Nice price from DriveThruRPG

If you still haven't got your copy of the Fabled Lands RPG (and why not?) you may be interested in trying the PDF version that's now available on DriveThruRPG.

You can get the rulebook for $14.99 (that's about half the price of the print edition) or, for just fifty-one cents more, why not pick up a bundle of the rulebook plus a full-color map of Harkuna? Better do it right now, though - I can't believe those nice folks at Greywood Publishing will leave those prices so low for long.

The illustration, one of many excellent new images of he Fabled Lands to be found in the book, is by Tony Hough, and you can see more of his work here.

Okay, a short post today as I'm madly busy, but we'll make up for it with Castle of Lost Souls part 2 in five days. See you then...

A tingling of spider-sense

To talk about my own pet project rather than one of the many irons in Fabled Lands LLP's fire, the first Mirabilis hardcover gets a pretty nice write-up in this month's SFX magazine. As regular readers will know, the story of Mirabilis

"begins with a duel between salt-of-the-earth soldier Jack Ember and pompous toff Dougray McNab, who are both vying for the hand of feisty duke's daughter Estelle Meadowvane. Morris deftly establishes a volatile chemistry between the trio, who are forced to work together as they are drawn into an esoteric conspiracy, centring around an ancient gold coin and the mysterious Royal Mythological Society."

Well, that's what the SFX reviewer says, and who am I to disagree? If you grab the current issue of SFX, you'll not only get to read the rest of the review, you can also find out the latest on the Spider-man reboot, Joss Whedon's Avengers movie, the new Conan, a peek at Fringe season four, awesome concept art for John Carter of Mars, and there's even a feature on Fighting Fantasy gamebooks. (Honestly.)

Get ready for Dirk Lloyd

If you've been following this blog from the start, you'll know that Dirk Lloyd was the first new concept that we came up with after founding Fabled Lands LLP. By that I mean the company Fabled Lands, not the gamebook series - though Fabled Lands projects (the world, gamebooks, RPG and apps) are all controlled by Fabled Lands the company. Don't worry, it confuses us too.

Anyway, back to Dirk... In a nutshell, it's the story of what happens when the Lord of All Evil is defeated by the forces of good and banished to our world in the body of a 13-year-old kid. Oh, the ignominy! Whoever heard of a dark lord having the crusts trimmed off his peanut butter sandwiches? But even stripped of his powers, Dirk isn't going to take his exile on modern-day Earth lying down. Imagine a novel told from Tom Riddle's point of view - and with a style of crazed humour that will be familiar to anyone who used to enjoy Jamie's hilarious column in the old Warlock magazine.

The first book had a pretty drawn-out development process, as new projects often do. We plotted it in detail, Jamie went away and wrote a first draft, we then completely reworked the storyline, and Jamie wrote another draft before getting a full story analysis from Roz Morris (bestselling author who I had to foresight to marry so as to save the company money) which guided him in polishing it. Would you believe that all took nearly two years? What can I say? Perfection doesn't come overnight. Then the series took another year to sell, and even after that it went through a healthy process of thorough critiquing and editing from our UK publisher, Megan Larkin, at Orchard Books.

And now this lovingly polished jewel of dark brilliance is about to be unveiled to the world. The first book, Dark Lord: The Teenage Years just got a glowing review from Hazel Holmes over on the Chicklish site and you can pre-order it on Amazon. (Just don't look at the product description there as it contains a massive spoiler about the end of the book!) Freya Hartas, daughter of Leo and grand-daughter of John Vernon Lord (how's that for an artistic pedigree?), has produced a clutch of macabre illustrations as unique and tasty as devilled dragon eggs that perfectly complement the dry black humour of the text.

Now that the characters and scenario are all worked out, coming up with new stories is much easier. In fact, Jamie has already written the second book in the series, Dark Lord: A Fiend in Need, and is about to start work on the third, The Dirkest Hour. Orchard are planning a promotional tour, so if you keep an eye on your local bookshop window you may find that Jamie is coming to your town. (Hide the beer and sausages if so.) NBC are developing the Dirk Lloyd TV show. There are plans for apps and gamebooks and bunch of other stuff. And all for you, dear reader; all for you.

