Some Shifts in Focus

I am happy to say that I have finally gotten the second part of my poem, Testament - Part Two: Heiuper, off to the printer. Should be available for sale by the end of the month. Part one is available now of course.

It took longer than expected because of a combination of life events and the general challenge of adding additional material. For those that don’t know, I write, design the books, and create all the artwork. Each part has supplemental material to the poem, and those things end up always taking more time than I would like.

I also recently started shipping out the latest issue of Yggdrasil MGZ. Those that have copies I think will agree that the quality of the printing is significantly better than the previous issues. I am deep in the weeds on the last issue of the year, which I am targeting a December ship date. Expect at least one class, new monsters, spells, magic items, and cursed traps for your Torchbearer RPG game.

I also recently finished up my 35th monster for this newsletter. This was a key milestone for what I am trying to accomplish over the next year. Maybe a trigger might be a better term for it.

A trigger to rewrite the fiction as a single book of short stories. I really enjoy writing longer form poetry, and have a novel or two sitting in me, but short fiction is the juice I keep coming back for.

So what does this mean for the newsletter?

It means I am going to pause on creating more monsters as I rewrite those stories and carve lino blocks for the chapter heads. I need to spend my fiction based energy on cleaning up and expanding them. I wrote them in a specific way for the most part, but recently adjusted my style for some other short fiction, and I like it a lot more.

It also means that what I post here is going to be a little different for a while. This newsletter is going to feature a foray into adventure design. I signed up to take on the Sanctum of the Serpent Vaults as a part of the Death by Dungeon community Substack dungeon project.

I am excited. I haven’t tried my hand at creating a dungeon in a really, really long time. I got a few of what I think are some interesting ideas for what it could be. I will be documenting this journey here as well as my exploration of OD&D, a game I haven’t played in forever.

As always, thank you for your support. You can continue that support by sharing my posts, purchasing my art, purchasing and reviewing my books, and upgrading your subscription to this newsletter.