantasy Flight Games.

Paolo Parente

Game Designer/Artist, Dust, Magic the Gathering

   In 1990 he began his career as a fantasy artist illustrating the Italian edition of the Middle Earth Role Playing game (published by Milanese Stratelibri). Later he was art director and main illustrator of the Mutant Chronicles series published in Italy by Hobby & Work. Next he was commissioned works by several major international companies in the games world, including Wizards of the Coast (Magic: The Gathering) and Rackham (Confrontation, AT-43), and in the comics world (Starship Troopers for Dark Horse Comics).
  In the last years he has been working developing his own universe, "Dust," a blend of WW2 alternate history and science fiction, for which he designed Dust and Dust Tactics.

Todd VanHooser

Game Designer/Author, Adventures Under the Laughing Moon

Todd VanHooser has been a gamer of one kind or another since his high school days in Missouri. Long weekend games with close friends inspired the later development of his own unique setting and helped cultivate his passion for fantasy fiction. During his time at the University of Missouri, he began laying the foundation for his own fantasy role-playing game with intricate histories, a pantheon of gods, mysteries of magic, and a variety of races to populate the setting. Over the years, the world of Mythren began to take on life and rich stories and elaborate adventures were born.
His fantasy series, The Laughing Moon Chronicles, is set in the world of Mythren and takes readers on a journey into the world under the Laughing Moon.
In addition to being an author, he is a literature and creative writing teacher, eager to show his students the joy of reading and the satisfaction that comes with writing. He lives in Goodyear, Arizona with his wife and son.

Kenneth E. St. Andre

Game Designer/Author

   Kenneth Eugene St. Andre (born on April 28, 1947) is a retired public librarian, fantasy author, and game designer, best known for his work with Tunnels & Trolls, the second role-playing game published in the United States, and the first to actually be copyrighted way back in 1975. He has been a member of the Science Fiction Writers of America, a librarian for the city of Phoenix, and a computer game designer for Interplay and Electronic Arts. He continues to create new adventures for Tunnels and Trolls, and is active on Twitter as Trollgodfather. T & T players can join his club at Trollhalla.com and others can keep up with his writings at atroll.wordpress.com.

Caribean Sera

 Model, Actress, Costumer

   Caribean Sera is a model, actress, costumer and unapologetic nerd. Caribean has been involved in many creative endeavors, including acting in many independent films and directing theatre productions, dancing for a rockabilly band, and modeling for many companies and cosplay groups including The Laughing Moon Girls and The D20 Girls. She enjoys gaming of all types. But she is most known for her convention cosplay and costume design. Starting out as one of the original Fans In Costume of the uber popular website LeiasMetalBikini.com, Caribean has quickly risen through the ranks of the costuming community to become one of the few hardcore conventioneers known as “Con Legends”. While costuming started