Finito

This week I finished a dream.

It’s a weird turn of phrase, but there’s no other way to say it. I’m just working through the epilogue now, but the last draft is all but complete. Feast of Darkness, Part II, will be off to the proofreader’s next week. Whew. Wow. What a ride. What started as dark fantasy module I’d created for 2nd edition D&D—30 years ago before it was a cool thing that celebrities played!—has become a 1.5 million word epic, and growing. When I was designing the module—its heroes, Gods, and systems—I remember feeling ultimately constrained by the limits of it being a “game”. It wasn’t until some 15 years later, when I was no longer playing the game, that I discovered my notes, was enraptured by the concepts I’d concocted, and took that first, terrifying step of creating fantasy for an audience that wasn’t only my closest friends.

Beyond that though, I’ve dreamed of the world of Geadhain and its heroes, villains, and saga since I was a child—filling notebooks (we didn’t have iPads or digital scratch-pads back in the day!) with ideas that would eventually find their way into short stories or the D&D module I’d designed, then finally into the unconstrained arena of my manuscripts. Now that I’m closing this chapter, I can’t remember a time where I’ve ever felt so accomplished, or proud, of something I’ve done. 

These books represent the accumulation and distillation of my dreams and nightmares, my hopes and fears. I have written these characters from the deepest parts of my psyche and soul, from the places Jung and other psychologists might refer to as mythic or primal. Places so deep within us that at times I do not recognize the words as my own. I am connected and woven into this world, and I am moved—nearly to tears—when I think of how many of you this work has touched. 

I can’t wait for you to read the latest (but not last!) work in Geadhain’s history. 

All my love,

—C