Spell Saga™ 2nd Edition REVEALED!!!

Hello, I’m Todd Michael Rogers (we met on the internet). I am writing this blog from my car, which is parked in the lowest garage of a department store. This place has been my Pandemic Art Studio for the last two years. My daughter likes to fall asleep to the rumble of the Volkswagen, which is nice because it gives me time to work (And I’ve yet to be stabbed or arrested down here, which is great!).

I have been working on the same project for 15 months straight, from mid-pandemic, to our culturally enforced make-believe end of it. That project is called: Spell Saga™ 2nd Edition. And I’m going to tell you all about it. But first, a roadmap is needed, because this answer is going to be spread out across three separate newsletters:

WHY & WHAT (You are reading this now!)

HOW (Available May 18th !)

WHEN (Available May 25th !)

(WHY)

Spell Saga™ was a fantasy novel that was told through a solitaire card game. After eleven years, the project collapsed under the weight of its own structures.

And so I killed it.

Spell Saga™ was the knife I used to cut myself out of depression. It was clumsy and beautiful, but it was crude. Now there is a new weapon, forged inside the twin engines of purpose and medication: Spell Saga™ is now a shield, one built to defend against the truth: we live in an abandoned world, with no hope of experiencing the moments we desire.

That is to say, what I have built is a story.

Which is the oldest weapon of all.

Let me introduce you to Spell Saga™ 2nd Edition:

(WHAT)

1

Spell Saga™ 2nd Edition is like one great big fossil. Parts of it are sticking from the ground. The teller of the story (me) is excavating each piece carefully, and the listener (you) are taking the pieces in your hand, and imagining how they all should connect together.

Only, some of the pieces are going to be given out of order, because I want each part to stand on its own, as a beautiful artifact of a bygone world. Furthermore, I want each piece to enhance your understanding of the parts you’ve already held.

Time marches ever forward, but our brains do not. Our memories and dreams are experienced in a haunting cycle of repetition, one without any care for chronological order. This is how we experience time. And this convergence inside our heads creates the resonance we call feelings.

Spell Saga™ 2nd Edition is an attempt to mimic this process, in the hopes that enjoying all the stories in any order you choose will give them a unique weight of importance.

Notebooks filled in an idling Volkswagen. Receipts from ideas found at restaurant jobs.

2

Spell Saga™ 2nd Edition is a multi-generational story about a family who has struggled to survive during an apocalyptic set of events known as The Four Follies. They have been tasked, unwittingly and without hope, to stop the Final Folly from occurring. To do this, they’ll have to learn to compose the powers of Harmony & Discord, without giving in to the seduction of The Silence.

Think medieval. Think post-apocalyptic. Think clockwork steeds and haunted revolvers. It’s a story with Minstrels, who can compose and capture powerful spell-songs along the rainbow strings of their instruments, who can warp into higher levels of power and consciousness. But it’s also the story of five seasonally appointed armies called The Weatherguard, and of talking creatures and addictive magic minerals.

This is a story that takes place over hundreds of years, and you’ll get to experience the whole of it, through four separate forms of media:

1 ~ TABLETOP NOVELS

The first item is the now-classic “tabletop novel”, a solo-play deck of cards containing one “book” of the overall story. These have been painstakingly redesigned from the ground up, with a revamped gameplay engine and a multi-path goal system created to give a near-endless amount of gameplay, all while guiding you through the story of the deck in the correct order.

You can look forward to two or three decks a year. The first is called “All Our Uncounted Stars”.

Here is the unfinished cover:

“All Our Uncounted Stars” Unfinished cover.

2 ~ SERIALIZED NOVEL

The second item is a big-fat-fantasy novel, which is being serialized over the next two years. This story takes place about 200 years before the start of the Tabletop Novels, and it concerns a former Minstrel named Nog, who has lost his shadow (it’s a long story) and keeps a magic book inside his head (it’s a weird story). You’re gonna learn almost everything you wanted to know about The Weatherguard (never trust The Autumn!) And even a few bits about The Conservatory (which is where Minstrels are taught by Maestros). I am really excited about this piece of the project. I’m also fucking terrified. But the whole story is planned, beginning to end, and the writing is well underway.