The UK books will be out in October with editions in Germany, Spain and the US to follow soon after. So there you have it - Dirk Lloyd is going to conquer our world. There's no use fighting it.

The Lost Prince on Kindle

News of Jamie's latest fictional masterwork tomorrow, but in the meantime Fabled Lands fans may want to pick up a copy of his fantasy novel on Kindle: US here and UK here and Europe here. (That isn't actually the cover image above, the resolution on the original art not being high enough for Kindle, but a nice design all the same combining Megara's inspired artistic élan and Jamie's... er, instinctive design sense.) The blurb will give you the general idea:

THE DAY THAT TRAGEDY STRUCK

Gasping back tears of horror and anger, Varren shimmied his way down the well.

In the circle of light above his head three ugly, scarred, war-bitten faces appeared, staring down at him. One of them was readying his crossbow.

Varren released his grip and fell straight down into the water. A crossbow quarrel whooshed into the water next to him.

He hauled himself out, and into a side tunnel just above the water level. He’d used this way in and out of the castle for years. He hurried off down the tunnel, the sounds of battle fading away behind him...

It's written for kids age 7 years and up and, while it doesn't have the laugh-out-loud humor of the Dirk Lloyd books, it's still a ton of rip-roaring fun. And I'm not just saying that because Jamie has a broadsword at my throat.

From gamebook to RPG

Still sitting on the fence when it comes to the new Fabled Lands RPG? Shane Garvey and Jamie Wallis have created an elegant and versatile system that's worthy of your attention. Even if you're not a fan of the world of Harkuna, you can use it for other settings. I know of at least one Legend campaign that's switching from Dragon Warriors to FL rules.

But don't take my word for it, see what Stuart Lloyd has to say in the comprehensive new review on his blog Lloyd of Gamebooks. Andrew Wright has also begun a multi-part look at it on Fantasy Game Book. And if you like what those gentlemen have to say, you might want to order a copy now as we'll have a scenario for the FL RPG here in a fortnight or so.

Okay, there's more Lloyd (Dirk, not Stuart) at the weekend, but before that why not drop by on Friday for news of Jamie's latest book? (Our own Jamie T, that is, not Mr Wallis.) It's The War-Torn Kingdom meets Harry Potter... or so he tells me. And I also just heard that BBC radio are repeating his Harkuna-set fantasy serial in which a bunch of adventurers seek the mythical Heart that will grant ultimate power. No, sadly it's not what you think, gamebook fans ;-) but you should enjoy it anyway. And talking of gamebooks, can you wait two weeks until the next installment of The Castle of Lost Souls? Truly, 'tis a veritable summer feast of fantasy around here.

Building up a threat

After writing the last post I was looking at William of Newburgh's account of a 12th century revenant. Passages like this have an almost dreamlike matter-of-factness:

"Hastening to the cemetery, they began to dig; and whilst they were thinking that they would have to dig to a greater depth, they suddenly, before much of the earth had been removed, laid bare the corpse, swollen to an enormous corpulence, with its countenance beyond measure turgid and suffused with blood; while the napkin in which it had been wrapped appeared nearly torn to pieces. The young men, however, spurred on by wrath, feared not, and inflicted a wound upon the senseless carcass, out of which incontinently flowed such a stream of blood, that it might have been taken for a leech filled with the blood of many persons. Then, dragging it beyond the village, they speedily constructed a funeral pile; and upon one of them saying that the pestilential body would not burn unless its heart were torn out, the other laid open its side by repeated blows of the blunted spade, and, thrusting in his hand, dragged out the accursed heart. This being torn piecemeal, and the body now consigned to the flames."

I find the same effect in the opening scene of A Serious Man by the Coen Brothers, in which a man may or may not have inadvertently asked a dybbuk home for supper. Anyway, that reminded me to go digging around a little more in the Brymstone material for a couple of descriptions of the Brollachan, who was the Big Bad for that campaign. First we have this sober account left by a scholar called Edlym Whitebeard:

"Long ago, before the awakening of men's hearts to the True Faith, there was found in the far north of this land a strange being left over from the parting of Death and Life. No form had it, save what it could seize, and the men of the North Country feared it, believing it to be a god. At each new moon they sacrificed to it their goods, cattle and even their children. The demon Achferinar took it for a servant and bestowed upon it great gifts of sorcery, yet it was ever wilful and would not answer its master's call when he summoned his servants to the feast of the Breaking. Thus it was that it survived the fate of the old gods and continued to trouble the men of the North. At length Kurnac Mac Dir, whose domain this now was, sent out his heroes to seize and bind the monster. He himself sealed the enchantment by which the Brollachan was sunk in the depths of the sea, to thresh and chafe impotently there and trouble the hills and vales of the middle world no more..."

