Lodestone - Mechakinetic Assault Frame TLR-99
War has raged between the Sunnr Principality of the South, and the Northern Viscountcy of Kerlaugar, over the otherwise uninhabitable Planet 44, as two branches of the Galactic Royal Family seek to prove their dominance over each other. Each has their problems, and their secrets. Kath Niemeyer and Mehr Sherazi, a pair of conscripts for the Sunnr Armed Forces, find themselves becoming their army's stars as they are assigned to pilot their new prototype, "Lodestone" - despite their growing misgivings with the war in general. Can they stop the fighting by themselves? How daring will they need to be to affect real change?
- Prologue 1 - A caress of farewell
- Prologue 2 - Deferred responsibility
- Some time ago
- The opposite of "back of the line"
- Comfort in obscurity
- (some chapters yet to be written)
- Spun from whole cloth
- Playing trampoline
- "I lost you today."
- The Baron's successor
- The one way out
- Prototyping
- Itemization
- Customer dispute
- The most useless machine
- Playing horsey
- Where she no longer belongs
- The derelict
- The fixer and the tunneler
- Midnight confession
- A solo sortie
- Missing signals
- Where's Mehr?
- Where sides don't matter
- The final holdout
Supplementary content
The Privateers / The Solar Liberty Coalition
Colonizing our solar system was only the start of the problem. The colonists, tired of being exploited by the corporate government of Earth, banded together to fight back. The Solar Liberty Coalition formed to defend the colonies from the unfair and hostile practices of Earth-borne companies, by force if need be. Meanwhile, as with all frontiers, many seedy things happen on the fringes of colonized space, and it becomes clear that the Coalition cannot help everyone. Whether they intend to help everyone, though, is another question entirely, and through several viewpoints, the true nature of the issue comes to light.
Lucia's side
Virgil's side
- The worst callsign ever
- He speaks in bold face
- And where the hell was Biggles, when you needed him last Saturday
- Desertion
- Are you making a backup of me
- Inspection
- Off time and over budget
- Expendable
- Not just like you remembered it
Additional stories
The Dreaming Mark and the Vessel of Fools
The Desert Kingdom of Caynea lives on borrowed time as its water reserves run dangerously low. Amid rumors that King Bermand intends to embark on a campaign of conquest to provide for his people, his daughter, princess Lynia, discovers a darker secret behind his throne; she decides to steal the royal heirloom staff, Cloudbreaker, and embark on a counter-campaign to stop the senseless war. What she discovers along the way may force her to reckon with a six hundred year old blood feud, with the stakes being far larger than just Caynea itself.
Author's warning
The Dreaming Mark is very incomplete, and by nature of my writing style, is not written in chronological order. Furthermore, most of the prose written for it is intended to go into an interactive game, so it is difficult to organize these chronologically in the first place. Therefore, some of these chapters contain scenes that may be intended to appear very late in the game, or mention scenes that I have not actually written yet. I am still putting them here, though, because it is better than never letting another soul see it at all. -ww
Main story scenes
- The Tale of Gregor Caynea
- Prologue
- A convenient cover story
- The cost of doing business
- From the Cloudbreaker's perspective
- The tribunal
Side stories
- Argur and Ruby - Heroic lore
- Don't bring a knife to a gunfight
- Samael and Teah - The family business
Randulf's Detective Magency
Set in the same world as The Dreaming Mark, Randulf is a consulting sleuth whose connection to a certain patron shadow enables him to investigate in a number of unusual ways. These stories were not written for the game - I've just had Randulf in my back pocket for a while. -ww
- Tell it to the captain
- A registered warlock
- An un-fire, that un-burns
- To your health
- Wand of "Speak to Fenceposts"
- On true names
Star Knight Office Warriors
To Fight Evil In All Its Forms, the magical Star Knights track their enemies' origin to the biggest corporate office in town, and in order to get to the bottom of their presence and the attacks they carry out by night, they must find a way to investigate the office during the day - and the best way to do that is to get a job there.
Emm, The Enigma-Eraser, and the Grand Duke of the Infernal
Assorted nonsense around a fantasy cliche villain, and an unconventional hero.
- Villain who-- "HEY! Let me make my own introduction!"
- She just likes solving puzzles
- She also works for Fantasy OSHA
Chatbox Shamus
Bastion Crowley, chronic slacker, is running out of ways to keep his rent paid down without steady work, but one night while watching an old film noir on TV, he decides the best option for him is to try becoming a private eye himself. He leaves his ad on a local computer bulletin board service, and tries to flex the sleuthing skills - while also struggling to maintain a good friendship with his contact at the newspaper.
One-shots and prompts
Stories that don't have any continuity to my other settings.
If you enjoy what you've read here
I would appreciate if you'd let me know somehow! I am reachable by email at wild.weasel@gmail.com, or on discord at wildweasel486.