Why the dark scary stories? Because while teaching I restricted myself to reading literature or young people's genre fiction that did not include scary stories, unless they were considered classics. I didn't have time to read or review "monsters under the bed stories." So now I am moving my interest in gothics along. I'm spending more time reading and writing soft horror, Gaslamp mysteries and science fiction.

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Licensing for Candela Obscura stories and for the use of their world is what I anticipated. This makes it far less difficult to use my "other side of the Bridleborne Mountain" plans to create mirrored world that is trying not to repeat the issues confronting the big city, while not being able to escape thinning of the flare and the bleed that follows either.

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Between preparing for World Ember and writing articles for the end of the year (January's competition), it is a challenge to finish at least five Black Ichor scenarios I am working on, but its also a joy to have these tasks to do. By January 15th, the entire process should be at the last editing stage for the work left, but there will always be the expansion to work on. And without starting from scratch. This is why I love the idea of narrative TTRPG storytelling. Set it up and ask the player characters to takeover the helm.   Once that gets tiresome, I can go back to short story telling that is akin, but definitely not the same. It means my own characters won't only be providing information, they will be solving problems.

Fiction First, Narrative writes the action, not the roll. Author scenarios that lean into chracter storytelling that supports a meaningful genre thread.   I've been working wth RPGs for nearly 20 years. Its been a behind the stage screen experience. Building 3d worlds with Blender, Unity and various platforms has been a time consuming, but worthwhile adventure. Since it took so much time, I missed out on the learning to write TTRPG scenarios, so last year I dropped out of the building 3d worlds and embarked on the building worlds with words journey.   More confusing than I thought it would be in general. For example, instead of starting with a character like I've always done when writing character driven fiction, I needed to remind myself to start with the villain and the ends to my tales. Leaving storytelling to the characters (agency) means that I needed to be sure I included everything those characters needed to storytell their adventures. So I tried a couple of methods that proved to be more confusing and hurled myself back to the start. Now I am here again with a difference. I actually spent part of my summer playing with group of Blades in the Dark and Candela Obscura TTRPG gamers, who are far more experienced than I will ever be. My game master, a professonal, is and extraordinary story facilitator and I plan to spend the next few months learning more about what he needs to interest his players. No, I don't plan to game master. My plan to write and illustrate scenarios instead.   If and when "access" to open 3d worlds is made better, I would like to experiment with TTRPG played with projection, but that is a few years from now. In the meantime I will work on becoming a better Scum and Villainy player while waiting for Illuminated Worlds to publish their much anticipated by me Complete Guildebook. I've already sent my wish to Santa.   Update: The complete Candela Obscura guidebook is in my hands. This means I can finish writing world elements left out until I consulted the book. I didn't mind a smidge of overlap, but neither did I want the structure of writing a side by side story to collapse either. Not only does it not collapse, the process of using adaptation is working well.