Friday, November 1, 2024

Ten Curseborne reactions from a longtime WOD fan

 
Hey folks,

I just finished my read through of Curseborne's manuscript and being the longtime fan(atic) of the World of Darkness I am, I thought I'd share ten thoughts as my initial reaction. Overall, I really like it and think that it'll probably be my World of Darkness/Chronicles of Darkness substitute even if it's very distinct.


1. It is a lot easier to run mixed groups

One of the persistent struggles of World of Darkness was the fact that all of the gamelines might as well have been separate. Vampire: The Masquerade supplements were fairly useless for Werewolf players and the same for Mage ones. You could do crossover but it was strongly discouraged with everyone going, essentially, "if it's not like us, kill it." This is not the case for Curseborne and all of the supernatural Lineages basically can get along even if they don't necessarily do. As such, this has a lot more potential for mixed groups of wizards, vampires, and werewolves.

2. It is a very weird world

If I had to use video game references, I'd say Curseborne is far more Alan Wake and Control than it is Bloodlines. The world is full of inexplicable uncontrollable magical phenomenon that can't be explained but only dealt with. I'd argue it's more Doom Patrol than even Hellblazer. For the most simplistic example, in Bloodlines, you deal with a haunted hotel based on the Overlook from The Shining. It's haunted because it has a serial killer's ghost in it. In Curseborne, you may actually be dealing with the hotel itself being evil and actively working against you.

3. It is more Chronicles of Darkness than World of Darkness

I feel like this description is almost cheating as its true but due to the other things listed here. However, it's something that should be stated upfront. Chronicles of Darkness was a horror game set in the "real" world with disorganized supernaturals wandering among us and weird phenomenon. World of Darkness was heavily organized conspiracies in a stylized Gothic Punk world. The fact Curseborne is way more the former than the latter shouldn't be expected since, well, OPP really developed the Chronicles of Darkness world in the first place.

4. Characters are antiheroes not monsters

A big difference drawn starkly between the Accursed and the vampires of, say, 5th Edition is that the Accursed have some serious problems but aren't automatically required to flip out and kill everyone. They're significantly more able to keep their humanity (for whatever value that is) and are far more "people with powers that have serious drawbacks" versus "alien in human suit" as sometimes Werewolf and Changeling were. They aren't required to use their powers to help people but the gameworld doesn't imply a Blackhart who eats the addictions or withdrawal pain of addicts is Doing It WrongTM. The game also provides a bunch of truly alien beings to contrast against the more human-like PCs. I should note that there's some Lineages and Families that are much worse about this than others and Damnations that do push you to the "monster" side of things but the line is much, much further.

5. It makes a delightful mockery of the Masquerade

One of the revelations of the 21st century has been the fact that not only do people believe all of the utter insanity that a lot of the conspiracy theories are built upon (as in millions of people) but none of this actually matters in day to day life. Barbara Jones the soccer mom may well fully 100% believe in vampires controlling the world but this won't trigger a Second Inquisition because no one is going to pay for it.She probably wouldn't support it either since she'd rather not be taxed for it. After all, it'll probably be someone else's kids getting eaten. The Accursed may keep their activities secret so they get chopped up in a lab but if a guy goes on Youtube proclaiming he's a werewolf, well, is that video footage real or AI?

6. Street level versus International Conspiracy

While I'm sure this will change with later supplements, the implications are that the Families are about the highest level of organization you get in this world and they're disorganized as fuck. There's no Camarilla or Technocracy here but you might have a local vampire mob or court of supernaturals tun by a literal god in human form. As such, I expect the adventure you'll run will be far more like, "rescue girl from a kidnapper who feeds on fear" or "close up portal to Hell in basement" versus "ancient vampire rises in the East and wipes out your Clan." Ironically, this makes international play far easier as there's no massive nation states of supernaturals to deal with. Weirdness in Tokyo will not have much effect on weirdness in New York, unless it does.

7. The system is simple and functional

I'm more of a lore man than a crunch man but the system is unified and flexible in a way that wasn't the case with the Storyteller system past 1st Edition. Curseborne aren't as complicated as each individual splat and while I have annoyingly specific questions like whether the Hungry have fangs or not, whether subjects remember being bitten, and so on, the general fact is they are mostly humans plus a certain number of traits unique to each Lineage. You can make a character in about thirty minutes fitting just about any type of supernatural and gameplay should be extremely fast. 


