Tag: fiction

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Grandecon 2025 in the books

Last weekend my girl and I went down to Grande Prairie for our first Grandecon and what a great time!

The format of the event is great, and there was a ton of stuff to check out. I spent way too much money. Sold some books and met some awesome people, so it was all well worth it. I haven’t had a convention table in a few years. It was so good to get back to it. I’ve really missed hanging out at these events. Selling books online is fun I guess, but there is nothing like being able to meet people directly to talk to them about what you love and what you have done. If you haven’t done that, I suggest you do so!

The table we had was at the back of Artist’s Alley, so I was surrounded by my people all weekend. As always, I made sure to stop by and grab books from every other writer there – gotta support the troops, right? There were some really interesting stories there. I may have to hand some of these over to my daughter to write reviews for them on her blog, https://mutatedlibrary.wordpress.com/. If you haven’t seen it, you should check it out. And if you have a book coming out that you think would fit the site, by all means, reach out to her!

It was the first Grandecon for both my girlfriend and myself.

I was halfway to GP when I realized I had forgotten a box of books I was bringing – The Astronaut Always Rings Twice (Tyche Books) and Negative Spaces 2: A Return to Survival Horror (Dark Peninsula Press). I have one or maybe 2 more local events scheduled for this year, and then we will start looking at next year’s schedule. I have a couple more places I’d like to add. I’ll have those books and everything else I had at Grandecon at my next event – The High Level Night Market! It’s an awesome local market that takes place October 4 in the park behind the Town building, and the stalls are all decorated with lights. It is by far the most Ray Bradbury Autumnesque thing you have ever experienced, and if you haven’t been, it’s well worth the visit.

Hopefully we’ll see some of you out there. I’ll be sharing a table with my daughter, who crochet’s stars and paints all kinds of amazing things. Can’t wait!

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Hymn of the Hollow God

Hymn of the Hollow God – Book III of the Amberblight Quintet – is now live in digital format on the Dungeon Master’s Guild.

The adventure picks up a short time after The Hexen Temple. Ellarion and Lirael, the elves the elves on opposite sides of the race to the Temple, partners in life and in death – have both disappeared, taking the Heartspire seed with them.

It is known they have headed into Maralenth Fen – the great swamp north of Riverrock. Reports from rangers scouting the area say the swamp has come under the spell of an amber malady, and creatures horrific and unknown are now found in the deep parts of the region. It is the home to ancient elven ruins, the place where the Heartspire Tree once grew and spread its magic from.

Following the elves into the swamps is no small feat. It will take courage, and it will take the help of the dwarves and elves working together in an uneasy alliance. But what horrors lie in wait at the centre of the swamp, the forgotten Vael’shara, elven centre of Heartspire worship?

Here is the teaser text for the module:

The crypt is behind them.
The artifact is no longer safe.
And deep in the swamp, voices have started singing again.

Ellarion and Lirael have vanished, carrying the unstable Heartspire with them. To Vael’shara, the Sanctum of the First Root.

Pursuing them through the drowned temple and amber-laced ruins, something stirs beneath the muck and stone. Dreams bloom in unnatural patterns. The trees lean too closely. Reflections twitch when no one moves.

At the heart of it all, a pool of golden resin, perfectly still. And a song, as old as the stones, yet new as birth. Calling to you. Singing of doom.

Check it out at the Dungeon Master’s Guild.

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Temple of the Shrike

I finished up a new adventure over the weekend and submitted a story to an open call anthology. I’ve been on a bit of a folk horror kick lately, so there will probably be a few more in me over the next few months.

Anyway, this new adventure is called the Temple of the Shrike. Shrikes, as you may know are little birds with an awesome tendency to impale their food on thorns so they can save it for later. Butcherbirds. There was a time in my life when I didn’t know these birds existed, and my world was poorer for it. Slowly, from that seed, grew a story idea.

I’ll try to explain some of this without spoiling it, in case you want to hop over to DMs Guild and grab a copy for yourself. My adventures are cheap – I’d rather people were playing them than make money off them.

So let’s start with a village on the edge of a large forest. And the village is really just a group of homesteaders whose ancestors threw their lots in together and made a go of things. Hundreds of years ago. And things were good, for most of those years. But now, things are not going so well.

The crops are spoiling, animals are being dragged off in the night, and thorny vines have begun taking over the old outbuildings on the edge of town. Everything is pointing to the woods just outside the village.

