Bringing darkness to the dark arts of the 5th edition (Final round of play testing is underway).

Ild, the dark prodigy
Art from: Whispers of Persephone
Artist: Christian Martinez

Whispers of Persephone has been an adventure in research, writing, and planning.  Delving into the design of rituals and spells meant to elicit the feeling of the macabre and to push well past ambiguity into the realm of deepest, bloodiest evil has been 'interesting'.

I'm pleased to report that the second round of play tests have begun, with one of the game masters reporting that the entire party was entirely freaked out by one of the NPC's included within the book, Ild the Dark Prodigy (see creepy picture of Ild above).  Certainly there is a hope that people will find a way to bring a bit of horror to their games with the material I've included in this book. Providing ample opportunity to players and game masters alike to flex their role playing muscles as they play characters so at odds with the heroic concept.  Some times it is fun to be the bad guy!

One of the play tester game masters
printed this page from the current
play test file.  

Presently, Whispers of Persephone is in its final play test phase.  I want to say "Thank You" to Daniel, one of the play testing game masters, who printed these two pages from Whispers of Persephone and discovered that the book is going to look pretty neat.  Speaking of Daniel, he was kind enough to provide a little bit of information about his players' response to their encounters with a particular NPC:

I've finished formatting the digital version of Whispers and am now formatting the print copy file.  I'm hoping to have that complete tonight, and to be ordering proof copies by the end of the week.
My goal is to have print copies in hand by the launch of the KickStarter campaign.

Title page from play test digital file
version 3.0 which weighed
in at 99 pages in length!

Christian Martinez has created stunning work for Whispers of Persephone and will be creating all art going into this book.  Presently, the cover, page background art, and the art included in this blog entry are done (with several works of art remaining).   Stretch goals will focus on adding more art to the book.

An enchanted skull cup, used in blood drinking rituals

This book is not child appropriate.  It contains explicit details of ritual activities of the most heinous sort. Sacrificial rituals, cruel spells, poisons, alchemicals, potions, and magic items are included to paint a vivid picture of horrific evil.

Promotion image using the art from
the section of the book containing
Stygian ritual magic

Whispers of Persephone is coming to KickStarter in order to obtain funding for art.  I'm working to raise $3500 to fund more interior art. Reaching the funding goal will allow me to include more illustrations from Christian Martinez, to make this book look its absolute best.

The KickStarter will be launching on September 22nd, 2018 and I will be streaming live on launch day.  That live stream event is planned and will incorporate a number of guests, who will be joining me to talk about Whispers of Persephone and to introduce themselves to the KickStarter community.  We're going to make a show of it, to provide some entertainment, and bring some real value to the launch day activities. I'll be announcing the line up once we confirm their time slots!

As always, your comments are question are most welcome!