
Contains 41 illustrations from the novel. 8.5″x11″. One picture to a page for no bleed through. Suitable for children and adults. Purchase HERE on Amazon.com!
16 Aug 2022 Leave a comment
in Children's Books Tags: adult coloring book, coloring book, creepy coloring book
Contains 41 illustrations from the novel. 8.5″x11″. One picture to a page for no bleed through. Suitable for children and adults. Purchase HERE on Amazon.com!
02 May 2022 Leave a comment
in Children's Books, Fantasy Tags: children's fantasy, fantasy art
Book 2, like Book 1, has lots of interior artwork. Some of it I drew myself, but a lot is also collected from the internet, or Photoshopped together into a new image. Harold & the Grump Pumpkins is a Halloween Nightmare tale, one derived from too much candy consumption and a bit of indigestion. And more. The mythology of the dream world and its inhabitants changes significantly in Book 2, introducing a wide variety of new characters and mechanics.
29 Apr 2022 Leave a comment
in Children's Books Tags: Art, Children's Book, Fantasy
Book 2 is in the works! Well, the rough draft is complete, but now the editing and artwork continue. Like the first book, this one will also have lots of interior artwork. Here is the intro blurbs and a rough art sample. If you were to take Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Alice in Wonderland and The Wizard of Oz and throw them into the blender with Harold and the Dreadful Dreams, you would get Grumpy Pumpkins as the result.
“In a Wonderland they lie,
Dreaming as the days go by,
Dreaming as the summers die;
Ever drifting down the stream,
Lingering in the Golden Gleam;
Life – what is it but a dream?”
– Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass
“That proves you are unusual,’ returned the Scarecrow; ‘and I am convinced that the only people worthy of consideration in this world are the unusual ones. For the common folks are like the leaves of a tree, and live and die unnoticed.”
– L. Frank Baum, The Land of Oz
“The snozberries taste like snozberries!”
– Roald Dahl, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
26 Apr 2022 Leave a comment
in Dungeons & Dragons Tags: D&D, Spelljammer
As someone who missed the Spelljammer D&D wave in the early 90s, I can’t say how excited I am for this relaunch of the classic setting. I don’t think I was even playing D&D (or any game) for a block of years, and I vaguely remember thinking that “D&D in space” sounded stupid. Now, with decades of experience behind me, D&D in space sounds superawesome. I can’t wait to delve into the weirdness of beholder hives, giant space hamsters and mind flayer pirate ships. We are nearing the end of two other campaigns that have endured through all the pandemic since early 2020: Tales of the Old Margreve and Curse of Strahd. Neither has been posted to the blog yet, but I will get around to that eventually. Between the two, that would be around 150 short story recaps currently.
Check out the trailer for Spelljammer here.
Spelljammer Monstrous Compendium Volume 1 can be found here.
24 Jan 2022 Leave a comment
in Children's Books Tags: Fantasy Book, funny book, new children's book, YA book
https://www.sarahfoil.com/blog/an-interview-with-jm-hauser
21 Jan 2022 Leave a comment
in Children's Books Tags: Fantasy, Popular children's book
Harold is for sale now in print and Kindle on Amazon.com.
27 May 2021 2 Comments
in Children's Books Tags: fairy, Fantasy, Wisp
Years ago I wrote a little story about a faery (or “fairy” if you prefer – same thing) named Wisp and her journey from a freshly born ball of light to a winged girl fey. It was eventually expanded on and lengthened into a short novel and published, but sales were poor and it was eventually shelved. But the story that went out wasn’t really the one I wanted out there, for various reasons, so I’ve had it mind for a while to rewrite and reedit Wisp closer to my original vision. I don’t have a timeline for this, and it might not reach fruition, but I’m going to put a link on the blog for continuing chapter updates. The idea is that it will be periodic chapter posts, but without a set structure. Many of the chapters work fine as is; others need heavy rewriting or complete scrapping and toss in the garbo-bin.
The book was broken into three parts originally and actually published as three small tiny books with artwork. Each one focused on a different character (Wisp, Puck, and Nobb) although there was character overlap. I tentatively had the idea to write a series set in that world based around the mythology, the series being called Tales From the Nowhere & Neverwhen. Now, I seriously doubt anything will evolve from that now, but the idea interested me for a while.
