Dungeon Age short story: “Wizard”

(This is the first in the short story series. The next story is “Dusteater“.)

“Do you have any idea who I am?!”

Malachi teetered on the edge of the wall. Behind him, the desert floor spread out to the horizon some hundred feet below. In front of him, thirty blue-cloaked soldiers raised their spears and bows along the wall-top path, closing in from right and left as the sun glinted off the silvery domes and spires of Sahar. Malachi waved the soldiers back with one hand as he clutched his blue tome to his chest with the other, with one finger pinched inside to hold a certain page. He grinned. “Trust me, you’re outnumbered.”

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Dungeon Age short story: “Ghost”

(This is the third story in the series. Previous: “Dusteater“. Next: “Paladin“.)

Jude floated above his skull.

He always floated above his skull, unable to drift more than an arm’s length from the brown, spotted bone. Not that he had arms. Or bones. Coyotes made off with most of the big ones, and vultures took the middling ones. The small ones crumbled to dust long ago.

As the last light of day faded, Jude felt himself emerge from oblivion, fading back into reality. The rocky red desert came into view, the same as it did every night. The sentinel cacti loomed over him, bristling with pale yellow needles slowly twisting in their roots in search of water.

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Review: Elric of Melnibone and Other Stories (Moorcock)

Elric of Melnibone is often introduced and discussed in contrast to Conan the Cimmerian, so I will bow to that most noble tradition now. Robert E. Howard‘s Conan is an American fantasy hero of great strength and courage, powerful mirth and brooding, who wanders the world in search of adventure and fortune, critical of decadent civilizations, slaughtering monsters and attracting women wherever he goes. Michael Moorcock‘s Elric is a British fantasy hero of weak constitution, dependent on magic and drugs to survive, an albino emperor reluctant to wield power or punish his enemies, a conflicted philosopher trying to invent morality while serving the Lords of Chaos, and always pining for his betrothed lover Cymoril.

So… they’re different.

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Review: Koshchei the Deathless (Mignola)

I’ve always had a soft spot for eastern European folklore and mythology. I grew up on Norse and Greek myths, and later Egyptian and Celtic. But Slavic myths were harder to stumble upon (when I was young and you had to look in books at the library), so references to Baba Yaga and the original vampires were quite tantalizing.

Now I’ve read much more and discovered much more, and it only gets better and weirder. Koshchei is a wonderfully bizarre character, a traditional Russian villain known for his immortality and penchant for stealing young women from their lovers. While various tales differ, the main constant is that he has ensured his immortality by hiding his soul in an egg, which is inside various creatures and objects. The hero must then find his soul in order to defeat him.

But we’re not here for that today. Today we’re talking about the Hellboy story of Koshchei the Deathless. The character of Koshchei has appeared in Hellboy stories before, but in this standalone volume, Koshchei and Hellboy are sharing a friendly drink in Hell and Koshchei is sadly recounting the tragedies of his life, the loss of his friends and adoptive parents, and his enslavement to Baba Yaga.

In this telling, Koshchei was a man with relentless ambition who ensured his immortality and then found himself under the command of the great witch Baba Yaga, who had her own vendetta against Hellboy. Eventually she agrees to release Koshchei if he slays the last dragons, which he agrees to do in order to safeguard the world. But after solving obscure riddles, finding strange allies, and defeating terrible monsters, he finds himself no more free, no more enlightened, and ever more despairing of his strange and twisted existence.

It’s the quintessential type of Hellboy story that I love, dark and sad, a quiet little story about witches and dragons, love and loss, magic and family. I find it captivating, reading about monsters that are sad and introspective, fading from the world, losing their identity and purpose.

Don’t you?

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Adventure “Saving Saxham” now available for OSR and 5e

Saving Saxham

Hey everyone, I have created an OSR version of my Dungeon Age adventure “Saving Saxham“. This basically means I removed all of the D&D Fifth Edition (5e) mechanics from the setting, monsters, and treasure, and created new creature stat blocks similar to those found in other OSR-friendly content.

Saving Saxham” is Pay What You Want (PWYW) on DriveThruRPG, so please go grab it for free and let me know if the OSR stat blocks work for you, or if there are any changes you think would be helpful.

I will be creating OSR versions of my other adventures in the days to come, and in the future it will be standard for me to release them in both formats at the same time.

Cheers!

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Dungeon Age short story: “Dusteater”

(This is the second story in the series. Previous: “Wizard“. Next: “Ghost“.)

“A wizard comes.”

The rasping voice faded into the throbbing shadows as Damaris glided forward into the endless night. The soft vapors of creation churned around her ethereal limbs. She watched a pair of enormous blood-red tendrils undulate through the clouded void, far out beyond the curve of the crimson moon, and she yearned to know what it felt like to be so vast, weightless and free, unconstrained by the needs of baser flesh, both alien and eternal.

