The Codex Celtarum is Now in Print and Going Out This Week!

After spending two decades playtesting and designing what became the Codex Celtarum, with scores of players and rule reinventions and updates, the project is over...for now! The 1st edition of this massive 174 page book is now printed and the PDF is being sent out to those who purchased it on the Kickstarter! So far the comments have been all superb and everyone is amazed by it on so many levels. Hopefully I will receive some full reviews soon, once I have them I will post them on here.

I do have, already, the changes for the 2nd edition in mind that will propel this book into farther places of being a gaming classic, but until then it is time to see the book in all of its wild Celtic glory, with its tribes, strange faery races and abilities, traditions, and more in it. I have defined the intangible, Faery or the Celtic Otherworld, in this project where no one else had before. I delved deep into the myths and lore obsessively trying to translate them into not only gaming terms, but comprehensible ones in general as well. 

My hope is that I can also supply an additional book for it on the underworld of Annwn with a more detailed atlas for players. This would allow players and GMs a more comprehensive setting that can be referred to rather than the condensed one I gave in the second chapter due to space restrictions. One particular thing I want to detail are the 33 cities of post-Roman Britain where the Britons still dwell in the path of the westward Saxon invasion.

The 150 Faery abilities also function as a spell list as well, giving the player more to use, and this realm of magic is counted as a part of the druidic, giving druids their legendary powers once attributed in early Celtic myths (who were seen as almost god-like). This won't put the game out of balance however since the GM is responsible for handling those issues in his or her game in general, it is meant to add an ever-changing range of wondrous options that give color and depth to the setting, and can be simply used only by the GM for the NPCs if needed - the possibilities are quite huge.

I didn't manage to place a pronunciation guide in the codex unfortunately, it was just one more small detail that had to be overlooked in the frantic completion of this, once never quite finished, project last year. Celtic languages are difficult for people with a single language background, or mainly an English speaking one and being able to differentiate Welsh from Cornish or Breton, or Irish Gaelic from Scottish or Manx will be impossible for most, especially since I have them in use all over Faery without any logic (but that is Faery and how it works). 

If you have any questions about this Codex, send them my way, either on my author page or by Facebook and I can reply to them as they come, dim problem! Now get out there and game in the Otherworld! 

Lots of News of Things to Come!

This last week I completed two more publishing contracts, for my next two novellas in my Mountain Man Monster Hunter series ('Wolves on the Border' and 'Black Coach, High Midnight') with Damnation Books. I do not yet have the release dates of these two books, or the third in my Steampunk Horror series ('The Axis of Shadows'), but it will likely fall in the late summer or early Fall. Needless to say, I will need to write more in the Monster Hunter series as once planned in 2008 and see that quirky horror series through as once hoped.

This upcoming week my much anticipated 'Codex Celtarum' will be printed and the shipping to its eager buyers, first those on Kickstarter, will then commence. With this is the accompanying adventure module 'A Sylvan Gambit' as well, plus that extra 25,000 words I included in the codex since we reached 380% of our projected Kickstarter goal. In addition to this, my next module, 'To Kill a King' will be released very soon too!

I will be finishing up module #8, 'The Idle Wizard' soon too, and then beginning on the 9th, 'Doom Child' for my Mythical Celtic fantasy adventures, so lots more are coming your way, including the next Codex, 'Codex Nordicarum'!

Over the summer months I will be completing the fourth Steampunk novel, 'Atlantica' rounding out the first part of the series. This set of books will either be eight or twelve books when it all said and done. A lot I know, but it will be a ride from Steampunk through Dieselpunk and so many places, and times in between that it will feel as though you were there for all of it!

Also on the planning table is still the publication of my long worked on Celtic adventure trilogy, book one, 'The Girl with the Rainbow Eyes', and my other thinly related books. As a writer and author, one must keep busy to acquire a history and repertoire and I think I have been doing just that!

Early Draft of My Module that Comes with the Codex Celtarum! Look for it soon (April 24th).

Jed Issacs, Monster Hunter Mountain Man - The Series.

My Dark West novella 'Wolves on the Border' is going to be published by Damnation Books soon! This story is another in the series I am working on based around the travels and odd stories of Mountain Man Monster Hunter Jed Isaacs. The first published being 'The Witch of Round Mountain', taking place in Oklahoma/Indian Territory during the historic Battle of Round Mountain.

My third novella, 'Black Coach, High Moon' has also been accepted now! Now I will have to write the others in the series very soon and tell more about Jed the Monster Hunter in the Great West/Frontier, starting with his origin story 'The Valley of the Reptile God'.

To Kill A King Ad Copy!

Castles & Crusades
To Kill a King
Product Type/Format & Price: 8.5 x 11 Saddle Stitched, 24 pages; $6.99
Ordering Info: TLG 8324, ISBN 978-1-936822-59-1

Beyond the comforts of home lie worlds of epic adventure.

Queen Adyna is unhappy. Her King is not her lover and her lover is not the King and such accidents of fate often need a guiding hand. The goodly King Gwgon ap Gwron has ruled the realm for many years but he has not ruled his wife and it is her design to bring him low and the character’s task to do it.

In this complex adventure of court espionage and skullduggery, the adventurers must slay a king. To do so is no mean feat, for they must track him, watch him, weaver their way through the forest of court intrigue to unseat him and even then it is best to be wary. For hired assassins are often loose ends that themselves need tied. To Kill a King is an adventure of betrayal and backstabbing; a story steeped in intrigue and regicide!

Those noble born and good of heart may shy from the task at hand for a certain, there will be blood tonight!

Set in a semi-historical mythical Post-Roman Britain, in the North of Wales in the little kingdom of Penllyn (‘Pen-thlin’) and has the strong element of the faery-folk and druidic magic about it. This module can be easily placed in the Airhde world setting or any other with a change of names and places and taken out of its historical and geographical settings and refitted for one of pure fantasy.

To Kill a King is an adventure for 2-5 characters of around 4th level.