A Cookbook For The Besieged and other tales
A little over a year ago I made a great big map for a fantasy world called Olkhar to set stories in. My goal then was just to have my own campaign setting for my D&D campaigns. As we played I started to write short stories set in that world. At that time, I had nothing planned with those stories. I was working first a Sci-Fi novel in a fantasy setting and then on a Spy-Fi novel idea, and the shorts I wrote were just fun little stories for me. Sometimes they were things that couldn’t be done in the Sci-fi novel, but that I was compelled to get down on paper. Other times they were inspired by something that happened to my players in game. But these stories remained a fun little side project for me.
Then 2020 happened. Between the pandemic and the slow motion destruction of the country via the incompetence and malevolence of a dim and evil president, combined with a feeling of abject powerlessness to do anything about it, I found I wasn’t making any progress on the books I’d planned to write. I kept getting stuck, distracted by the waves of terrible news, or I’d sink into the depression cycle of not get work done because I was depressed and then getting depressed because I wasn’t getting anything done. But I found I could work on these ridiculous little stories I’d been writing for fun. In fact, I needed to work on those ridiculous little stories. I needed the distraction. I needed the escapism.
In the theory that other people can use a break, that other people can use some escapism, I worked on polishing these stories up so that other people can read them.
Eight of these stories are now available, eight adventures of heroes in the Fourth Age of Olkhar. I hope that people enjoy them, have a laugh, and just for a moment forget about the messed up problems of the real world.
So please, take a break from the world and your troubles and read about the troubles of these characters in another world:
Sister Yu is a cleric of the goddess Maulin, the mother of the pantheon of the official religion of Olkhar. She is a battle hardened veteren of many campaigns, and has seen too much to suffer the whims of aristocratic fools gladly.
Thom the thief is a hard luck rogue desperate for that one big score. The problem is the bigger the score the bigger the danger. And everything always seems to go wrong in the most predictably unpredictable ways.
Sarah is a mercenary of renown returned to the village of her birth determined to see to its desperate defense against the siege of a cruel Duke.
Helga the halfelven barbarian sorceress is a well meaning big hearted character who just wants to be friends. It’s a shame that her power often exceeds her ability to control it.
Join these characters and other heroes, antiheroes, and people who are just trying their damned best, in A Cookbook for the Besieged and Other Tales.