So, if you’re curious, some of Wisp’s initial chapters can be found here.
23 May 2021 Leave a comment
in Dungeons & Dragons Tags: Ravenloft, Strahd
Here’s a blast from the past. Going through an old attic box I randomly picked up Master of Ravenloft, and since Curse of Strahd is the 5e campaign I’m currently running, it seemed quite the coincidink. Or…it as FATE would have it. Which seems much more appropriate to Ravenloft. I posted the other day too about the new Ravenloft campaign setting from WotC, so this is just Barovia-lovin’ left and right.
I actually don’t remember reading this one. I’m sure I did, but the details escape me. I recall the earlier D&D Endless Quest books with more clarity, like Return to Brookmere and Dungeon of Dread. I do think I’m going to give Master of Ravenloft a looksee though. I wonder how it compares to the module itself – I6 – or if it is a fairly watered down version. Flipping through I noticed an entry about the fabled Sunsword, and my 7th level PCs just newly acquired the lightsaber from the Amber Temple (after a terrifying trip through its halls).
Well, of course the Choose Your Own Adventure is watered down. You play a lone paladin named Jeren Sureblade (snicker-snicker, Really, Jean?) who is determined to face the Lord of Ravenloft and prevail. Which, we know is absolutely impossible in just about any edition of Dungeons & Dragons unless you’re a super high level warrior or cleric decked out with more magic items than in Demogorgon’s treasure vault.
WELL, , looking at the inserted character sheet (AD&D gamebooks had character stats, unlike the simpler Endless Quest books) Mr. Sureblade is a 15th level friggin’ paladin. So ok, he’s badass. In D&D that’s damn near demi-god status. He’s also got a Rod of Lordly Might in his back pocket, not a shabby weapon at all, no not at all.
This makes me wonder how a 15th level paladin in 5th edition D&D would fare against Count Strahd von Zarovich with the Sunsword and a Rod of Lordly Might and no backup. Would he stand a fighting chance? Could he actually KILL the vampire? In a straight up fight, in a closed environment with no escape – yes. Yes he could. But a smart and clever Strahd has many escape routes, many contingency plans, and many, many, many allies to cover his escape. Ideally anyway.
My party hasn’t reached Castle Ravenloft yet. They did meet Strahd once at a very formal and entertaining dinner where the vampire told them some of his dark history. The PCs were treated well enough, and in a way they gained a deeper understanding of their foe, and a small amount of sympathy. But not too much. They still want him dead, if for no other reason than that they can’t leave Barovia until his grip on the demi-plane of dread is released.
But that final confrontation is coming. It is well nigh, bustling at the horizon like dark storm clouds. Can they defeat the devil of Barovia and find their way home, or will their souls be forever tormented in the Mists of Ravenloft?
23 May 2021 2 Comments
I don’t normally do movie reviews (plenty of other sites for that) but I watched part of this last night and felt compelled to spout my worthless two cents. That’s how bad it was. It urged me to blog about its inane stupidity in hopes that someone – someone! – out there reads this and doesn’t waste their time on the film. Don’t be fooled by the amazing cover art! Someone else created that, and it does look awesome.
Now, let me preface my tirade with this: I think director Zack Snyder seems like a nice guy. I do. He’s passionate about his craft, he gets money from studios for big budget films, he cranks them out reliably, and he has legions of fans who really admire his work. I am not one of those fans. I do not like ANY of his movies – to various degrees of dislike – but they all do have kernels of good ideas and swaths of great directorial talent. Occasional good ideas makes a good movie not.
Netflix premiered this zombie heist escapade May 21st but it had a theatrical run before that. I’m not sure how well it performed in theaters, but probably not that good and will really find its roll on Netflix.
To briefly summarize the movie, a government secret has gone awry (heard that before? Same trope from Return of the Living Dead, an actual GOOD zombie movie) and masses of zombified humans erupt from the mistake. The zombies are somehow quarantined in Las Vegas and here is where the Ocean’s Eleven-style of heist comes into play. Dave Bautista (Drax of Guardians of the Galaxy) is hired by a rich guy to put together a team and get his $50 million stash out of a hotel in Vegas that is surrounded by flesh eating zombies. See, the government is about to nuke the city so the clock is ticking; get in, get out, get rich.
