I am preparing my first Kickstarter!
Kazan became emperor in AD 984, at the age of 17. He was coerced into abdicating the throne at 19. He then took religious vows and became an itinerant monk until his early death.
This much, according to historical texts, is true.
What happened next is yours to discover.
In Only The Dead Face North, humans and yōkai race to find a lost imperial treasure, believed to have been hidden by Kazan along the Kumano Road pilgrimage route. Stakes are high as they compete not only for the inestimable value of the cache itself, but for the prestige of its discovery and its delivery to the politically-charged court of the shōgun.
This is a novel and a corresponding TTRPG adventure, moving through the same story from different perspectives. Novel and game function independently, so readers and players can enjoy each as a standalone or together for a fuller tale.
While remaining mostly true to known history, the Kitsune Tales are fantasy. The stories currently average 4.4 stars in reviews on Amazon. They are written by a nerd; you may have heard my educational talks on Japanese history or folklore at a con, library seminar, or other event! I had the opportunity to hike my own pilgrimage on the Kumano Kodō in late 2022, and that experience inspired the development of this story and setting. As an enthusiastic history nerd and fantasy author, I love to incorporate real world detail when I can to add depth to fictional realms.
Please follow the project or share with a friend who might like it, and thank you for supporting indie creators!
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One Year in Rokugan - Blood and Spectacles Publishing | DriveThruRPG
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Why is it so much fun to torture your characters?
We have been on a bit of hiatus from Avatar due to a bunch of awkward IRL commitments from our gaming group, and as I didn’t have a game write-up to do, when the itch to write hit, I ended up starting on Volume 5 of Honour and Obligation. (20K words so far...)
Kagami, the endearingly naive thing, has not really had any kind of sexual awakening, having been far too used to people being repelled by her and therefore just not in the habit of ever considering romance or sex as something that would involve her. Also, she is very Sheltered Crane and while she knows that marriage is an expectation of her future, she’s... well, she’d rather stay with the person she knows loves and respects her - her cousin, her fraternal soul-mate - than deal with all that.
But she has a secret admirer who is JUST as nobly Crane in terms of propriety, but who is hopelessly in love with her after what to Kagami was a simple act of kindness that lit a spark of adoration him. And she, naive little thing that she is, is missing all the tiny hints that might be there, because the daft man is stoically hiding his love, since there is no chance of it ever becoming something honourable and “real”, so it is easy for her to read it as “oh, he knows I’m a woman, so he is just reacting with appropriate emotion to this situation because of course it makes sense that this might be conceived of as vaguely inappropriate since we are not related or married” instead of “oh, woman I love, whom I can never have and yet I must endure her touch as she heals me and this is the closest I will ever have to intimacy with my beloved.”
So, of course I’m going to keep putting them in situations like this, because it is fucking hilarious. The Kuni who is being forced to witness all this, who is a grumpy fatalistic hedonist of the “eat and drink and love, for tomorrow we might die” school, is rolling his eyes, and playing deeply irritated match-maker by facilitating every vaguely inappropriate situation he can manage, all the while thinking “look, as long as it isn’t found out about, no one cares... look at the epic affair between the governor and her probably-lover! Just... would you just unbend enough to realize you might be able to get that for yourself, you giant, honour-bound idiot?”
Kagami, however, may have just begun to feel the slightest stirrings of desire. Of course, she has no context. No idea what it is. And it is all tied up in a mess of other emotions. So yeah. It took us 450′000K words to get to this far. Calling it slow-burn would be greatly understating the case.
<<Then she reached the point where the six of them had arrived before the gates of the prison. Her mind flashed vividly to being held aloft by Tetsunotaka and heat flooded her cheeks. She bit her lip as she swallowed, her throat suddenly dry, feeling again the pressure of his hands wrapped around her thighs. She squeezed her eyes shut against the surge of emotion.
It had been excruciatingly embarrassing, but his touch hadn’t been unpleasant. His grip had been firm, but it had been /gentle/ and he had picked her up and had afterwards lifted her down without any hint of difficulty, his strength, as always, completely under his control. She groaned, dropping the brush and covering her face with her hands until the intense sense-memory faded.
Eventually she sat back up, still feeling breathless and a little over-warm, and picked up the brush again, thanking all the Fortunes that she did not need to include /that/ in her report.>>
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HIDA Mataro - CRAB CLAN (♂) A weathered warrior
Sometimes nicknamed "the Oni" by his opponents, his impressive stature and fighting skills used to be what defined him. He was, like many in his clan, a brutish warrior valuing nothing except the orders given to him. But after a terrible expedition in the Shadowlands, which left him tainted, and where he lost many close companions, something changed.
He healed slowly in a temple, where he left his impulsivity, and learned to see the world with more empathy, and a hope for peace. One thing that he could never overcome, though, was his newfound fear of water (being almost drowned by a otherworldy horrific creature does that to you). Life did not stop being cruel: his wife passed away from an illness of the Shadowlands, his son and daughter are more distant than ever, and the rest of his clan is not usually very fond of his new worldview.
But he carries on: there is no time to waste, especially when neither of his children are married yet! At least he now has new allies that understand and respect his ideals.
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Just finished laying out Volume 6 for publishing. Now I have to be patient waiting for my friend to have the time to redo the Doji mon for the cover of Volume 5 and I can send them both off to print.
So close!
Am still in the middle of posting Volume 6 to AO3 for those who are interested. Chapter 4 just went up.
Whole series is found here.
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