Bestiary preview - The Laidly Toad Queen

A Bestiary of Enchanted England is not your typical RPG bestiary. It’s based on authentic folk tales and Renaissance writings, filled with lore and plot hooks. Coming to Kickstarter in May 2022.

Centuries ago, the wicked queen Anura fell prey to her own curse, and became a huge, immortal toad. By the Reign she has grown to the size of a horse. Local folklore tells maidens to avoid her seashore, as she spits poison at them, in envy of their beauty. What it carefully does not say is that the network of the queen's servants has also persevered. She commands many of the local criminals, and her lieutenants are witches that she has trained.

Anura's history is well known in Bamburgh and its surrounds. It is repeated in local lore as the ballad of The laidly worm of Spindleston Heugh. "Laidly" is a dialect word meaning "loathsome." Before it was bought into Northumberland, Bamburgh was a small kingdom on the Scottish border. The king was widowed and remarried. On returning home with a new wife, the king introduced his daughter Isobel as "the finest of women" which made her new stepmother so envious she turned Isobel into a dragon. When Isobel's brother, Wynd, returned from the Crusades he turned the spell back upon Anura, cursing her to be a toad until the end of the world.

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Text by Timothy Ferguson. Illustration by Angela Taylor. A Bestiary of Enchanted England coming to Kickstarter in May 2022.

Corrections in the works for Map of Enchanted England

We need to make some corrections to the Map of Enchanted England on p. 284 of Magonomia® Core Rules.

It has come to management’s attention that the “Norfolk Hills,” while technically existing, are not prominent enough to be featured on the map. (Norfolk is famously flat.) We’ve spotted a few other errors, which will no doubt be easily spotted by native Britons.

We regard these as routine errata. We’re going to make a correction to the digital edition. This will take a few weeks, because everything in the publishing business takes a few weeks. The print-on-demand version will also be updated. If you’ve purchased a copy already and the map errors bother you, please contact service@shewstone.com. We can’t afford to replace your copy for free, but we can give it to you for the cost of printing & shipping.

Minor update to Curse of the One-Eyed Witch

Cover illustration by Colin Throm showing a one-eyed witch and some flying imps.

Our introductory Magonomia® adventure, Curse of the One-Eyed Witch (Revised Edition) by John Tibbetts, is available for pay-what-you-want on DriveThruRPG. Now with exciting new punctuation and grammar corrections! Version 1.2 was released today.

Bestiary teaser - Bugbear

Did you know that “bugbear” is an English word dating to the 16th century? Although we know and love them as monsters from a famous fantasy RPG, bugbears weren’t made up by RPG designers. They come from English folklore. Our upcoming Bestiary of Enchanted England takes this classic monster back to its roots.

Publisher’s Choice Quality Stock Art © Rick Hershey / Fat Goblin Games

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Here are some excerpts from our manuscript on bugbears, by Mark Lawford. ©2022 Shewstone Publishing LLC. All rights reserved.

With a broad toothy grin and eyes that glow green, these fur-covered man-things feed on fear, apprehension, and self-doubt. They are more common than people ever suspected and as society built villages, towns, and cities around them so the bugbears followed. They hide in the dark places; in the unlit narrows and alleys of the city, in deserted burnt-out tenements, and under beds as people pray for sleep...

Bugbears used to be found in the dark and dank reaches of old woodlands. They would feed upon the unseen miasma created by fears and worries of humans who strayed from the path and become lost. But as mankind built more elaborate settlements, the bugbears migrated with them. People encounter them all the time without knowing it. They hear their footsteps behind them when they need to go into the dusty loft, they spot their shadows in the lonely dark alley, and they feel their presence beneath their bed at night. And the bugbears feed...

With their ability to melt into the shadows, they can hide from their chosen victim for many months, sustaining itself on magical humours and vapours given off by the victim's fear and self-doubt. Despite its fearsome appearance, a bugbear never attacks physically, but when the spell is broken and the bugbear itself is threatened it tries to make its escape.

Those knowing a little lore about bugbears may know that the light shed from a green candle illuminates the creatures regardless of where they are in the room or whether they are using their powers to hide themselves.

Shewstone will not be using NFTs

Shewstone Publishing will not sell non-fungible tokens (NFTs) or buy them from our contractors or suppliers.

That’s our position.

My day job is in cybersecurity, so I understand the technology and I can imagine some possible evolution paths and hypothetical future applications that wouldn’t be horrible. Those hypothetical possibilities are so different from the reality of the NFT boom today that if they ever materialize, “NFT” won’t even be the right term to describe them.

NFTs as used and understood in 2022 are a non-starter for Shewstone Publishing.