That all sounds well and good, and ya know, on paper, I would be on board with such a story. If it had the balls of the movies it unsuccessfully tries to mimic, the aforementioned Ocean’s Eleven and…well, every fucking zombie movie ever made. Army of the Dead doesn’t score many points for originality. And that’s part of the problem; this genre has been dug into the dirt for over a decade now, and while still popular (hell, I will always always love zombies and the genre) I feel that to keep the story going you need to add more twists. Zack Snyder tries to do with this emotional plot points and some father/daughter drama, but for me it all falls flat. I didn’t care. On the zombie side of things, he tries to liven things up with SMART ZOMBIES, something George Romero already tinkered with in Land of the Dead long ago.
So yes, now that means we get a smart, logical Queen Zombie who leads other hordes of calculating nasty zombies. All I could think though when I saw the actress slinking about and sniffing enemies was how much she was overacting. Of course, it was overacting at Snyder’s off screen request. “More snarling! More glaring! Good! Good! Perfect!”
I will be honest, I could not watch this whole movie. So this is a half-assed movie review and really just a rant. I don’t care. I was bored by it. I hated all the characters. The acting sucked (Dave Baustista was fine, I had no problem with him). But as far as breathing new undead life into a half-dead genre; no, Army of the Dead did not do that for me.
The current Metacritic score as of today is surprisingly similar: 57 for the Critics, and 5.8 for the Users. That’s a LOT of people who think this was just an average-not-worth-remembering zombie film. Maybe one day Zack Snyder can make a movie that is intelligent AND flashy, but I have my doubts. This is what he’s good at, shallow films with rehashed ideas and moments of great directing that never quite come together. Good luck, Snyder. I’m sure you’ll be just fine.
21 May 2021 Leave a comment
Well, after many (too many) delays, Harold & the Dreadful Dreams is inching ever closer to self-publication through a small Winston-Salem Press (Empower Publishing). I was able to include all the interior art that I originally wanted, as that was something always important to me and the way I envisioned the book, sort of like an old 1980’s Choose Your Own Adventure.
I’m not expecting any kind of miracle from this publication, but one can always hope. At the very least perhaps it can push the door open to publish more books, especially my story-poem series that is still more or less collecting dust on virtual hard drives.
I have tentative plans for some Harold sequels too, but that largely depends on how this one does.
20 May 2021 Leave a comment
in Dungeons & Dragons Tags: D&D, Enworld, Fantasy
Coming Soon to a Game Store Near YOU!!!
I have to admit I’m somewhat excited about this. As a DM who has run 5th edition D&D since the beginning around 2014, while I do like the game, I feel it has run short of options and could use a new coat of paint. I’ve been slapping new paint on it for a while already, and it works well enough. 5e is simplistic in that adding or modifying rules doesn’t really unbalance it much (if at all) so you can house rule to your devious heart’s desire. But lots of people don’t want to take the time, or players themselves don’t trust someone’s house rules unless there is an official codified book they can turn to for answers and clarification.
Introduce A5e – Level Up.
From Enworld Publishing and Enworld, one of the world’s most popular websites for Dungeons & Dragons the past 20 years, Morrus and his team have been busy crafting Level Up with extensive feedback from gamers and playtesters. When released summer of 2021 it will be fully backwards compatible with original 5e (O5e) so you should be able to have a regular fighter and LU fighter side by side in the same party and not have any trouble.
CHANGES & UPDATES
There are far too many to list in this blog, but refer to the publisher’s page for a full rundown of changes A5e is bringing to the game. A few highlights include:
And much more. That’s really just a very brief notation on things that Level Up will be addressing. So, if you are a DM or Player who has wanted your 5e game to be a little more complex, a little more challenging and a little more detailed, A5e might be right up your alley.
18 May 2021 1 Comment
Hot off the Wizards of the Coast press is a brand new sourcebook that I’ve been eyeing for a while. As a DM currently running (and loving) Curse of Strahd, this book may come a little too late, but from what I have seen so far it is way more than just “Strahd and Barovia.” Much more.
