Plug in to comedy and adventure

Looking for a story you can really immerse yourself in? How about Meta: Game On, an hilarious new novel by Xander Black? This audio drama treat is expertly recounted by the mithril-tongued Rob Rackstraw, master of a thousand voices, who may well be channelling the likes of Brian Blessed, Eartha Kitt, Stephen Fry and the Emperor Palpatine. 

Really, you don't want to miss the comedy-adventure of the next Swinging Sixties - 2060s, that is. Grab it right now, before they demolish Earth to make way for a hyperspace freeway.

The year 2065: The streets are abandoned, shops are empty, parks are silent. But is that really much of a surprise when you can connect to the Cybernet?

Everyone can turn on, log in, and drop out.

Cyrus, a failed physicist, and dropout game designer Everett are on the cusp of their big breakthrough into the meta ranks of Neverborn, the world’s most popular game.

But when several high-profile avatars disappear and their human counterparts are found dead, Cyrus and Everett find themselves under suspicion. They must clear their names and unravel the deeper mysteries of Brith and the Neverborn. In doing so, they will uncover a dark secret that threatens not only the game-world, but the safety of their physical realm.

Casket of Fays #4 -- out now

This is going to sound sentimental – and I am by no means a sentimental fellow – but it’s true. The greatest reward you get for creating something like Dragon Warriors is to know you’ve had a part in firing up and shaping other people’s imaginations. That’s why it’s always gratifying to see fan material inspired by what I’ve written, and an extra bonus in the case of Legend is that it seems to inspire a quality of content on a par with the very best commercial RPG publishing out there.

What I’m getting around to, in a long-winded way, is to announce that Casket of Fays issue 4 is now out. It’s free and it’s packed with stuff you’d be happy to pay for. For example:

The Key of the Dark Labyrinth is a talisman that casts anyone who attacks the wearer into an other-dimensional maze. What would it be like to experience that from the other side? Lee Barklam takes a magic item from DW Book 2 and turns it into a whole mini-campaign.

Barbarian is a term that covers anyone you consider uncouth, even if you’re an illiterate Elleslandic peasant and the “barbarian” in question is a chieftain of a high Mungoda clan. Wayne Imlach fleshes it out with new skills and provenances.

The Mead Hall is an inn in the rougher part of Ongus that I can see a lot of player-characters winding up in now that Shaun Hately has given us a taste of the place – complete with street map and menu.

I won’t list every article and every contributor, but it’s a magical brew with just the right mix of scenarios, new rules and spells, cultural flavour, eerie folklore, and memorable characters including tattoo magic, cavalry traps, trollbears, berserkergangs, jungle vampires, and diplomatic incidents -- or should that be dipsomaniac? And with a lot of very fine artwork too.

Oh and here’s a question. Baron Aldred – who would you cast: Brian Blessed, John Rhys-Davies, or Dave Bautista? Find out the official answer here.