Happy Monday! Today is my birthday, so I hope everyone is having a very good day. This week, we’re starting the next chapter of The Well Below the Valley, and things are about to get very serious for our intrepid investigators. I’ll also be on Twitch on Thursday.
My small family is going to be moving house in November. Hopefully, that won’t cause any disruptions to your regularly scheduled content, but I’ll be sure to post some kind of notice if I’ll be without Internet for any significant length of time.
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“How is it that you can do that?” I asked. I would not have believed it, had I not seen it with my own eyes, and felt the heat of Jora’s fever and smelled the putrescence of his wound. He had surely been close to death, and now he walked back to his house under his own power.
“Khalim has a gift,” Reva said. “When the time is right, the people will follow him to the ends of the earth.”
Happy Monday! It’s my friend Brooke’s birthday today. I wrote something to commemorate it last week, which you can find here.
I was sick all last week, and have plenty of work to catch up on now that the powers of breathing have returned to me. Not to worry, the next chapter of Beyond the Frost-Cold Sea will go up on Wednesday as scheduled. I’ll also be on Twitch on Thursday!
I hope you enjoy this beautiful late-October week!
This is my best friend, Brooke. She turns 30 on Monday, and I wanted to write something in honor of her birthday.
We met in college, almost ten years ago, and as our birthdays are exactly one week apart, we have been celebrating them jointly ever since. Over the years, we’ve lived in different cities, close together and far apart, worn a lot of costumes, changed our hair colors countless times, and signed each other’s marriage documents. She even introduced me to my husband. She’s one of the most hardworking, compassionate, and brilliant people I’ve ever met.
It’s hard to describe how much she’s meant to me over this past near-decade. I could tell you that I used to want to be her when I grew up, but I learned over the years that there will only ever be one Brooke (and of course I would be better as myself than a poor simulacrum of someone else). I could tell you that she’s taught me that it’s important to always fight for what you believe in, no matter how small you feel; that one should take any opportunity to dance when it’s given; that a multitude of problems can be helped by a nice cup of tea; and that creativity is most important in life, second only to love. I think even this, however, does not do her justice.
So I will tell you this. We grew up, and life and its hardships get in the way, and I see her as often as I can and not as often as I would like. But every time I do see her, it is like stopping at a house beside the ocean in the middle of a great journey. The road is long, a storm gathers on the far horizon, and the waves crash on the beach below, but inside there is warmth and safety. There are wildflowers hanging from the rafters to dry, and a kettle just beginning to sing, and the weary smile of a friend who has walked the same paths and climbed the same cliffs. Tomorrow, the road will still be there, but for now, all is well, and there is time to rest.
To Brooke, my best friend, birthday buddy, partner in crimes against fashion: have the most wonderful of days, and may the year ahead bring you manyfold all the blessings you have brought me.
The investigators return to London after gathering clues in Oxford and learning of the tragedy that befell Professor Ragnarsson’s expedition to the North Sea. While they try to hunt down the professor’s murderer and make sense of what he left behind, they find that something far stranger is happening here—and they are all in grave danger.
(All page numbers refer to the Seventh Edition of the Call of Cthulhu Keeper Rulebook, published 2015 by Chaosium, Inc. I am in no way affiliated with Chaosium or the writers of the Call of Cthulhu roleplaying game system. Content notes for this chapter: murder, mentions of sexism and racism, drowning, possible mind control, discussion of WWI and loss of loved ones.)
“Everything Stays,” from the Adventure Time soundtrack
Good morning and happy Monday!
This week, I’ll have the rest of Chapter One of The Well Below the Valley up on Wednesday. You’ll get the solution to the puzzle in the first half, as well as another puzzle that leads to Chapter Two.
We had twenty silver between us come morning. It wasn’t enough for another night at this inn, and with the tournament a day away, we were unlikely to find somewhere better. Such was the fate of an adventurer, to go from feast to famine faster than a spinning wheel. There was surely work to be found here, and silver to be paid for it; we would just have to find it.
It suddenly became fall last week, so I am typing this from inside multiple sweaters.
This week, I’ll post the next chapter of Beyond the Frost-Cold Sea. You’ll meet some new characters and learn what’s happening in Phyreios, so stop back in on Wednesday!
It is February 13, 1922, and it is a cold and rainy Monday morning in London. Three days ago, Professor Emundr Ragnarsson was found dead in his hotel room. The investigators will visit and revisit various important locations, speaking to witnesses and gathering clues in order to find out who killed the professor. Meanwhile, a rival detective at Scotland Yard will be conducting his own investigation, and an acquaintance of the victim’s has his own theories as to what happened. The real killer is out there, however, and the investigators must discover the truth before he and the mysterious organization he serves strike again.
(All page numbers refer to the Seventh Edition of the Call of Cthulhu Keeper Rulebook, published 2015 by Chaosium, Inc. I am in no way affiliated with Chaosium or the writers of the Call of Cthulhu roleplaying game system. Content notes for this chapter:murder, mentions of sexism and racism, memory loss/mind control, drowning.)
This week, I’ll have the first half of the first chapter of The Well Below the Valley. It was just too long for one post, but I am very excited to start posting the campaign proper. As always, you can catch up on previous posts under the “Read my writing” tab, and each post has a forward and a back link.
I’ll also be streaming on Twitch on Thursday. It seems to be the better day for the people who occasionally watch, so I want to try it out.
Space Whales Press 