You flee the perilous Grimalkin Empire. The Iron Claws of the Empress have a long reach, indeed, and for mice who live under her paws, life is cheap. But across the sea, it is said mice live free of such oppression. Across the sea, whole communities stand together against their predators. Across the sea, endless possibilities await.
You took ship, then; you and four dozen mice refugees led by the fearless Mouse Captain Lanniford. You were packed into the lower decks of an aging merchant Galleon: the good ship Promise. Captain Lanniford said the passage would last two weeks. Two long weeks on the wild and merciless Sea of Serpents before you’d be cast onto a brighter shore, free to live as mice were meant to.
It was five days since you left port—five days of calm—before the storm found you.
It came from a clear sky; some of you were on deck when the cry went up. “Batten the hatches! Seek shelter below!” Captain Lanniford stood firm against the sudden onslaught of waves twice as tall as his good ship Promise. You hid below the deck as the mighty wind and waves tossed the ship about like a giant’s plaything.
Then, a cry of hope. “Land, ho!” There was a flash of white and a noise like the hammer of the gods as the ship sheared in two. In that instant, all safety was torn from you. Escaping the wooden coffin the ship had become, you emerged into night, but for the first time in nearly a week, your little paws bless you as they pad across firm, dry ground. Behind you, the good ship Promise lies broken against high cliffs. Ahead waits an unknown land.
The storm, too, is behind you. But the fearless Captain Lanniford is nowhere to be seen.
Grab Stormfallow at the links below!
I’ve been away for a while!
Some of that was me taking time off for the holidays—but I’ve also been shifting my focus away from prose projects and toward something a little different. Early this year I completed a short tabletop campaign with my local group playing Mausritter, an excellent game where you play little adventuring mice!
I fell in love with the system the moment I read it. It’s dead simple: based on the incredibly evocative and simple ruleset Into The Odd, which also powers last year’s smash hit Mythic Bastionland. Characters have three stats; a small dabbing of HP; no skills; ten slots for weapons, armor, and loot; and nowhere to go but up.
Death comes easily in Mausritter… but so does life, as creating a new character might take three minutes if you’re taking your time.
I spent the better part of a month before our game crafting a fun world for my players to explore: one filled with uptight legionnaires, ancient ruins, swashbuckling pirates, mysterious mages, and enough adventure and peril to keep my players hungry for more week after week. Once I finished the game—one of the best I’ve run—I had the idea to pull all my notes together, polish them up, fill in the corners my players didn’t explore, and publish it as a standalone adventure.
I call it Stormfallow.
I think you’ll really love it. As a teaser, here’s Stormfallow's narrative introduction; the scene new player mice will experience right at the start of the adventure: