Rituals and Practices

Wherein the author surveys the landscape and points at a few things

So, for those who were left hanging last month re: the space heist story. I, uh, almost finished it. There's a good eight thousand words or so that are going to hook you, and then you'll come calling for the rest. You're welcome. I am the reader's bestest friend. 

Crooked v.3. Dropping out of the sky next week, like a steel-tipped satellite that just had its central core hacked and extracted. Get your copy here.

Speaking of being besties, I finished the bonus content for In the Mansion of Madness, and yeah, it’s even more cliff-hangery. I need a shirt that says "THIS RELATIONSHIP IS NOT ABOUT CLOSURE, BITCHES." 

In other news, we are twenty-plus days into Mörktober, and I have managed to show up every day so far. Bits and bobs that are going to get folded into something RPG-like. Is it a ruleset for a Mörk Borg compatible thing? Is it a solo-play narrative? Is it a blob of bits and bobs that get noodled on forever more? I'm not sure. I do need to finish this and that first. 

But hey, that won't stop me from noodling out a teaser graphic. So, there you go. Ritual-based, eco-RPG with weird shit found in the woods. 

Other irons and other fires, in the meantime. Been watching Scavengers Reign and have been mesmerized by the world-building. The characters are somewhat one-note, especially the annoying ones, but I am invested in the non-annoying ones and the world-building is so very good. 

Also on the box is Culinary Class Wars (Netflix). The pitch is basically "What if we combined Top Chef and Squid Games?" Which is all I needed, frankly, and the whole production is really well done. And now I need to find my local Korean restaurant. 

J. B. Kish came out and tabled with me at the Grimoire Academy’s Halloween exhibition the other day. We made buttons and said "fuckton of bees" a lot. Still managed to sell a bunch of books. This is after the H. P. Lovecraft Film Festival a week or so before that, where, not as many bees, but many books were sold. 

The Underland Press class of 2024. Get yours here.

Underland Press published seven titles this year. Three of which came out at the beginning of the month. That puts the output of the press past thirty titles since I acquired it a decade ago. Happy 10th anniversary to Darin Bradley's Chimpanzee, by the way. It's still relevant—maybe even more so. You should read it. 

In 2023, I said we should slow down a bit, and then we did seven books, which is . . . well, nearly double what we did in 2023. I repeated this thought again a few weeks ago, and right now, there are only four books on the schedule for next year—but, eh, probably more like six. Plus this other thing. And that other thing. Oh, and probably another volume of Cozy Cosmic because some smart-ass came up with a great title for the third one (it wasn't me!), and since it makes me laugh . . . Oh, and there's the lingering lack of closure with Underland Arcana, so . . . 

2025 is going to bang, dear friends.