Preview of Work in Progress

 

Pursuant to this post, I think I have arrived at the decision that I will keep Monsters & Manuals going here, but start a new parallel endeavour on substack. Tentatively called (somewhat pompously) Multiverse of Noisms, the idea for that project will be to produce a series of settings posted/delivered piecemeal. Free subscribers will get setting overviews, random encounter tables, bestiaries and 25-mile hex maps. Paid subscribers will get all of that plus 5-mile hex maps, fully keyed, for each respective setting.

The first setting I think I will release will be Lost Eskinoot: 

‘Spoken in hushed tones in the city states of Yu Quan; remembered in the epic poetry of the nomads of Waisimadun; sung in the hymns of the Priests of the Red Lilac in Old Koesy; written in the skin-bound volumes of the High Chroniclers of the sorcerer-kingdoms of Ebbw - is the name of Lost Eskinoot, that grand and ancient realm which, swathed in mist and storms, appears on summer nights or winter mornings like a ghost and remains for a week, a lunar month, or a year and a day, before disappearing from whence it came. Its mountains are high; its forests are deep; its deserts are scorched; its cities are proud. Its sherbets and wines make the tongue sing, yet its poisons are the deadliest known. Its people are by turns beautiful and grotesque; generous and cruel; capricious and steadfast; honest and deceitful; hateful and loving - they know no intermediates. Its halls contain knowledge, arts and magicks which can be found nowhere else on this world, and its wild places contain wild things that are wilder than the most infamous of monsters found elsewhere. Its air is hazed with gold, pink, purple or green; its breezes carry unearthly cries and whispers; its waters are sweet; its rocks and earth are sometimes themselves alive. It throngs. It seethes. It throbs. 

'And when it has vanished the people who saw or visited it do not forget it even to the ninth generation, nor even the ninety-ninth. And hence it is spoken in hushed tones in the city states of Yu Quan; remembered in the epic poetry of the nomads of Waisimadun; sung in the hymns of the priests of the Red Lilac in Old Koesy; and written in the skin-bound volumes of the High Chroniclers of the sorcerer-kingdoms of Ebbw - that mysterious and legendary name of Lost Eskinoot.’ 

 -From the Account of Yezekal Sqrn, a Traveller, Chapter XI.