This is where the adventurers come in. It’s a straight forward mystery/save the village/go fight a big bad and collect some treasure.

At least, it seems like that at first. As they poke about, things start to look a little slanted. after a while, the players may start to wonder what side of this they are actually on.

I’m happy with how this adventure turned out because it highlights two things I love to do in D&D. First, I am a huge fan of turning things that shouldn’t be monsters into monsters, and finding good reasons for them to do so. A lot of my horror fiction deals with good people suffering under the yoke of whatever bullshit the universe throws at them. This bleeds into my D&D adventures as well. I think the world not giving a damn about you is kind of a universal feeling. especially in these dark times. But I’m rambling now.

The other thing I love in D&D is trying to come up with new ways to do things. So I can tell you this adventure has a labyrinth in it – a notoriously difficult thing to run and keep interesting. We’ve all been in games where the maze went something like, “You walk ahead 10 feet and come to an intersection where you can go left or right.”
the party, as one: “Always go right!”
“You go right. You walk ahead 10 feet and come to an intersection where you can go left or right.”
Etc.

So this adventure has something different. I gave DMs the option of running it the usual way, or running it cinematically. The form it takes is kind of a mini-point crawl in the middle of the story. Does it work? I think so. I’ve done similar things in my games, and thought they turned out well. Hopefully someone will let me know how it goes for them. Hopefully, they’ll enjoy it.

Anyway, here is the adventure link, and I’ll post the cover on this entry, up at the top, where they always are.

And we’ll se you back here soon. Same bat time. Same bat channel.

Deep in the wilds, the Temple of the Shrike lies in ruin, overgrown and haunted by vengeance. Once a druidic sanctuary, it became a grave when settlers slaughtered its guardians, impaling their bodies and burning their children alive.

A single child, horribly disfigured, survived. Now, she has returned, her wrath woven into a labyrinth of thorns and the unfinished Wicker Behemoth.
The land does not weep. It does not mourn.

It simply waits.

Before you go any further, read this!!!
This story contains themes of vengeance, destruction, and generational guilt. Readers may also encounter unsettling depictions of massacres, human sacrifice, impalement, and the haunting weight of past atrocities. Please proceed with caution if you are sensitive to these themes. For some of you, this is exactly why you have purchased this adventure. For others…

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

Temple of the Shrike at DMs Guild

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The second foray

I mentioned yesterday that I had published two adventures, but didn’t say much about the second one. This was another adventure I wrote for the two-year Rime of the Frostmaiden campaign we recently completed.

One of my players is a huge fan of new and interesting things in D&D. In this case, his wizard was hoping to find spells and other types of magic that he (as a player) had never seen before. We’ve all been there. We’ve all seen a +1 longsword and thought, well, what’s so special about this longsword?

The adventure I originally wrote involved wolves, the cold, and an ancient underground library dedicated to Jergul, a dead god in the Forgotten Realms. It also contained the first spells created with a Far Realm theme, something my player was very interested in.

This version has been generalized and no longer takes place in the cold, but rather a generic Kingswood type forest of lush and green and sunshine. The perfect place for a horror story, in other words.

I’m really enjoying this type of storytelling – our group is currently on a break – defeating Auril the Frostmaiden takes a lot out of you – and this is as close as I am getting to running a game at the moment. I’m playing in two, but I’m sure forever DMs out there will agree it’s hard to let go of the chair.

The Den and The Changelings have garnered a handful of sales this weekend, and I’ve been telling my daughter it’s time to quit my job. I have already made enough for a cup of coffee – but from Tim Hortons, not Starbucks.

The teaser from the adventure:

A horror is growing in the woods…
Beneath the ancient boughs of the Kingswood, something stirs. Mutilated animal
carcasses litter the forest floor, their remains too gruesome for even the bravest
hunters to stomach.

Villagers speak of goblins, werewolves, or something far worse—unseen horrors
whose howls pierce the still of night.

A hunting party ventured into the woods to uncover the truth, only for one survivor
to stagger back, delirious and dying.

Unbeknownst to all, the pack of wolves that once ruled the forest has fallen victim
to the sinister power of a forgotten necromancer’s lair, their corrupted spirits bound
by ancient magic—and hungry for blood.

A horror Story for levels 3-5

Here is a link to The Den on DMs Guild:
https://www.dmsguild.com/product/510010/The-Den?affiliate_id=3648540