8. Supernaturals are far more varied

One of the annoyances of the World of Darkness was trying to reconcile the mythology of all the world's vampires with the explicitly Judeao-Christian myth of Caine. Which is fine for some games but a non-starter for others. Here, the Lineages are explictily more, "we're kind of like X but have a origin related to Z." It's also implied by groups like the Hydes that new ones can be created at any time and we're only scratching the tip of the iceberg. Indeed, the Antagonists section makes it clear there's just a lot of outright WEIRD shit out there that defies description. This is a game that would allow you to make a Lineage or Families about guys who become werekoalas or music eating vampires in an hour and play them.

9. Otherdimensional weirdness

it should come as no surprise that the gameworld has a lot of Gnostic influences and ideas of other realities breaking into this one. It's always been a big feature of OPP's Chronicles of Darkness and some of their other games too. These worlds are portrayed as wholly alien and can mess up parts of the world in ways that turn them into miniature Silent Hills or Twin Peaks. I always liked Horizon Realms in Mage and the Penumbra in Werewolf so these can both be present.

10. This is a labor of love

This is something I am going to end on as I believe it deserves to be mentioned. A lot of recent products from a certain company (not naming names) feel like they weren't done by longtime fans and devotees of the product. They feel very corporate. This is something that clearly is the result of people who have a decades-long love for urban fantasy/horror gaming and it shines through in every page. OPP probably didn't have the opportunity to pursue every idea they wanted when working in someone else's sandbox that they clearly have the chance to do so now.

Wednesday, October 30, 2024

The Books That Made Me - The Illuminatus Trilogy by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson

*Fnord* You are reading a silly review *Fnord*

    This is a book trilogy that would mock me for saying that it helped shaped my political and social ideology as well as attitude about sex. This book also helped shape my political and social ideology as well as attitude about sex. ILLUMINATUS! takes the Right Wing racist conspiracy theories of the 1970s (and today) then proceeds to skewer them with a ruthlessness that Mel Brooks would envy. HP Lovecraft, anarchism, James Bond, Captain Nemo, chaos magic, and just about everything else is run through the wringer.

    If you must take away three things from this trilogy, let it be these:

  1. Nazism/Fascism/Reactionary politics in general is incredibly stupid: It is propped up by people who take silly things very seriously. If its followers had the slightest bit of humor about themselves then no one would follow it.
  2. Question everything because a lot of people are lying to you for money, power, or because they themselves are idiots: Self-explanatory. It doesn’t take much to say something utterly ridiculous with conviction and convince people you know secret truths.
  3. Sex is fun and should be had by people having fun: If someone isn’t during it, you’re doing it wrong. Safe, sane, and consensual and none of it anyone else’s business.

    Is it wrong to suggest that, at the end of the day, every insane dictator and mad corporate demagogue is just trying to get his rocks off from the power jolt to his nether regions? I mean, the author makes a good cause it really is *that* Freudian. That the more you scream and want about “my way or the highway’, the more you’re covering up some deep insecurity. Anarchism is also shown to be simply, “Don’t take hierarchy seriously and once everyone realizes it’s all costumes and titles, it can’t hurt you.”

    As for the actual books, they’re ridiculous, mildly smutty, and sketch comedy akin to THE HITCHHIKER’S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY except predating it by four years. The Illuminati isn’t real, except it is because so many people believe in it that unfortunately it has a non-zero effect on politics and people regularly convince themselves they’re a part of it or try to claim they’re members or just flat out invent versions for themselves. It’s like my claiming to be a Jedi. It’s ridiculous, except there’s no actual Jedi to dispute it so why not? It actually gives some fascinating insight into fandom as people fight over what is the “real” version of Optimus Prime and what a “real” fan of his looks like.

    This trilogy inspired the Steve Jackson card game and ironically caused a bit of a real life bit of confusion as the cards keep the satirical progressive spirit of these books. However, then RPGs of the Nineties took the card game and portrayed the conspiracies as serious–even though they’re parodies of a bunch of racist Far Right idiocy. How do I define Far Right? “You absolutely think this view of the world is the only way to go and everyone who says otherwise should be shot*.”