The cover notably has the quintessential vampire himself, along with Van Richten and Esmerelda (who nearly died herself in my current campaign at the fists of a grumpy golem in the Amber Temple). So while the sourcebook certainly does help one flesh out Barovia, it is much more as it fleshes the Domains of Dread as a whole, which incorporates other demiplanes and darklords other than Barovia and Strahd, including (but not limited to):
Bluetspur and the God-Brain, Darkon and the Inheritors, Mordent and Wilfred Godefroy, G’henna, The Nightmare Lands, Sea of Sorrows and more. It’s a book for DMs and players, but mostly DMs, which is nice because the majority of 5e books geared toward players don’t interest me.
Some of the new rules include:
Aside from supernatural sources of dread and monsters who strike terror in their victims, fear is subjective and often quite personal. A battle-hardened warrior and a reclusive scholar might not deal with frightful circumstances in the same way. During character creation, a player can choose up to two Seeds of Fear to represent things their character finds truly frightening. The Seeds of Fear table offers some examples. These can change over time as characters grow, overcome old fears, and discover new uncertainties. Work with players to determine when their Seeds of Fear might change.
A character never has more than three Seeds of Fear; if you gain a new seed and already have three, choose which of your old fears is replaced by the new one.
An overwhelming foe or horrid monster doesn’t need magic or some supernatural ability to strike fear into the most stalwart adventurers. During any frightful encounter, you can call on a character to make a saving throw to resist being scared. The character must succeed on a DC 15 Wisdom saving throw or become frightened until the end of their next turn.
Any of the following circumstances might be reasons to have one or more characters make saving throws to resist being frightened:
Charging headlong into terrifying situations is the stock in trade for adventurers. Among the Domains of Dread, though, periods of respite between harrowing experiences can be rare. Even the hardiest adventurers find themselves worn down over time, their performance suffering as they struggle to cope with the dread and despair.
Various circumstances might cause a character stress. Stress can be tracked numerically as a Stress Score, increasing in trying situations and decreasing with care. At your discretion, a character’s Stress Score might increase by 1 when one of the following situations occurs:
When a character makes an attack roll, an ability check, or a saving throw, they must apply their current Stress Score as a penalty to the roll.
Now, of course these rules are all optional and are ultimately meant to invoke a sense of dread that pervade the various domains. In my current Curse of Strahd campaign, fear and dread ALREADY pervades the campaign pretty darn well, so I’m probably not going to jump in and make it any harder (except in maybe some exceptional circumstances). The players long ago learned that in Ravenloft you have to pick your fights, and running and hiding is a very viable solution to things you can’t beat to death with heavy weapons and harsh words.
This is not a comprehensive review of the Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft but just a quick heads up and nod to its existence. After I’ve had more time to read and absorb the material I will probably add a more in-depth analysis.
Until then, keep gaming!
17 May 2021 2 Comments
I doubt anyone is reading this 6 year old D&D campaign anymore, but if you ARE, I have reloaded and updated all the links to the stories so they should be accessible now. Princes gets some flack in the community for not being that great, but I thought it was awesome. I did change things up some, so maybe that had something to do with it. We never got to the absolute end – maybe one session away – but life interrupted and the campaign had to stop. However, the penultimate session really works well as a campaign capper and was fun as heck, so I’m happy enough with that. My favorite parts of Princes were all the sessions at Feathergale Spire, and the side quest at Yartar that I inserted myself, it wasn’t part of the adventure really except as a passing mention.
16 May 2021 Leave a comment
This post has no point or ulterior motive or antediluvian intent other than that I was going through some old archives and found something I’d photoshopped well over a decade ago and decided to slap it on the blog. Enjoy. Or don’t. I found the twisty balloon picture online and decided to give it some environmental oomph.
16 May 2021 Leave a comment
in Daily Musing Tags: pets, pugs
I won’t lie. This is my favorite breed of dog.
I know that getting a dog from the rescue or pound is the most humane thing to do (and I fully encourage it) but finding a pug puppy that way is very difficult. We found our dog Penelope (long passed by this point at age 13) at the local state fairgrounds where breeders would bring dogs to sell (they’ve since quit that practice due to do impulse buying and other reasons).