That we found in a local monk's library, but later in the campaign we received a rather more vernacular description of our adversary from a farmhand who had been sleeping off an evening at the tavern:

"I were dozin' behind this tree by the river, see, 'avin' drunk perhaps more 'an I needed, an' I woke about midnight to see these little goblins carryin' some poor chap out of a boat. Well, there were this tall thin feller on the other bank, an' 'e called across to 'em, sayin' "Bring 'e 'ere, you knows I can't cross". All them goblins started a titterin' an' a-gigglin', an' the poor feller they'd ahold of moaned somethin' fearful, when suddenly this thin wight calls out again, only this time 'e's got a voice like a clap o' thunder! The goblins all fall down in a tremblin' heap an' start wailin' for mercy, then they bundle the feller in the boat again an' row 'im over to where the other one's waitin'. Well, 'e took that poor feller's head in 'is thin hands an' the next thing - an' I swear on me good mother's grave I were sober when I saw it - he sort o' belched up all this black smoke into 'is face! I only 'eard a muffled scream, but I caught a 'orrible whiff o' brimstone right across the river. The thin feller, 'e falls down like a broken puppet, but the feller the goblins 'ad I thought he were a goner, but 'e sort o' breathes in the smoke an' then some'ow 'e's turned into the other feller even though 'e don't look no different. The goblins all start to grovel at 'is feet, but just then 'e sees me an' gives a great shout. Well, I don' need no tellin' but I'm off like a ferret in a hole, an' don' turn round till I'm 'ome and a-holdin' on to a crucifix in one 'and and an oak club in the other...."

We didn't actually encounter the Brollachan in the flesh until the very end of the campaign, but you can bet that he had been built up enough by then through hearsay and eyewitness accounts that the whole party had a healthy terror of him.

It won't stay in the ground

About a year ago we ran a short series of posts about the town of Brymstone, a setting for roleplaying games in the land of Legend. I played in this campaign back at Oxford originally, before Dragon Warriors was even thought of. The town was called Sneyp then, though not apparently from the Old English root meaning a marsh, for it was surrounded by farmland and downs. Robert Dale, its creator, later renamed and relocated Brymstone to the DW country of Ellesland where, funnily enough, it seemed like it had belonged all along.

The main thrust of the Brymstone campaign was the tension between the traditional power of local lord, Erek Longsword, and the town guilds that were gaining in strength. This conflict was embodied in the Brollachan, a primordial shapechanger who had settled in the district and seemed to be fomenting strife for his own reasons. I'm keeping the rest of the campaign under wraps because possibly the team at Serpent King Games may want to do something with it someday - and in any case, that decision is Robert's, not mine. But here is a short episode that gives a little of the folkloric flavor:

A VAMPIRE AT CRADOC'S FORD

This incident has nothing to do with the Brollachan storyline, but will provide some light relief for the player-characters, as well as a good fight. The creature in this adventure is not quite the standard sly bloodsucker. Folklore abounds with a number of interpretations of the vampire, after all. The shrewd and scheming tactician personified by Count Dracula is one; this is another.

The characters hear that the villagers of Cradoc's Ford are looking for adventurers to help guard an isolated farm against attacks by a vampire. The young daughter of one of the farmers, Anskar, has suffered recurrent attacks. Local efforts to track the creature down having proved ineffective, outside help is sought. The characters will be expected to arrange themselves into a hunting party by day and provide protection by night. For this they will be paid 25 silvers a day each (payments will be made one day in arrears), and there is a reward of 300 silvers for whoever removes the vampire's head. The villagers will lend a hand if the characters make any attempt to track the vampire, but they will not fight except in extreme circumstances. The vampire's lair is an old forgotten barrow on a low hillock north of Cradoc's Ford (see map). There are no really clear tracks, so unless a search party stumbles across it by accident there is only a 10% chance that even the most experienced trackers (say Assassins of 5th rank or higher) will succeed.