    You may notice I haven’t described the plot because that would be missing the point. It is a book about nothing like Seinfeld, except everything, because everything is crashing weirdness from people trying to find out what the real Illuminati’s plots are. Either because they want them to succeed, to thwart them, or to join them. If you haven’t guessed what the joke about this quest to defeat the Illuminati is by my description, you may want to give this one a skip. There is lots of sex and people acting stupidly but, scarily, not that much different from the people in power today.

    Is it fantasy? Well, there’s magic, Atlantis, Cthulhu, undead Nazis, magical rock bands, and politicians who actually do want to make the world a better place (they’re just terrible at it). So jump in your giant battleship-sized yellow submarine and seek the truths of the goddess Eris my friends. Or avoid this book like the plague there’s words in it that might make you question things.

    * That’s the Far part.

Available here

Sunday, October 27, 2024

Shadowrun: Never Deal with a Dragon by Robert N. Charrette review

    NEVER DEAL WITH A DRAGON by Robert N. Charrette is the first Shadowrun novel and the first volume of the Secrets of Power trilogy. It is our first introduction to Shadowrun from the literary side of things and if you’ve never played the game, Shadowrun is a cyberpunk fantasy where magic returned to the Earth in 2012. Huge chunks of humanity were mutated into races like elves, dwarves, orcs, and trolls. If that sounds silly, it is. If that sounds awesome, it is. If you’re a person who loves “pure” cyberpunk and hate the sound of that, well, this isn’t the book for you.

    The premise is that Sam Verner is a white male human heterosexual religious protagonist, which is not a criticism but just a note that it’s somewhat noticeable in Shadowrun (as well as cyberpunk in general), that works as a programmer for the Japanese Renraku megacorp. His life is reasonably okay until his sister is transformed into an Ork and he immediately finds himself shunned by polite society. His wee gets worse as he’s sent to Seattle and the plane is hijacked by a group of Shadowrunners that he ends up accidentally befriending.

    I like the book’s mixture of magic and cyberpunk elements by never winking at the reader or commenting on how strange it is. By playing it straight, the book’s weirder elements have a chance to shine. Sam Verner is a guy who was raised by a fundamentalist who refused to acknowledge magic and tried to shield his children as much as possible from it. However, magic (and chaos) proceeds to find Sam even when he’s trying to live as lawful and orderly a world as possible.

    The depiction of Shadowrunners in the book is also interesting as we get to see them do some pretty awful things but show each other loyalty that you wouldn’t expect from hardened criminals. It felt very much like a tabletop RPG in that once you were accepted as a member of the “player characters” that they would go to elaborate lengths for one another.

    I like how the various plots and counter-plots in the book build up like a game of Vampire: The Masquerade. There’s several separate corporate conspiracies going on simultaneously with Sam Verner suspected to be at the bottom of them, ironically, because everyone believes no one can be as squeaky clean as him. This includes a plot by Mr. Drake who, shock of shocks, is actually a dragon. If I had any complaints, I would say that I didn’t like the handling of Sam Verner’s girlfriend who seems to exist solely to give him someone to avenge.

    This is a pretty entertaining book from beginning to end as I came to like all of the characters with Sally Tsung, Dodger, Ghost, and Ms. Crenshaw that are a great deal more interesting than the somewhat naive Sam Verner. There’s a lot of use of the signature characters from the 1st Edition Shadowrun sourcebook and I like when tabletop games take that attitude. The cross-pollination of tabletop games with the fiction is well done throughout the book.

Available here

Sunday, October 13, 2024

The World of Critical Role by Liz Marsham review

    THE WORLD OF CRITICAL ROLE is a nonfiction book that chronicles the creation of the Critical Role Twitch stream that has since exploded into a massively successful multimedia franchise that includes comics as well as animated cartoons. In a very real way, it contributed to the massive successful of 5th Edition Dungeons and Dragons as well as led to a slew of imitators for everything from Call of Cthulhu to Shadowrun.

    The origin of Critical Role was Felicia Day convincing Matt Mercer and the other voice actors playing at his home game to air their D&D game on her channel. From there, they proceed to develop a massive Twitch following and that moved on to becoming a marketing juggernaut. The book covers most of the history in a somewhat superficial but, mostly, accurate way.