Nellie was about 12 weeks old when we got her and was small even for a pug. Maybe she was the runt. I don’t know. But she started at 5 lbs. and probably never got higher than 18 lbs. She wasn’t your typical pug. Very low energy – lethargic even – adverse to walks, exercise, inclement weather or too hot or too cold for her princess-like sensitivity. Although Nellie adored people in every way, she was never an actual “dog’s dog.” She didn’t care for other dogs. Not that she would be mean to them (she didn’t have a mean bone in her body) but she would ignore them. We took her to a pug meetup at a local park a few times where there would be maybe 20+ pugs romping and roaming. Not Nellie. She’d sit by the gate, staring longingly at the exit that she knew led to the car and eventually back home.
So yeah, she was a lazy dog, but if you just wanted a lap companion and friend, you couldn’t really ask for more. She slept in a bed every day of her life, and if anything, I wish we’d taken more pictures of her. There’s hardly any of the earliest days of her life.
I’d get a pug again, for sure. Black or faun I haven’t decided yet. In fact, the choice might be so hard that my only alternative is to get a color of each and deal with the inevitable fallout.
And fur.
15 May 2021 Leave a comment
I have been running this campaign on Roll20 since mid-2020 and it is still going on. I’ve long heard it was one of the best 5th edition campaigns, and now that’s we’ve put the foot to the pedal and ground out a sizeable chunk of the adventure, I would have to agree that it is one of the better ones – if not the best. I never got into the Ravenloft setting in 2nd edition (which I now regret) but I did run Ravenloft I6 several years back (link here) and it was great fun. But Curse of Strahd is a different beast, taking the PCs from 1st to 9th level (more or less) and pitting them not just against Strahd and his deplorable castle of death, but the whole kingdom of Barovia and the myriad NPCs and mysteries enmeshed within. And there are a LOT of NPCs and mysteries.
One of our favorites so far has to be Pidlwick II, the evil Chucky doll. Although the PCs were supposed to meet him much later in the campaign, I loved the picture and idea of the character so much that I transplanted him to Vallaki and included him as part of a Tarroka clue to directly benefit a party member, and used Pidlwick as a permanent ring of regeneration. The player benefiting from P2 loves him so much and would rather have his own PC die than give up the evil doll! Now that is devotion.
06 May 2021 Leave a comment
in Daily Musing, Humor
I saw this the other day. If it is not made into a video game in the next year or two I will be shocked.
The Eternal Nightmare Machine.
15 Nov 2017 Leave a comment
So this is a book I originally purchased some years back when I was going through a writer’s slump (which most of us do at some point), and it really helped me dig out of it. Written by author Julia Cameron, The Artist’s Way has been refueling the creative gas tanks of other writers, sculptors, artists, and every other facet of the creative field since 1992. And YES, it does work, but you have to stick with it every damn day. The main gist of the Artist’s Way incorporates the use of MORNING PAGES, and these are to be done IN the morning, every day, three handwritten pages. Which at first can be somewhat difficult, but it does speed up, and eventually you will come to look forward to your morning pages. The default length of time for the project is 12 weeks, so that’s a solid 3 months of daily exposition, but Mrs. Cameron encourages her readers to continue the pages well past the end of the book, and incorporate into your daily life moving forward. I think she claims to have been doing them for 25 years, and she is certainly a great success in her chosen field of creativity.
If you have ever done journaling, this is essentially the same thing, but it has more structure to it when combined with the book chapters, which are eloquently and deliciously written, quite the sumptuous feast of words and inspiration. The book is highly Spiritual in nature, but does not ask you to believe in God, so even if you’re atheistic or agnostic you can still garner a use from its pages.
There is a workbook too that can accompany the core book. It’s a large, spiral bound book with more white space than actual words, and it is a complementary but not essential expansion to the core book. I had lost my original Artist’s Way, and when I repurchased the Anniversary edition recently I also included the Workbook. I don’t regret buying it, but you can really do just fine with the core book, a good sturdy notebook and a bunch of pens. And I highly recommend getting a big batch of your FAVORITE pens, and maybe some colored pencils for the occasional splash of color. Just my two cents.
So that’s it, just wanted to share my thoughts. Check it out. Julia Cameron would certainly want you to 🙂