Reading · Arbiter of Worlds

Friends, Aurans, Countrymen - We’re one week away! Before All Others will be crowdfunding on September 15, 2025. To celebrate the milestone, I’ve released a special 16-page full-color sneak preview of the book. It has three sample lore entries, one sample class, and one sample monster. The full book will be this, but an order of magnitude more!

Be sure to visit the preview site to sign up for notification on launch. There’s early bird offers that you won’t want to miss! You can see almost everything that’s been written so far for BOA by becoming a Conqueror-tier member of the Autarch Patreon. If you can’t wait to start fighting the Bitter War for real, emperor-tier backers in our Patreon have already gotten full access to Domains at War: Battles computer game and are playtesting it now.

Tonight I’ll be livestreaming with Courtney Campbell. Courtney AKA Agonarch is a game designer and artist you might know from his blog Hack & Slash, his ACKS adventure Eyrie of the Dread Eye, and more recently his RPG Sinless, the fantasy cyberpunk RPG.

Coming up I’ll be interviewing returning guest John N McGowan (author of the Living Campaign) on September 22 and Jeffrey Talanian (author of HYPERBOREA) on October 6th.

I’ve just returned from BasedCon 5. I met (or, in some cases, re-connected) with a number of wonderful industry colleagues from the science fiction and fantasy fiction and wargame community. One of them whom my readers will recognize was Blaine Pardoe, the New York Times bestselling author and BattleTech/MechWarrior guru, but there were many others - for the full list, click here.

Of course, the highlight of the con for me was the opportunity to run Ascendant on Saturday night. I expected to have 6 players but ended up with 9 (with others sadly turned away for lack of character sheets). The Capital City chapter of the Star-Spangled Squadron confronted El Cartel and Exodus; afterwards I signed books and celebrated their heroic victory with tasty beverages until the late hours.

BasedCon was an unusual convention in that it was primarily aimed at an audience of writers, rather than gamers; it was actually my first writer’s convention ever! It reminded me of the old Game Developers Conferences I used to attend, with panels packed with information and networking opportunities at every coffee break. If you are an aspiring or active sci-fi and fantasy writer who shares the convention’s values, be sure to checkout BasedCon 6 next year.

Next month I’ll be heading to ArneCon. On Friday 10/10 I’m running ACKS II at 6PM; then on Saturday 10/11 I’m doing a Special Guest Meet and Greet at 5PM and running Ascendant at 6PM.

I want to again express my gratitude to the organizers of both conventions for making me a guest of honor. It’s the first time I’ve been recognized as such. As a teenager I idolized creators like Dave Arneson as personal heroes. It this feels like being invited into the halls of Valhalla alongside them.

Once you’ve signed up for the crowdfunding campaign, head on over to these community links:

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Before All Others Launching Sept 15!

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