    I say mostly accurate because the book more or less writes out Orion Acada and his character of Tiberius, only mentioning him as a “guest” party member despite his role in the founding of the franchise. It also overlooks some of the smaller controversies that dogged Critical Role. It doesn’t mention the backlash that Marish Ray got about her character of Keyleth or the controversy of “broomgate” where Laura stole another party member’s magic broom.

    Basically, this is a fine book but it’s also very much a love fest for Critical Role that doesn’t include any of the controversies or the occassionally unpleasant elements of fandom. It’s a puff piece that loses points because a lot of that would have been interesting and lended some authenticity to the story about the struggles some of the individuals involved had to overcome. We all know fans aren’t always great people, particularly against women.

    Despite this, the book has a lot of fascinating bits in it about the world of Exandria and the character arcs for the first two campaigns. There’s character studies of all the characters as well as biographies for the actors. We also get write-ups for Will Wheaton and other guest stars plus their characters. Just because it doesn’t dive deeply into the negative elements doesn’t mean it’s not something worth buying if you are a “critter.” We also get surprisingly deep into the real life backstories of the actors with some stories, like Ashley Johnson and Taelsin Jaffe being particularly fascinating.

    In conclusion, I don’t recommend purchasing this book if you are not already a fan of either Vox Machina or the Mighty Nein. This makes the most sense if you’re familiar with Campaigns 1 and 2 but doesn’t cover the events of 3 at all. Still, it’s a fun coffee table book and enjoyable for hardcore fans.

Available here

Monday, September 30, 2024

Space Academy Miscreants (Space Academy #4) now available for preorder!

 

NOW AVAILABLE FOR AUDIOBOOK PREORDER!

SPACE ACADEMY MISCREANTS (Space Academy #4)

“Captain’s log… we’re doomed.”

Captain Vance Turbo of the E.S.S Ares has managed to save the entire universe and gotten himself a big fat promotion for it. However, that doesn’t mean much as he’s just received a message that his daughter is in peril! His daughter that he didn’t know about because she was cooked up in a lab by his ex-girlfriend. Knowing he can’t take his ship on a personal vendetta, Vance decides to charter a pirate ship to head to the distant tyranny of Crius. Unfortunately, his journey isn’t exactly a secret and he finds himself ambushed. Ambushed by someone Vance never thought he’d see again.

Space Academy is an all-new series from the hilarious duo of C.T. Phipps (Supervillainy Saga, Agent G) and Michael Suttkus (I Was a Teenage Weredeer, Lucifer’s Star) that lampoons the space opera as well as military science fiction genres.

Vance Turbo remains the luckiest unlucky character I’ve created. Lucky because he grew up in a Post-Cyberpunk utopian future created by the sacrifices of people like Agent G, Kei Springs, and Detective Neal Gordon of the Moon PD.

Unlucky because it seems like every single threat to that peace falls to him to fix and everyone in the galaxy wants to burn down said Utopia for not being human friendly enough or too human friendly. Now he’s on a quest to find out if he’s a father that involves his long dead parents, his promotion to High Inquisitor (err, Protector), and the slave holding world of CRIUS! Yes, a link to LUCIFER’S STAR! Released on October 22nd! The Kindle is already up.

Audible (Preorder): https://www.audible.com/pd/Space-Academy-Miscreants-Audiobook/B0DJ3MZ8FH

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Space-Academy-Miscreants-C-Phipps-ebook/dp/B0DHR8X69M/

Wednesday, September 25, 2024

City in the Dragon's Eye by Jordan Loyal Short review

    CITY IN THE DRAGON’S EYE by Jordan Loyal Short is one of the best fantasy novels written in 2024 and like the author’s DREADBOUND ODE series or Richard Nell’s KINGS OF PARADISE, probably the best thing you can get for “fantasy literature” on Kindle Unlimited. If you think this is overly high praise, take my advice when I say that this is a five-star book of an actual scale were five means “fantastic” not “I have no real complaints and don’t want to undermine the author due to the internet algorithm gods.”

