CM Simpson: Writer & Gamer

His troops responded with practised ease, scattering like autumn leaves to fight independently. Even so Tanalir saw he would lose them. Raising the bow he carried and began to lay down the covering fire his men required in order to disengage. Part of the Dance was the ability to break away and regroup. With the odds they were facing, his men needed to disperse and harry the griffons, keeping them occupied until help arrived. His arrow sank deep into one of the dead beasts advancing on his men. Another of the once-griffins saw its companion stumble under the impact of one of his arrows and raised its head from the elf it was savaging. The trooper writhed in helpless agony, pinned by its claws to the ground. Gods, where had they grown so large? The beast scanned the troops around until it saw him. It screamed in outrage as he sighted on it, his bow at full draw. His arrow caught it in the neck, but it stretched its beak wide and screamed again. For a heartbeat, Tanalir thought th...

I’ve been thinking about these. September wasn’t a complete wash-out, but I did very little RPG writing. I did, however, make ground on some other writing goals and get my work schedule under control… and then I spent the last week of it with the flu. So, goals for October look a little like this: 1.       Complete Adventure 1 and submit. 2.       Complete the outline and first 5,000 words on a YA setting-specific fantasy novel, YA Novel 1. 3.       Write a setting specific short story between 2,000 and 5,000 words, Short Story 1. 4.       Get Project 1 up to the 10,000-word mark. 5.       Project 2 to 10,000 words. 6.       Begin Emdras conversion. And that’s it. It’s not a lot, but I’m still finding where my limits are and working to fit my writing around family, a full-time job, a language, and an IT course, so ...

And all in one day! Because I hope to submit these for publication, I can’t go into too much detail, so I shall call them by the highly creative designators of Project 1 and Project 2. Project 1 involves converting an existing setting to a different set of rules. It’s going okay. The basic compilation and sifting through of existing material is done. Now it’s on to tackle new classes and races. Project 2 was spawned by Project 1 and is more fantasy generic. I’m excited by this one.

Not even the most powerful of the mages could bypass the cost of their wizardry. Magelord Darkenoak had walked amongst them, sending some back to the elven city for recuperation and coordinating the arrival and incorporation of others until he, too, had been outranked and forced to return. That had been just before the second attack on the walls. Gods! Why hadn’t they made a secret entrance? Had it been too arrogant of them to think that the fort would never need to be retaken? Tanalir shook the questions from his head, praying that the reinforcements would arrive with speed as the front rank of his troops met the winged horrors advancing towards them. He had thought these undead griffins banished, pursued by a unit of mounted riders and gone from the battle. He wondered what had happened to the pursuit until he saw how his fixed formations fell beneath the dark creatures’ claws, and noted a familiar tunic amongst the once-living mounted on the griffins’ backs. How could he...