The characters will probably soon see that the best way to catch the vampire is to let it come to them. At Anskar's farmhouse they will meet his ailing daughter Kara, frail and pale but still winsome. Her swain, a youth named Skuli, is also present. He is a very likeable sort, though not particularly charismatic or forceful. However, he is utterly devoted to Kara and will doggedly insist on joining the characters' vigil. They need only watch for one night before the vampire makes its appearance.

Pyron the Reaper (vampire)
Reflexes 18; ATT 22; DEF 2; Sickle (d6+2,6); Unarmed Combat (d6,4); AF1; 30HP; MAG DEF 7; EV 7; move 10m(20m); STEALTH 13; PERCEPTION 10 (darksight); nonmagical weapons (unless of solid silver) score half damage

Pyron can fight until literally cut apart, but effectively only has animal-level intelligence. This does not mean that he is stupid, merely that he cannot reason logically. It would never occur to him to lie low for a week or two to throw hunters of his scent, for example. When approaching his prey he may utter phrases of reassurance ("But wait - Pyron means you no harm..." etc, etc) without consciously remembering their meaning. In trying to imagine himself into Pyron's role, the GM should perhaps consider something like a very long and horrible nightmare. Pyron's conscious mind fell into the sleep of death years ago, and the fragment that remains is primitive, tormented and irrational.

He is not affected by garlic or crucifixes. Because he is just a walking corpse as opposed to an undead spirit, he does cast a reflection. He cannot change into a bat, mist or perform any other Hollywood trickery such as mesmerism. Immersion in fresh running water renders him powerless, and at the sound of cockcrow he must depart to his lair or be destroyed by the first rays of dawn.

In a fight at the farmhouse, Pyron will continue to attack until he is obviously losing the fight. If he manages to retreat (perhaps taking advantage of a chance diversion such as burning logs spilling from the hearth and starting a fire during the struggle - the GM can improvise) the villagers will insist that a hunt is mounted to destroy the monster once and for all. They will not pay the characters any more until Pyron is slain, and will place themselves under the protection of Erek Longsword if threatened.

Pyron's hasty retreat from the farmhouse will have left good tracks, and his barrow should be found without difficulty. Forewarned by now that he is not the kind of vampire they are accustomed to, the characters should no longer be caught off balance by the fact that he is immune to the usual precautions. If they enter after sunrise they will find Pyron lurking in the very heart of the barrow. Bearded in his lair, he fights to the true death.

A distinctive mood may be brought to this adventure by giving some emphasis to the characters of Anskar, Kara and Skuli. Anskar does not entire endorse the youngsters' relationship, so Skuli is eager to prove his worth. So eager that he might just rush into battle against Pyron - and either get himself killed if the PCs do not act quickly, or just possibly end up as the one who slays the vampire and claims the reward. It could be interesting for once to give the player characters the impression that they are not at the centre of the stage, but peripheral characters in someone else's story. Whether that story is one of tragic love, grand heroics, gentle whimsy or broad farce... that is up to the GamesMaster.

There is a small amount of treasure in the tomb, though most of the grave goods are of purely archaelogical interest - just old pots and so on from the player-characters' viewpoint. There is a gold drinking cup worth 900 silvers, silver belt fittings (on the belt around the vampyr's waist) and a necklace of jet (not worn by Pyron; perhaps a last token from a loved one). The silver would fetch perhaps 60 silvers and the jet (prized by sailors as a charm against shipwreck) another 100 or 150. All told, some 1100 silvers. The villagers will claim a quarter share as is their due under local law. Again, they will invoke the protection of Lord Erek if threatened.

As I read through this, I'm aware that Pyron as an archetype has appeared a few times in our games, most recently in Tim Harford's Immortal Spartans campaign, where he dwelt in an ancient tomb by the eastern walls of Rome and was known as "the Etruscan". If your taste is for these gray, loam-smelling, grave-cold vampires, I can recommend Marcus Sedgwick's My Swordhand is Singing and Lindsey Barraclough's Long Lankin as two novels that will send a chill down your spine. In a nice way.