    The premise is that this takes place in a 17th-to-19th century-esque steampunk world where magic exists alongside science, but it lacks the “cutesy” quality of much steampunk. It also has elements of the Post-WW1 era where the protagonist’s country has just lost a massive war with many veterans left broken by the experience while others feel they were betrayed by their leaders surrendering.

    Viktor has a particularly problematic affliction, though, in that he now has scales across his body from where he used magic that has infected him with dragon. I mean that literally in that people who use too much magic are turned into dragons and treated like lepers as it happens. He’s fired from every job and made an outcast. Seeking a cure so that he doesn’t have to spend the rest of his life in misery, he ends up uncovering a secret society that wishes to start a new war. Victor is no hero, though. He just wants to get cured of what is probably insoluble.

    There’s also Izola, who is working at a university with her ex-husband. Unfortunately, the latter has just achieved tenure and finds the prospect of his disgruntled former spouse moving up the ranks to be intolerable. Having her career scuttled in the most painfully banal way possible, Izola searches for another way to distinguish herself. Her path crosses with Viktor in a way that goes in several unexpected directions.

    The third protagonist of the work is an incredibly foolish young dandy named Devin who has coasted his entire life on his father’s wealth as well as power. Unfortunately, this has left him with an overinflated sense of importance that gets him into incredible trouble when he attempts to fix a fight for some quick cash, only to run afoul of a local crime lord. Lacking any real resources, he ends up not so much over his head but several fathoms down.

    Jordan Loyal Short is a fantastic writer of prose but his biggest skill is that he’s extremely good at creating vivid believable characters that aren’t typical of fantasy. Viktor’s worries about whether he’ll ever get a girl with his “tumor” or his family now that he can’t hold down a job are infinitely more relatable than your typical hero’s issue with a dark lord. Izola’s inability to be seen at her place of work and regrets about having gotten married too young to a professor who turned out to be only interested in her when she was a worshipful young teacher’s assistant is familiar in a way that former assassin or princess isn’t. Yet, this is still a fantastical world filled with monsters and sorcery.

    If I had any complaints about the book, it would be that I think naming the secret society “The Thule Society” was a bit too on the nose. It’s like the author didn’t trust us to get the parallels with the Weimar Republic. Despite that, this is a wholly original secondary world with more allusions to early 20th century history than actual parallels.

    In conclusion, if you’re looking for a fantastic new read this Fall then I think you could do far worse than pick this one up. Jordan Loyal Short is an author who manages to be dark without being grimdark and authentic when other authors are archetypal. The fact he’s an indie author versus a mass published one is almost as a shame as I think everyone should try this out.

Available here

Saturday, September 21, 2024

Lords of Dragon Keep excerpt

Hey folks, 

We’d thought you’d love to read a short chapter from the recently released LitRPG Lords of Dragon Keep by C.T. Phipps. A humorous tale of an ordinary man dumped into a world that is, unfortunately, more Game of Thrones than Narnia.

Chapter One – The Book is Finally Completed

“You want me to what?” I asked, looking up from my cubicle. It contained a messy collection of papers, Post-it notes, and a pewter dragon that was the only sign of my humanity permitted by employers. Such was the soul crushing nature of my job as an Epic DungeoneeringTM programmer.

Be a video game designer!

Write amazing stories!

Program new worlds!

It was difficult to imagine I’d been so naive in college but, somehow, I’d convinced myself that this was the career I’d wanted. I’d ended up signing a lifetime contract, which seems like I’m exaggerating but doesn’t feel like it, with a company that had a non-compete clause for about a million years in every similar field. That was something that also should be illegal, but the company was fully willing to drag out in court as poor Sue Wilson had found out. Given the company was based in Ledziania (wasn’t that where Doctor Doom lived?) but I operated from their office in Michigan, I suspected there may also be some international laws at play as well.

The thing was that I’d been working at programming and pitching game material at Epic DungeoneeringTM for about ten years now. So far, despite claiming we were a family, I was the deformed relative they kept tied up in the attic and every single idea I’d proposed had been shot down. It had been endless parades of crunch, bug fixing, and working on live service monetization that made me feel like I was preying on my fellow gamers.

“Meet with Larry C.C. Weis,” Barbara Wojciechowski said. No, I have no idea how to pronounce that and my family was Polish. My mother is so ashamed. I only knew it from her nametag at the manager’s office. I don’t think she’d ever said her last name in person, or I might have been able to fake it.

Barbara was one of the Epic DungeoneeringTM staff that had transferred over from Eastern Europe to oversee the American part of the company and was an extremely pleasant fifty-something brown haired woman who I suspected had been a kindergarten teacher before communism fell. At least she treated her staff like children and sometimes pulled out a hand puppet to explain difficult concepts to us like, “You’re going to be doing a lot of overtime and not getting paid any extra for it. Oh, and try to find a job in this economy. Bark-bark.” The hand-puppet was a dog, you see. She dressed in a long cotton dress and tweed sweater that still had big mom energy, albeit the mom who locked her children in the aforementioned attic.

“You’re kidding, right?” I asked, looking up.

Barbara scrunched her nose. “Why would I be kidding?”

I blinked, wondering if this was a prank before realizing I didn’t want to know if it was. Larry C.C. Weis was the patron saint of Epic DungeoneeringTM and the reason it had gone from an obscure Eastern European gaming studio to an international phenomenon with multiple streaming shows and one other semi-successful franchise.

Sort of a Ledzianian George R.R. Martin or Iron Curtain Tolkien, Larry C.C. Weis had written the Dark Undermaster series and Epic DungeoneeringTM had bought the rights to it back it had probably cost sixty rupees and a goat. Okay, seriously, I’m not trying to be stereotypical here, but I just worked forty hours straight trying to get the Witch Queen of Angho’horak from clipping through her armor. Something I was pretty sure the base game programmers had done deliberately.

Well, in the wake of Game of Thrones, the Dark Undermaster series had ended up being an international success and the third one topped twenty-million sales. That was in addition to all the spin-offs and merchandising that had ticked off Larry C.C. Weis something fierce.

If you believed the online rumors, Larry had been so pissed off that he’d stopped writing the Dark Undermaster series right before the epic climax and was no longer interested in finishing it. This despite millions of fans anxiously waiting for the next installment and all the adaptations running out of material. Err, bring to life. It was particularly problematic for Epic DungeoneeringTM because they depended on their reputation as a scrappy underdog developer that honored the fandom despite keeping people like me chained up to our computers.

The Larry C.C. Weis?” I asked, blinking. I briefly wondered if there was another Larry C.C. Weis in accounting or something. It wasn’t entirely impossible since one of my fellow programmers was named Jon Snowman. I bet his parents were regretting that bit of naming convention. Then again, I couldn’t really complain myself given my name.

Barbara sniffed the air as if there was something foul in it. Her accent became sharper and went into full Natasha Fatale territory. “Yes, the writer.”

The executives at Epic DungeoneeringTM had developed a love-hate-hate relationship with Larry as I’d understood it and it had trickled down to the middle managers like Barbara. Some of my fellow programmers had even developed the hissing and spitting at his name that seemed in vogue but most of us kept a wry respect for the old dude. After all, we all had developed a burning hatred for the guys at the top. They may have started as fellow geeks, but they’d all ended up as Sauron rather than Frodo.

“Why the hell does Larry C.C. Weis want to speak with me?” I asked, wishing I had some coffee right now, but I’d have to fight six other guys at the break room who had been working even longer than I had. “How the hell does Larry C.C. Weis even know who the hell I am?”

“Listen, Aragorn,” Barbara started to speak.

“Aaron,” I said, softly correcting her for the fifteenth time.

“It says Aragorn on your employment sheet,” Barbara said, as if I didn’t know my own name.

“Yes, but I go by Aaron,” I said, annoyed.

“Why?” Barbara asked.

“So, I could survive high school,” I replied, sighing. “As Aaron Bartkowski is more likely to make it past their freshmen year.”

“Mr. Aragorn Bartkowski,” Barbara said, reaching into her dress pockets (which was a good thing to see they had) and removed the hand puppet. She then started speaking in a little children’s dog voice. “Grr, you need to go meet with Mr. Weis and get some contracts signed. He requested you personally. Bark-bark.”

I stared at her. “Is the hand puppet strictly necessary?”

I bet you thought I’d been kidding about the hand puppet? Well, welcome to my life.

“Ruff! Yes,” Barbara said, not displaying any self-awareness. “Otherwise, it’s your job. Bark.”

