In the ancient city of Edenberg, something is stirring beneath the streets. Dark signs and portents have been seen, rumours of waking evil and unspoken sins. In a time of calamity, the land cried out for the strong, the brave, the wise, for the greatest heroes the city had ever seen... unfortunately, this lot answered.
Join Adrian Tchaikovsky, MR Carey, Tasha Suri and RJ Barker, under the guiding hand of Claire North, on a quest to discover what happens when you take four critically acclaimed, award-winning SF/Fantasy writers and ask them to unleash their full talent and imagination, while also doing maths.
Running time: 120 minutes
The event is pre-recorded and available on YouTube:
Session Zero - Trailer: https://youtu.be/vBqwGAfDTvY
Session One - Part 1: https://youtu.be/0edaQrphLvE
Session One - Part 2: https://youtu.be/pTrzxOAqbec
This event is made possible by a donation from Neil Broadley.
Cast of Characters
Adrian Tchaikovsky as Cornelius ‘Pox’ Mulder
Cornelius Moulder, “Pox” to his friends, likes long autumn walks just after the rain, the smell of decomposing fruit and a thick crust of mycelium on just about everything. After spending a couple of secluded centuries tending subterranean gardens in the service of perpetuating the natural order of life, death and decay, he decided he was due a sabbatical and has taken up travelling. Unlike all those fancy hipster surface druids with their green fingers and delicate sensibilities, Moulder is all about getting his hands dirty. He loves growing things, especially growing them out of other things that were until recently running around and being alive. It’s all part of nature’s rich cycle. You say zombie, he says ambulatory mushroom planter. He’s a fussy, wrinkled little gnome surrounded (Pigpen-style) by a constant cloud of fine particles it’s probably best not to inhale. His constant companion is Jeremy, a rat of ill aspect who needs to be bribed with cheese to do anything useful. His several hundred other constant companions are moulds and mushrooms that grow from his hair, beard, clothes, cheese and Jeremy, which serve as seasoning, snacks, conversation pieces and occasionally confidantes.
Adrian is appearing at the Cymera https://www.cymerafestival.co.uk/2021-digital-events/adrian-tchaikovsky-and-cassandra-khaw a full bio and details of their latest publications can be found here.
Adrian can be found @aptshadow
Claire North as DM/Writer
Claire is appearing at the Cymera https://www.cymerafestival.co.uk/2021-digital-events/from-the-ashes-claire-north-and-derek-b-miller a full bio and details of their latest publications can be found here
Claire can be found @ClaireNorth42
Mike Carey as Kimia
Kimia is a Tiefling, which means her ancestors consorted with demons. It's a hard thing to live down. In a lot of people's eyes, her race (horns, pointy tail et al) makes her inherently suspect - kind of like the snake in the garden of Eden. She doesn't mind that at all, and generally does her best to live up to the image. She's a thief by trade but she's done assassination in a small way when it offered - both for pay and to further her own agenda. Raised by the Brothers of the Living Flame, she realised (aged about ten) that she was not so much an adopted daughter of the order as an offering bred for sacrifice. She escaped from the order's cliff-top chapel, then came back some years later to burn it down. She still hunts ex-members of the Brotherhood in her off-hours, although it's been a while since she ran into any. She's cut something of a swathe through their congregation over the years. Somewhere along the way she learned the Find Familiar spell and acquired an imp which looks like a tiny version of Kimia herself, but with wings. This irritating little speck is named Smol, and she has enormous delusions of adequacy. Kimia is kind of envious of Smol's wings, if the truth be told. She hates that she's a wingless Tiefling, and would do literally anything to remedy the fact. She has low morals, a drinking problem and a short temper. Oh, and a purse full of marbles that she uses to trigger the Shatter spell. Explosions are one of her favourite things.
More info on M.R. Carey can be found here https://www.littlebrown.co.uk/contributor/m-r-carey-2/
Mike can be found @michaelcarey191
RJ Barker as Count Alucard de Nosferatu
Count Alucard de Nosferatu the vampire pirate intended to be none of those things but was, sadly, a victim of extreme nominative determinism. Raised as an orphan on the mean streets of a long forgotten city in a distant land, he was picked up as a slave by Lord Genericus Bitu, who ran the city along with his vampire aristocracy. Count A, slowly worked his way up through the tiers of vampire slave society until he reached the highest level, that of food. However, after a particularly raucous vampire party a teenage Alucard found out that it wasn't all it was cracked up to be. He was fed from and tossed aside into the corpse pit, but in the great tradition of all revenge fantasies, HE WAS NOT DEAD.Waking as a vampire Alucard swore revenge on all aristocracy and royalty and launched himself on a crusade of VENGEANCE in which he intended to seize the means of production via piracy. He found that, not only does piracy allow him to avenge himself on the fat and the rich it’s also incredibly lucrative. This has allowed him to indulge an inexplicable love of 18th century clothes from a world he does not even know exists that he inherited along with his vampire powers. Throughout his many years of vampire piracy he’s never quiet seized the means of production and has been forced to find what comfort he can in becoming immensely rich. He’s currently on land rather than aboard his ship, The Red Flag, for tax reasons.
RJ Barker is appearing at the Cymera https://www.cymerafestival.co.uk/2021-digital-events/there-be-dragons-with-rj-barker-and-mark-de-jager a full bio and details of their latest publications can be found there.
RJ can be found @dedbutdrmng
Tasha Suri as Merry Berry
Merry Berry (Berry to you) is paladin with an oath of VENGEANCE. She used to be a terrifying Batman-esque figure in her dark armour with her giant axe, smashing in to punish evil-doers. But now she is a hench grandmother dwarf who spends most of her time knitting ugly jumpers. She's been retired for years but now her youngest grandchild is in Ye Olde Fantasy Nursery and isn't underfoot, she's back for One Last Quest. She is still a force to be reckoned, merciless to her enemies, and slow to trust. But she doesn't need to trust you to feed you a sandwich - and she will feed you a sandwich - and she is very patient and sensible. She's liable to whip out her knitting during lulls in fighting.
Tasha is appearing at the Cymera https://www.cymerafestival.co.uk/2021-digital-events/to-make-and-break-an-empire-with-andrea-stewart-and-tasha-suri a full bio and details of their latest publications can be found there
Tasha can be found @tashadrinkstea
ABS – Production
Programs and produces the Cymera Festival RPG strand amongst other things
http://abs.ventures/ or @_A_B_S_