Congratulations to Chris Lewis Carter and the Camp Myth RPG for making the ENnie Award short list in the Best Family Game category!
The ENnies are a series of fan-created awards for tabletop RPGs given every year at GenCon in Indianapolis.
Good luck, Chris!! Felix, Argee and Moxie are rooting for you!
Genres: Science Fiction
I walked alone down a road with farms on all sides, cowboy hat on my head.
“Where am I Marco Polo?” I knew where I was, of course, but Marco Polo could see better.
He fed me all the data he could. He was one of the few satellites still orbiting earth after years of neglect.
“Thank you sir,” I said after his transmission ended. He gave me my exact location. I walked for hours.
A pick-up truck rambled up the road behind me, an odd noise for times like these. I stuck my thumb out.
The truck slowed and cracked its window. A grizzled old man was behind the wheel said, “Where ya headed?”
Using the friendliest voice in my bank I replied, “East, sir, to Auburn.”
He leaned over and opened his door for me. “Hop in,” he said.
Genres: Fantasy
The man sitting at my left, Parl, groaned a curse while the stool to my right cooled. I’d be cursing, too, if my luck had been as bad as his. The stack of five-khorr coins he’d started with had shrunk to half its size in the short while we’d been sitting together.
I glanced over my shoulder. No one was walking our way through the bar—one of dozens like it in the frontier towns of the Jandar nations.
“That your whole bankroll?”
He shot me the “stupid girl” look I knew far too well. “Of course not.”
I nodded and pulled out a handful of twenty-khorr coins. As Parl’s eyes widened, I took another quick look around the room before leaning in toward him. “Here’s what we do. If I’m playing heads, I’ll cover the coin with both hands. Tails, with just one.” I mimed covering a coin with only my left hand. “Got it?”
Hello everyone! Marguerite is on vacation this week and next. Allen has a great book recommendation for you – check it out!
Genres: Fantasy, Modern Fantasy
Everything was going perfectly. My prom dress was a shimmery hunter-green ballgown that matched my eyes and I’d spent over an hour at the salon, getting my usually frizzy red hair tamed into elegant ringlets. Theo’s jaw actually dropped at his first glimpse of my transformation from scruffy tomboy to fairy-tale princess. We were officially going together as friends, but he was as flatteringly attentive as a real date all throughout dinner and the dancing that followed. A few people even proclaimed us a “cute couple.”
In short, it was as magical a senior prom as any girl could want, right up until the moment the prom queen spontaneously combusted.
Chaos ensued.
(Continue Reading…)
Genres: Science Fiction
Our tribe didn’t have a word for the huge, winged race of reptiles who shared the cliff-faces with us. They were just “The Clasp.” Same as us. One tribe. One name. One shared livelihood as old as the great butte.
When I was young boy, before I knew better, I asked my grandmother if we were pretending to be like the big, scaly tribesmen or if they were pretending to be like us. After all, we didn’t look anything alike. When I finally made her understand my question, I hated the way she looked at me, like she’d tasted something bitter.
“There’s no ‘they’ or ‘us,’” she said. “We eat the same plants and insects, don’t we? We drink the same water, don’t we? All The Clasp warms our blood on the southern face and shelters from storms in the red caverns, eh?”
As we spoke, I remember a big male, in the gray raggedness of his shed, ambled along the ceiling of the cave where we sat. A curled sheet of semi-translucent skin fell between us, but I knew better than to mention the difference. I had learned. We would all be the same through sheer will and stubbornness.
(Continue Reading…)
Genres: Science Fiction
So I’ve figured it out. There are eight rules for old people.
Rule #1: Old people try too hard
I didn’t think anything was wrong until Milanda hit ‘upload’. The app’s progress bar had crept almost all the way across the hologram before I noticed the target website was Dad’s.
The icon I’d designed, a grinning 3-D dragon, began blinking its large eyes, showing my app had activated my spyware.
“Hey, it really worked. Uber-crystal, Fran.” Milanda said. She shoved back her chair and turned to face me.
I was sprawled on her bed, painting my nails. “Swing Me Hard, Girl” by BlueLulz surrounded us—Milanda’s new bedroom wall paint, with nano-speakers embedded right in, was super-crystal. I’d love to design something like that. Some day.