I took a deep breath. “So, is he in Latveria? Do I have to get a plane ticket? Please tell me you’re springing for it.”

“Ledziania,” Barbara corrected. “It’s on the border between Poland and Romania.”

“They don’t share a border,” I said, wondering if Barbara was aware of where the company’s home country was. I mean, I wasn’t, but I had an excuse. “It’s supposed to be between Poland and Belarus, though I’m not sure where in the big national forest there that it’s supposed to be.”

“Whatever,” Barbara said, wiggling her hand puppet’s nose in the air. “Either way, he lives in America now and has since the first Dark Undermaster game. Louis.”

A well-dressed bespectacled man with smoothed over red hair in a suit that he wore constantly came over. Louis Tolliver was Barbara’s majordomo and reminded me suspiciously of Wayland Smithers from The Simpsons. The fact he was sucking up to Barbara made me wonder if he shouldn’t have been slightly more ambitious as a yes man. In his hands was a black briefcase that he handed over to me like we were in Pulp Fiction.

“The code is 1-2-3-4-5,” Louis said, nodding.

I stared at him. “Big Spaceballs fan, huh?”

Louis looked confused.

I shook my head and opened the briefcase, revealing a bunch of white sheets of paper as well as a gold bracelet that looked like an oversized Ring of Power. It even had the elvish looking writing on the side. My eyes watered a bit and I swear, I heard a little bit of whispering coming from it. I shook my head and the sound dissipated.

“This is the contract for Lords of Dragon Keep,” Barbara said, looking from side to side as if she was spreading secret information.

Which it was. “What? Really? It’s done?”

Lords of Dragon Keep was the mythical fourth and final volume of the Dark Undermaster saga. The one that he had been working on for the better part of eleven years and everyone had long since given up on him completing. I was surprisingly excited, and it reminded me of the fact that I used to be a fan of the series as well. Well, at least until Season Five of Dark Undermaster when they’d tried to wrap up the story and ruined everything.

Hell, there had been a time when I’d been a “Undermasterling” every bit as fanatical as any other in the fandom. I’d loved how dark and gritty Westeros had been but had done the teenage boy thing of thinking, “but what if they added more sex and violence.” The kind of kid who didn’t understand grimdark was meant to be a pejorative. Knowing that the story was going to be finished was something that caused a little chill to run down my spine. Even if it was nonsensical for me to be involved.

“Yes, the book is done. This contract provides us the rights to adapt the book to the game series as well as gives us all future rights to the franchise in exchange for a generous lump sum as well as a portion of all future merchandising rights,” Barbara said, her tone suggesting the terms were excessive in the author’s favor.

“Good,” I said, before realizing what I was saying. “Err—”

“Yes, well, he was very specific,” Barbara said, annoyed. “You’re also supposed to wear the bracelet.”

“Wear the bracelet,” I said, looking at the gold band. “Am I being punked?”

“I don’t know what that means,” Barbara said. “However, I expect your instructions to be followed to the letter. Be sure to make sure he signs the contract, though.”

“Isn’t this the kind of thing that should be done by a lawyer?” I asked, getting the increasing sense something very weird was going on.

“The contract has been approved by both parties, Mr. Bartkowski,” Louis said, his voice cold and flat like a robot’s. “Mr. Weis just enjoys meeting with the people he thinks are the important parts of game development.”

“Uh huh,” I said, wondering where he’d been for the entirety of the previous three Dark Undermaster game developments. The guy had been born in 1948 and probably hadn’t seen a computer until he was my dad’s age. Then again, I was used to the suits lying their asses off. On the other hand, if the guy had picked my name out of a hat or off an employee registry, I wasn’t about to complain. I could become the king of the internet by being the guy to leak this.

“You will, of course, be bound by all confidentiality agreements,” Barbara said, immediately crushing my dream of internet fame.

“Of course,” I said, sighing. I noted they still hadn’t said if they were covering my plane ticket. “So where does the guy live in America? Los Angeles? Chicago.”

“1313 Mockingbird Avenue,” Louis said. “It’s about a twenty-minute drive.”

I blinked. “He lives in Livonia, Michigan?”

I suddenly felt like an idiot, wondering how I didn’t know one of my favorite authors lived where I worked. Then again, he was supposed to be a recluse. Still, I would have thought that would have been the kind of thing I’d have found out.

