World Below Now Funding!

I worked on this new dark fantasy / horror table top roleplaying game with Onyx Path Publishing and it’s Backerkit crowdfunding campaign is going live in 7 days! Ed Greenwood of Forgotten Realms joined us on this project. Check out the link to check out this wonderful game!

“Do not concern yourself with what’s above you. From here on out, the only way forward is down.

The World Below provides. But you must dig. You must explore. You must map. You must build. You must defend. The World Below provides, but only to the worthy. 

Your surroundings are horrific and wondrous. Extract gemstones and find natural springs of nourishing water, but be cautious: excavate too far, and you’ll wake the creatures in the walls, the caves, and the Dark.

The World Below is a game of adversity, heroism, terror, and awe. Your characters will overcome or be defeated by terrible beasts, environmental calamities, and Kaos storms ravaging their surroundings and the souls around them. They will chart their journeys, chronicle their tales, and pass their stories down to their descendants, who will in turn become your characters when your old ones perish or retire.

Expect threats and risks, joys, and discoveries. The World Below promises a hard, harsh existence, but when the light of hope gleams in the thick darkness, it feels as bright as the sun.

Unified Only to Survive

Gloom and impenetrable darkness fill the caverns of the World Below, hiding beasts and predators waiting to feed on unwary denizens. Guilds form around the business of curating knowledge of safe spaces, finding food, and studying the World Below. People equip themselves with what they can to survive, bedecking themselves in insect carapaces, woven plants, and silks. They arm themselves with fangs, bones, claws, and ores fashioned as blades and hammers. 

Deep in the lowest mapped point of the World Below is the Well — an endless energy source that generates violet light, purifies water, and blooms hearty foodstuffs. This Well is guarded by entities known only as the Well Liches, who do not share their spoils lightly. The lifespring of this Well is called Kaos, and it radiates out beyond the Well Liches’ reach. When heroes raid the Well for power, they find themselves with a dilemma: Do I keep the power to myself or share it with the worthy?”

https://www.backerkit.com/c/onyx-path/the-world-below

Also

Touching the Abyss is now running it’s SFW chapter of the Devil on Webtoons. Check it out there if you prefer to read your comics on an app!

https://www.webtoons.com/en/canvas/touching-the-abyss/list?title_no=903682

Rat in a Burning Cage is now available in Print on Demand Format from DriveThru RPG! 

Buy a copy here: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/450371/Rat-In-A-Burning-Cage-An-Adventure-Set-for-Trinity-Continuum-Assassins?affiliate_id=1686942

Moving

Hello folks! I have all the pages scheduled out to post until the end of September while I move across the ocean once more. The development of this chapter is going well.

For those unaware, I also freelance write table top roleplay games and we have several kickstarers coming up!

Trinity Continuum: Aegis launches on Backerkit on July 25th!

Out right now I have 2 books for 2 very different horror games:

Don’t open the Gates” which is a virtual table top scenario book for “They Came From Beyond the Grave” and the World Below‘s preview book – which has all the things you need to run the game now before the system’s full release

May 26 Updates

It’s been a crazy year for me as my 2nd Master’s program comes to a close. I’ve been doing less short fiction this year but I have taken some freelance table top roleplay game work. I’m under several NDA right now but I can’t wait until I can share what I’ve been working on. It’s been a fun learning process and I get to work with a company I’ve wanted to work with for a while.

I submitted the completed pages of the Devil to my publisher Screaming Eye Press with a few lore heavy extras. We’ll see when it’ll be ready for release. It’s got several more months of run time before it concludes here on the site! There won’t be too much of a break between The Devil and the Lovers!

Nicoy and I have started working ahead. The Lovers is a revisiting of the original Pilot of Salient Caligation. I’ve grown as a writer since the comic started and I wanted it to be complete under a single artist. I had a lot of help with Salient Caligation over the years but I want it to be more consistent. I’m not as constrained by page count so I will try to tell the story in as many pages as it needs. I’m not sure how many pages the Lovers will end up being, but likely it will be as long as the Devil, maybe longer. I’m still writing the script between other projects and coursework.

If you like the comic and want to help out, consider leaving a review on The Eight of Swords on Good Reads or Amazon!

If you want to read some of my other work you can check out my short stories:

In “Coming Through in Waves” and “Nightside: Tales of Outre Noir“.

The 8 of Swords is now Available from Screaming Eye Press

You can now buy a copy of Touching the Abyss: The 8 of Swords.

The Devil is shaping up to be about 50 pages before extras. I should have the last pages in time for an early 2021 release. I have decided to rewrite the pilot episode, so “the Lovers” it will provide new content vs being a straight panel for panel redraw of the original Chapter 1- Contracts.

Rolling forward, this will be the chapter set-up for Salient Caligation:

1 – The 8 of Swords – Full Issue Available: Screaming Eye Press ; Drive Thru Comics

2- The Devil – (SFW) Full Issue Available: Drive Thru Comics

3- The Lovers (Ongoing Issue)

4- Death (TBA)

5- The Tower (TBA)

6- Judgement (Finale- TBA)

Other Media tie-ins:

Nikola (Short story)

“Death Answers” and “Voyeur” (short stories in Nightside: Tales of Outré Noir)

“Mother” (short story in Coming Through in Waves)

Rise: The Ardent Souls (WIP -Book Series)

Eidolon (working title, graphic novel, in development)

Fallen (working title, graphic novel, in development)

So stay tuned!

Mages and pages

Things have been rather hectic. The script for this chapter is wrapping up as we are starting to get to the end of this fairly long chapter! In the future, I will write more about James, Lisa, and Bolin.

Bloodlines and lineage are always important when talking about magic. I find it funny that while I started this comic back in 2003, I had never actually played in an urban TTRPG as a mage.

It’s 2020 and I am playing a former Catholic nun novitiate Awakened and initiated into the Hindu/Buddhist traditions of Tantra as a Chakravanti in the Hypersigil play-test of a home-brewed Mage the Ascension 5th edition game.

I don’t normally play naiive or high social stated characters so it’s been interesting to see Angela as she started when I wrote her and how she is now. Rapid character development through traumatic events. I look forward to the next iteration of the playtest!

I’m into week 4 of my new graduate program so I am actually taking a short break from a paper due tonight to quickly blog.

This page ends Ch. 3 Part 2, which is available on DrivethruComics! When I get all of Ch. 3 Part 3 together, I will pre-release it as a whole book through Amazon, DriveThru and Barnes and Noble through Ingram Spark to print. So if have to have it complete and in your hands, it’ll come out that way before I release it to the web. So please stay tuned!

It looks like with the scheduling and my budget, I won’t have all of the pages for Chapter 3 for print until about Feb 2021 which means it won’t finish hitting the web until probably summer 2021.

I’ll probably start looking to get the script for Ch 4: Death together once I complete the last few pages of The Devil, which will bring our storyline back to the present, following the events of Ch 1: The Lovers (which will be redone at some point).

COVID

It’s scary out there in the world. The uncertainty of the future and the increasing isolation as more states go into lock down makes this a strange time to live. I have to keep working, so I have been limiting my exposure to keep my family safe.

Despite this, I am still charging forward with this project. The work helps my artist, Nicoy, as her country is in lock down. I’m lucky that I can continue working. It’s just grim out there.

It’s dark but there is still so much light to be found. Stay safe out there.