Genres: Fantasy, Modern Fantasy
Theme music is “Appeal To Heavens” by Alexye Nov, available at MusicAlley.com.
By late afternoon the day was hot, hot and hot, my feet burning up through flimsy red canvas shoes. My skin too, even with its built-in mocha café au lait sunscreen, out all day with no protection but a nondescript outfit topped with my stifling jean jacket. I kept that between me and prying eyes, always.
The last of my water went down warm and barely dented the void in my stomach. A police chopper flew overhead but I didn’t look up, just hunched deeper into my jacket before turning into the Joe’s Hot Dog Heaven parking lot. I was scared and running, sure, but the cops weren’t looking for me. No one was.
Aging picnic tables crouched at the edge of the lot were splintered and stained, but still looked more welcoming than the street. Crumpled napkins and used cups littered the gravel under my feet but the place felt safe enough. We used it as an after-school refuge when classes were on. The owner kept the place free from the worst trash; you wouldn’t step on a needle here. I needed shelter and this place, surrounded by dust and wild day lilies, was as close as I would get. Settling against the shaded wall at the back of the lot with relief, I closed my eyes against the day. Lord, my feet hurt.
“Come with us.”
(Continue Reading…)
Genres: Fantasy
The old woman in the wheelchair has a brutal face and hands as soft as the mother of all children.
“You will be more than a warrior, little one,” she whispers in German, her delicate and wrinkled fingertips sewing a pressed metal button into his left ear. “You will be a guardian. You will protect more than tender flesh and frail bodies. You will be the sentinel that stands between the darkness and innocence itself.”
With eyes made of glass and wood he sees her thin, withered lips form the words. He cannot hear her; his ears, even the one with the signature button, were not made to hear, just as his mouth was not made to speak. However the small stuffed bear finds he understands her; the meaning of her words, if not the words themselves.
Genres: Fantasy
This is Little Wonders, our collection episodes featuring flash fiction and poetry centered around a theme. This episode we bring you the conclusion of our flash fiction month: Trope Twists!
Down a desolate and lonely dirt road, a young man walked toward the horizon. With a sword at his back, he traveled for destiny. The famed fortune teller of the town he’d just left, Madam Mystic, told him he would defeat the three headed dragon and save the princess. Without a moment’s hesitation, he headed for the beast to save the missing damsel.
Suddenly, a rustling caught his attention. Surely, he couldn’t have already reached the monster. He readied his sword and stood firm. The rustling grew louder and a female child emerged from the bush.
Genres: Fantasy, Science Fiction, Steampunk
I tried to shut out the crowd’s roar, but the thunder of a thousand feet pounding above us in the arena stands rose until I could feel the breastplate of the mechanical swordsman vibrate beneath my touch. Master Madrigal gestured with his palsied hand for me to replace the automaton’s helmet, but I hesitated to examine the delicate inner workings. Just one small adjustment
A cuff to the back of my head arrested my motion. “We have spoken of this, Cetta,” said Madrigal. “There is no problem with the balance.” He crossed his arms, tucking his useless right hand out of sight beneath his sleeve.
I persuaded my mother to send me to her uncle Madrigal after his illness, when I was just twelve years old. The word apprentice was never used. Girls did not apprentice to craftsmen like Madrigal, and I don’t think he would have taken an apprentice in any case. He referred to me as his hands. My deft fingers did the work his no longer could.
(Continue Reading…)
Genres: Science Fiction
At recess the Arks dot the sky like unwinking stars. Ally and her friends aren’t supposed to talk about it, eyes wide above the breathing masks that muffle their voices, but they do. Where they’ll go, what they’ll bring. Every kid Ally knows has a suitcase packed, just in case they win. Hers has photos from the zoo and a birthday card her little brother Rafe drew in red crayon. He called the scribble Mars.
The only time they don’t talk is after the monthly drawing, when no one can bear it. Some kids, somewhere, were chosen, but it’s not anyone they know. At recess no one looks up. Those nights, Rafe crawls into her bed. He doesn’t understand–at four he’s barely old enough to enter the lottery–but he knows something’s wrong. Their parents are crying, and Ally will keep him safe.
Ally lies awake with her arms around her little brother. In the morning she repacks his suitcase for next month and tells him stories about Mars.
(Continue Reading…)