“You are very easily surprised, Mr. Bartkowski,” Barbara said, maneuvering her little toy dog puppet to look disapproving somehow.

“Please don’t do that,” I muttered, creeped out. “Okay, I’ll go tomorrow morning.”

I’d finally managed to fix the Witch Queen of Angho’horak’s clipping nudity problem that would have been a selling point for the first game before they’d dramatically dialed back the Mature rating for DU3 so they could sell console versions on Xbox and Playstation. Now I was running on fumes and needed to collapse on my bed for at least four hours. I was going to be working through the weekend regardless, but I needed to make sure my brain didn’t leak out the side of my ear. You wouldn’t think it would be possible to become desensitized to boobs, digital or otherwise, but somehow it had happened.

“You’ll go now,” Barbara said, her voice sounding almost threatening. “Clock out of your workstation and head there immediately. Be sure to wear the bracelet and make sure he signs the contracts before you sign anything.”

Why was I even surprised. “Sure, I guess. Fine. Wait, why would I sign anything?”

“Don’t fail us like, Mr. Snowman did,” Barbara said.

I blinked rapidly and looked around for him. I hadn’t seen him in a few days but hadn’t paid much attention in the fury of debugging. I wondered if they’d been fired. Honestly, non-compete clause or not, we had a high turnover rate. “Is he okay?”

“You have a bright future ahead of you in Epic DungeoneeringTM, Mr. Bartkowski,” Louis said. “If you pull this off, you might be looking at a promotion. Imagine yourself as the Team Head for Pwiffle the Mobile Game.”

Pwiffle was the card game that came with Dark Undermaster III and had managed to get a bunch of free publicity from the Far Right when they released a topless card set during a particularly slow news day. They’d recalled that, as they’d always planned to do so, and the current version was designed to be sold to eight-year-olds who had access to their parents’ credit cards. The current Team Head, Becky, described it as being worse than an elementary school drug dealer.

“Super!” I said, faking as much as enthusiasm as I was humanly capable of, which wasn’t much. It wasn’t so much that I was opposed to selling out, but corporate life didn’t even pay you very much for your soul. I think Becky made like two dollars extra an hour.

“Be sure to wear the bracelet,” Barbara said before waving her hand puppet in the air and speaking in the dog voice. “Bark-bye!”

I watched them leave. “So, this is what the tenth circle of Hell is like.”

As usual, there was no one there to appreciate my scintillating wit. Sighing, I reached into the briefcase and picked up the bracelet, which was a lot heavier than I expected. It almost felt like real gold.

“Huh,” I said, sliding it on my wrist where it was far too big. Almost immediately, it shrunk down tightly, and the elvish runes glowed bright as I felt an intense stinging sensation like a bee jamming itself into my skin. “Muther—”

I was caught off-guard by the pain vanishing as a little holographic display of the kind you’d normally see in movies appeared above the bracelet, which was obviously some kind of badly designed theme telephone.

The display was a little white and black box that showed a bunch of information spread across several menu screens. It was clearly an RPG character sheet, and I could hear the Dark Undermaster theme [violin version] playing in the background.

ARAGORN “AARON” BARTKOWSKI

LVL: 1
CLASS: N/A (see Menu Options)
ALIGNMENT: GRAY
AGE: 34
SEX: MALE
RACE: HUMAN

STR: 10
AGI: 10
CON: 9
INT: 16
WIS: 7
COM: 15
CHA: 13

ARMOR CLASS: 0

ATTACK: 0

HEALTH: 5

FEAT: Taunt

SPECIAL ABILITIES: NA (see Menu Options)

Okay. that was weird and slightly insulting about my wisdom. A lot of the menu options were blacked out but there was a typical collection of maps (this one showed Livonia, Michigan as well as the office) as well as items, spell lists, and so on. I played it with for a bit but couldn’t get the class options, so I just gave up. Also, for a cell phone, it didn’t seem to be able to call anybody or play any games. Typical.

Anyway, I decided to do the job. It wasn’t every day that one got the chance to meet one’s favorite author.


Lords of Dragon Keep is available on Amazon for Kindle, Kindle Unlimited, as well as paperback!