Karavansara

East of Constantinople, West of Shanghai


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Like a male author would

Now here’s a challenge.
A true challenge.
There’s this big hue and cry out on the web because a guy was caught bragging about how realistic his female characters are, and they actually suck big time. Not the first time we see sucky female characters written by male writers, alas.

fdc3f0889baa37ab7373a92670a95952--pulp-mill-liliSo now there’s this social media thing doing the rounds

‘Describe Yourself Like a Male Author Would’

And seriously, it’s pretty fun.
I usually cringe at the sort of female characters that haunt (or should I say infest?) the current catalog of inept fantasy and testosterone-loaded spy thrillers by terminally adolescent male writers. Because while I can accept certain clichés in books from decades past – and indeed love those McGinnis covers and all that, it’s sort of part of the period charm of such books, if you do not take it as a lifestyle suggestion…
While I accept it, I was saying, I find it hard to swallow in contemporary works – because we are supposed to be more enlightened, nowadays.
Continue reading


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AMARNA on the cheap

amarna bookGetting to the midway point in publishing AMARNA has been a small triumph for me – it’s the first time I write a serial, the first time I try selling it through Gumroad.
Also, everything that could go wrong in these three months went wrong.
But we made it.
And to celebrate, I am offering the first three episodes of AMARNA, in multi-format, DRM-free ebooks, through Gumroad for 5.99 – that is, with a discount of 33% on the retail price.
Should you know anyone that might be interested, please spread the word.
Thank you!


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Local history and roleplaying games

One of the unexpected side effects of researching a supplement for a roleplaying game set in the area where I am currently living is discovering a huge amount of local history that I did not know.

Like, that a local chap was mentioned in the Divine Comedy (the Medieval poem, not the band).
Portrait-de-la-comtesse-de-Castiglione_referenceOr that a local castle was owned by the Countess of Castiglione, lover of a number of kings (including Napoleon the Third), spy and courtesan, striking 19th century beauty and allegedly a practitioner of the dark arts that used the “Liber Potestate”, a popular grimoire.
Which is quite good, considering the supplement I am writing is for a horror game.
And then no end of battles, of strange brotherhoods (and even an “arch-brotherhood”) and other weirdness, and of castles that were razed and disappeared, including one that was supposedly about 300 yards from where I am sitting. Quite interesting.

Anyway, we are now at 15.000 words on the sourcebook project, and we still have a lot of work to do.

This is how I’ll spend my Easter weekend.


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AMARNA, episode 3

Amarna preview smallBoy was this a close call!
But in the end, the March episode of AMARNA is available in epub, mobi and PDF formats, through Gumroad.

My Patron supporters will get their copy – or a discount code – in a few minutes, and in the next 36 hours (hopefully) the ebook will also be available on Amazon.
But boy was this a close call!

Now, on to other projects.


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Springtime is here, time to start learning again

I just enrolled in a new course in Transmedia Storytelling – this time on Coursera, a platform I don’t like very much1 but that is offering what I am interested in.

Screenshot from 2018-03-28 18-15-26

This is the third course I take on the subject, and the fact that I enrolled means I feel like I’ll have a modicum of free time in the next weeks.
Yes, the bulk of the work is done. Hooray! Continue reading


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Easter Game-Designing Marathon

italia-doppelgangerIt all started with my cell-mate Alex Girola publishing a roleplaying game based on his work, the stories in the Italia Doppelganger. After years that I kept talking about doing an Aculeo & Amunet game, and got bounced back by publishers, Alex went the indie way with his game, and was quite successful.

So we were talking this thing over, the other day, and I mentioned my current work with my brother, and the things we are planning, and one thing led to another, and I ended up getting a license to publish a supplement for the Italia Doppelganger game, based on my own Horrors of the Belbo Valley stories.

And you can keep the money!

… Alex said.
Well, why not? Continue reading