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The digital version of The Insiders: Volume II is available on Amazon.com .

The link is here: https://www.amazon.com/Insiders-II-Quests-Karchedon-ebook/dp/B0CC47DSV4/

Our goal is still to put out a new publication each month until this thing is behind us. Volumes I and II are both out in both paperback and digital versions. Volume III (Quests of Sikelia) is a little bigger than the first two, mostly because there is more surviving historical information about ancient Sikelia/Sicily of the 5th Century BCE than there is about the Syrtis and Carthage (before the Greco-Punic and Punic Wars). Volume III's paperback version should be available either at the end of July or the beginning of August.

This still keeps me on target to finish with this by the end of 2023.

I hope this information finds people doing well or at least holding their own in the world we live in, and I'm sorry I'm so incommunicado at the moment.

The digital version of The Insiders: Volume I is available on Amazon.com .

The link is here: https://www.amazon.com/Insiders-Introduction-Quests-Syrtis-ebook/dp/B0C97J7TBK/

Our goal was to put out a new publication each month until this thing is behind us. Volume I is out in both paperback and digital versions. Volume II is out in paperback, and the digital version should be available in a couple of weeks, with Volume III's paperback version showing up about the same time.

Um, hello.

I've really been out of it for three years. I can't promise to return yet, but I can say that The Insiders, the project I temporarily left DA for, is at last drawing to a close. I held off on posting anything until I got to the point that the finished pieces were all in production--no more idea-generation, just final assembly and editing. So far, it's only the paperback version of the first of the seven volumes. The second volume is on its final proof, and the third is on its first. The art and writing for these is all done, but putting them together and cleaning it up takes some work. My plan is to release one every 5-6 weeks until they're all out (by the end of the year).

Then I'll figure out what I'm going to do with the rest of my remaining creativity, whether that's Demon's Due or something else.

The first book of The Insiders is available in English on Amazon here: https://www.amazon.com/Insiders-Introduction-Quests-Syrtis/dp/B0C1J5J3JT/

What can I say beyond that? A lot's happened in three years, and I'm sorry for the distance from folks around here. I don't know how likely that is to change yet, but we'll see. I'll at least try and make sense of the new submission format for these journals, and I hope this finds at least some of the DA folks I used to know experiencing something good.

Cheers!

-Jeff

My heart goes out to those suffering during the pandemic. Listening to the news it seems that things are very much up and down across the world and the nation, with some areas getting a handle on things and then discovering alarming gaps in their systems, and other areas wading through tragedy, fear, and trouble every step of the way. For some, things seem almost like “business as usual,” which is encouraging.

For me, our household is very much in the latter category. That’s not to say that everything’s rosy, but considering how bad others have it, everything is…well…pretty rosy. In fact, with two of our three sons living at home while they finish their college degrees (hoping there will be a career out there for them when they’re done), we’re finding many things about it are even kind of sweet, for all of the inconvenience and concern. I hope my boys feel the same way, though I think they’d probably hold their tongue rather than say much if they didn’t.

Part of the reason things are going this well for us is that I have committed a large swath of my creative time to an endeavor that kind of rallies and engages us to keep the time going: The four of us play Dungeons and Dragons every weekend. We do it “the old-fashioned way,” ordering pizza and sitting around the table, snacking and talking and rolling dice for about six hours, and sometimes we do it again mid-week if everyone is amenable.

I’ve supported, joined, watched, and cheered as my sons have played in soccer leagues, wrestling leagues, baseball (pitch and tee-ball) leagues, swimming competitions, BSA, high school concert choir, jazz band, and marching band, and countless video games from the old SNES Donkey Kong series (Diddy will always be my favorite) to some high-tech android mystery story my oldest son was playing on the Playstation 4 a few months back, and some PC games thrown in as well, like Diablo 2, Titan Quest, and most recently, Guild Wars 2 (the latter is really :devcollared-by-faile: ‘s baby).

But for some reason, nothing quite seems to pull us together like sitting around and making up stories that are mostly determined by one of us (me) and influenced by the rolls of funky-shaped dice. It’s nerdy (less so these days than when I was young), and silly, but we have a lot of fun doing it. I was hooked on it when I was a pre-adolescent teenager (I was in some ways a “late-bloomer”), and I’ve had somewhat of a love-hate relationship with it during the years since then (mostly love). But when they were young, my boys were all interested in it and asked if they could play “that game with the cool dice,” and when I put together a few sessions or the beginning of a longer storyline, they responded with eagerness and excitement, even (sometimes) when it wasn’t really all that “cool” to do so.

So, since we all find ourselves here in “enforced cave time,” we thought we’d give it a go. Having the imagination and interests that I do, I crafted a storyline based in a fantasy version of the Mediterranean world around ancient Sicily in the 4th and 5th Centuries BCE. There is a variety of polities and cultures interacting economically and militarily, and there are lots of fun niches in which to slip fantastic creatures and historical and mythological figures, and to pack it full of historical insights (though, with my stomach bothering me a little these days, I’ll probably leave Roman “garum” out of it—I did say “fantasy version” after all…).

So, while I’m not drawing as much as I planned, and Demon’s Due has been placed mostly on hold for a couple of months, I am still producing some things creatively. I’ll post a few of them here in the miscellaneous folder for others to see and enjoy. I do check back in during this break—my DA message feed is my browser’s startup page, so I keep an eye out daily.

Friend :devvvvan: suggested that a weekly posting here lets others know things are okay, so I’ll try and keep that up with anything that I put together. I am still working on Demon’s Due, but too slowly to really speak confidently about it at the moment.

I hope you all fare well, and I wish you the best.

It's time for me to take a little break (I'm thinking a week or two). After working on Demon's Due for 6-10 hours almost every day for the last six months, I've posted 88 pages worth of images and some extra art and maps, completed a number of un-posted images, and I've fought my way through my regular Summertime Sleeplessness that hits when the world warms up. So, it's time to give the motor a chance to cool down a bit and catch my breath.

The truth is, however, that most days I will probably continue to draw on it a little to keep my routines in place, and I may go back and read some of the comments I've missed on this last posting surge. Regardless, I've slowed down some in my plan, but given the nature of things in the world these days, I guess that's allowable. I'm still on target to finish the first pass through this material in the first part of 2021, I think.

Also now that I'm only about a dozen pages from the end of Web of Betrayal, I'll post some of the "forbidden" pages of Elina's experience with Lord Ordiel in the Magistrate's Boudoir. They'll be posted on a site outside of DA and links will be placed here for those interested. One of the main reasons I have posted this story here is for some of the creative feedback it has given me, and a good example of this occurred recently when :devvvvan: suggested that Maladyne could make use of her magic mirror to engage in a bit of voyeurism in her old palace bedroom where Elina and Ordiel are currently passing the time. Assuming that Maladyne finds a way to escape Avora's spidery clutches in her current trouble (as suggested by some of the teaser images in my Demon's Due Supplemental Work folder), my intention was to have her explore the city of Dernhem and see what's up. Now, however, I recognize she would be more likely to use her powerful mirror to get a glimpse before she just "beams down to the planet's surface to place herself in harm's way and get a redshirt killed..."

Regarding events in the world, I can only hope that people can be patient and tolerant with others for their situation, needs, and differences, which can be difficult at times when fear is plentiful and resources are scarce. I wish everyone the best in their efforts to keep safe, healthy, and happy, and to treat others with respect.

-Jeff