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Offer: Books for reviews

Hi there readers, the new Dungeon Age novel and novella have been out for a couple weeks and I’d love to help you guys get some reviews out there. So I am offering free ebooks to anyone who offers to post a review on Amazon.

Just send me an email at [email protected] and I’ll send you Dungeon Age: Beneath the Dying Land and Exiled: Beyond the Metal River for your reading enjoyment!

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New Releases: Dungeon Age novel and novella!

I’m very excited and proud to announce the release of not one but two new books in my new Dungeon Age series. The first title is Beneath the Dying Land, a sword-and-sorcery adventure novel inspired by all my favorite classics from Tolkien’s Middle-Earth to Vance’s Dying Earth to Cook’s Black Company and beyond, for fans of Conan, Fafhrd, Cugel, Elric, Raistlin, and Croaker. The second title is Exiled: Beyond the Metal River, a mythic fantasy novella written during my Twitch Writes Fantasy project.

Beneath the Dying Land

Check it out on Amazon

Ezra Dunes served his country. He slew the undead, hunted rogue wizards, and delved into ancient tombs to confront unspeakable horrors. He lost friends, and collected scars. Now at home, he just wants to take care of his family. But he carries a wound, a sleepy parasite that whispers murderous evils into his mind. And when yet another mad sorcerer starts opening portals to the underworld, Ezra’s parasite awakens, offering to help him save his family from the rampaging demons while leading him deeper into the darkness of his own fears and the forgotten world that lies beneath the dying land.

Explore a fantasy world where heaven and hell both lie buried under the known realms, where inhuman angels conscript lost orphans to become holy warriors, where elves and dwarves hide in distant jungles and frozen wastes, where the dune seas and red mesas are home to giant scorpions and cursed jackal-folk, and only a few last human cities still stand against the ever-growing desert. Yet below the surface, lost kingdoms and alien ecosystems glimmer in the darkness, full of forgotten magics and monsters, waiting to be rediscovered…

Exiled: Beyond the Metal River

Check it out on Amazon

For twenty years, Vikram survived in the shadows of Urva Songos, the City of Dreams, hiding from the clerics who want to imprison him in their temple for his celestial healing powers. But one wrong turn sends Vikram dashing from alleys to rooftops, hurled into a prison cell, and then banished to a strange land of ice and shadow.

Trapped in the frozen wastes of the underworld, Vikram befriends a rather gloomy talking goat, and together they explore the ruins of a dying realm, from the haunted black towers of the witch-lords to the corpse-strewn Field of Tears, and deep into the decaying palace of the Dawn Queen. Hunted by living shadows, burrowing monstrosities, and a vengeful wizard, Vikram races to find a way home…

Publisher’s Note: This fantasy novella was written during the 2019 “Twitch Writes Fantasy” project, in which the author invited his audience to vote on various character and plot decisions, and then he crafted the story to bring those choices to life.

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Tonight on Twitch: We need a title and cover

Join us tonight on Twitch at 9pm EST to vote on our ongoing crowd-guided mythic fantasy adventure-writing project.

I love this cover… I like the title too!

Tonight, our story is nearly complete so we need to decide what to title it and what sort of art to use on the cover.

Also, check out the Twitch Writes page to read the PDF current draft of our Untitled Mythic Fantasy!

Please follow the channel to receive an alert when we go live (don’t worry, I only go live once a week).

LINK: https://www.twitch.tv/josephrobertlewis

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Dungeon Age: A list of magic tattoos

The following D&D (5e) game content can be found in the adventure Dungeon Age: Acid Metal Howl.

If you seek wealth, power, or knowledge in the dead city of Yumar, you may discover the tattooing paraphernalia of the people who still live there. The needle seems simple enough, but the ink is clearly magical.

By all means, give yourself or a companion a tattoo, but don’t be too surprised when it doesn’t turn out the way you expected…

Magic tattoos

Each tattoo consumes one vial of ink. Regardless of how it is applied, the ink flows to a place and shape of its own choosing. Roll 1d10 for the outcome.

  1. A butterfly on the side of the neck. You are resistant to falling damage.
  2. A skull on the left palm. Your touch with that hand deals 1d4 necrotic damage. Always.
  3. Leafy vines around the scalp. You are resistant to psychic damage.
  4. A rose on the buttock. You are immune to disease and the poisoned condition.
  5. A snake coiled around the throat. You are resistant to poison damage.
  6. A phoenix over the heart. Once per day you can cast Burning Hands at first level.
  7. A newborn baby on the arm. When you roll hit dice to heal, double the value rolled for accelerated healing.
  8. Flames around the left eye. If you can see a creature, you can tell if it is undead.
  9. Bones around the right wrist. An illusion makes your right hand appear skeletal. Always.
  10. A scarab on the left cheek. You can consume any chewable material as nutritious food, such as earth and sticks. Tastes awful.
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