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And with that, we finish the second book of the Edmund Moulde Quadrilogy. On Monday, I will start posting the third book: Edmund Moulde and the Battle of Harmingsdown.

Among other things, Edmund’s story has always been about transition, either from orphan to heir, from shame to pride, or from peace to war. From a Meta persepctive, I myself was always interested about what the transition from Steampunk to Dieselpunk might look like. From there, it was a simple hop to an alternate World War I.

Up next, I will be posting a very experimental piece of work, Ozzie Fitch.

Ozzie Fitch is a tale of hope, of struggle, of friendship through the trials of life, but mostly about pain. The pain we carry, the pain we share, and the pain that could cripple us if we are not careful.

Some hide their pain, turn from it in an attempt to maintain their veneer of adulthood. Some succumb to it, turning bitter and cynical as they see any joy or passion for life as a morbid lie. Some turn their pain into power. Some call it magic. And some feel their pain is the only thing that makes them worthwhile.

With that short batch of Cliffside Short-stories finished, I am now forced to look at what comes next for my Saturday postings. Of all the writing I’ve done, what fits best in a sidelong once-a-week format? I have more short stories, but not enough to outlast the weeks of books I have to upload. Do I write more short stories? Use Saturday to upload drafts and show my process? Only post personal bloggings about how I feel or what’s going on in the news today?

A whole new website design!

With my RPG treatise finally complete (or at least as complete as anything ever is, in my head…) it is time once more to return to the dark and twisted world of Edmund Moulde, and the second book of the Macabre Quadrilogy.

In many ways, this book was supposed to be the first book in Edmund’s story. I had imagined a very Rowlingesque (sans bigotry) opening of the odd little Moulde boy being tested after he used the chemicals from his sister’s makeup kit to revivify his dead pet rat. Then, off the odd little Moulde boy would go to learn about the mad sciences of penny-pulps and wrought-iron steampunk.

So ends the first story in the Edmund Moulde quadrilogy. With some time to spare before my treatise on the medium of RPGs is finished, I will spend the next few Saturdays uploading some short stories set in what I ended up calling The Cliffside Universe

After all, Brackenburg is only one of the major cities in the Britannian Empire, and a steadily decaying one, at that. There is room for stories across the globe as the world slowly changes from steam-punk to diesel-punk, and no one city is better suited to display the variety and complexity of that transition than Cliffside, hub of trade, adventure, and diverse stew of humanity.

Some non-fiction musings and thoughts about things.

• Thoughts on Gender Neutral Titles
• Fan Fiction
• A Brief Look at Grimdark: Part 2
• A Brief Look at Grimdark
• A Brief Look at Genre
• Two Paths Diverging
• A Kind of Slur

Stormcallers

About

Ah, colonialism.

Anti-colonaial texts are hard to write, especially when you yourself are a colonialist. In a very real way, anti-colonialism is not my wheelhouse. It is the purview and right of the colonized to write powerful and sweeping tales of overcoming colonialism, patriarchy, and religious bigotry.

Of course, it is hardly exclusively the duty of the colonized to do all the heavy lifting. Allies must share and uplift the voices of the persicuted, not subsume or claim their words as one’s own.

With Kindness

With a knife

I have cut the cake into slices.

Little slices, big slices, some get the flowers.

Here is your slice, here is mine.

You cannot have my slice. It is for me. That one is yours.

Aren’t you grateful to me?

And my knife?

Original Post

• With Kindness

Cemetery of Swords

This poem was made using the solo RPG Cemetery of Swords, by Efarrisgames.

• The Poem
• The Game Moves

Gentleman Bandit gentleman bandit

This poem was made using the solo RPG Gentleman Bandit, by Allison Arth. I used the Mode variant, and played three times, rolling on the Poker Play table after each.

Manifest RPG Design Blog

About

After reading so many RPGs, playing so many RPGs, and thinking about everything that is the medium of RPG, I decided I needed to put my money where my mouth is, and actually create an RPG. The following are the posts of me detailing my thought processes.

NOTE: All references to games and RPG systems are to be considered “as of writing.” New versions of games might render some of my comments inaccurate.