The book is called “The Unknown Peace Between Shadows”. Here are the opening pages (unedited!) for those of you curious about the tone of the story (LINK)

It’s kind of hard to share a picture of a novel in progress. But let’s try nonetheless, shall we?

3 ~ “TALES FROM THE FOLLIES”

The third is an experimental form of literature that… Well, even I thought of a snappy name for it yet (maybe you can think of one for me). I would describe The Tales as something between a comic book script, a JRPG dialogue box, and succinct (hopefully poetic) prose. Each issue will be released in a serialized format. I have plans for a few of these, but the first is about someone who was born inside of a glass coffin. His name is Lyric, and his fathers are five different cat-like creatures known as The Weather-Meows (each of them is a different color, and also a violent drunkard).

The first three issues are called “Hate Not The Night”.

Here are some sketches of The Weather-Meows:

Here’s a few of them Weather-Meows. I love them all, but Chomp (he’s the red one) has become my favorite.

4 ~ SPELLSAGA.com

Spell Saga™ is a long story, taking place over hundreds of years, with each project adding a half-dozen plot points to the whole. And it’s told out of order! So how do we keep from getting confused? Context. It’s the reason fantasy novels have prologues and world maps. We are told ahead of time about the world and its heroes (the cause) and so whatever occurs during the story (the reaction to the cause) is understood. Context makes the weight of the story feel important.

Spell Saga™ is no different. And the context of the world will be easily accessible on SpellSaga.com, in a section called LORE. This part of the site will be written from an “in-game” perspective. And it’s split into three different sub-sections (think: places to visit).

THE KNOW

THE KNOW is a timeline to the world of Spell Saga™, experienced as a garden, in a place called The Final Tower. Here you’ll meet several curators, each of them pulled, much like yourself, from various eras of the world. It is their responsibility to help the timeline grow and nurture the garden as they see fit.

Those who visit THE KNOW will be able to select various timelines, and learn more about certain points of history, shared as bits of dialogue between The Curators. It is their hope (and mine) that visiting the garden frequently will help you understand the events that shaped the world.

Here is a poem by a curator called The Gardener, about how the world began. (LINK)

Two of the Curators from The Know. I spent WAY too long on Limit’s potion-revolver.

THE KNAVE

THE KNAVE is the headquarters and current dig site for the Sequential Artifact Project (sponsored in part by Charming Hands Respite no. Blue!) Here, the bravest of Minstrels have found purpose in the search for artifacts relating to the Third Folly (as their motto states, The Past Must Prove//We Are Doomed.”

That is to say, here is where you’ll find all the serialized fiction, presented to readers in the correct chronological order, with perhaps some additional notes and resources.

THE KNIFE

THE KNIFE is a library built inside of a tree--one so tall it contains every season, from the Summer Roots to the Winter Branches. Inside is an ever-growing collection of recorded memories from the world of Spell Saga™ These are arranged by topic and the era they were captured. And they’re kept safe by a group of librarians (the first one you’ll meet is a Kickakrit named Doth). You’ll also be able to meet a few familiar faces in the library’s only tavern: The Five-Turn-Tempered Wyrm.

The first memory available will be a small moment involving The (soon-to-be) Last Minstrel of The Highlands, whose name some you might remember…

4

Spell Saga™ 2nd Edition is a world of possibilities. It pays homage to the past works of commercial Weird Shit, while attempting to push the boundaries of acceptable forms of storytelling. It is a sad, funny, lonely, and (hopefully) beautiful story about finding the hope within ourselves to move past the follies of our shared humanity.

Those of us who stood in silent confusion at the post-2000’s acceptance of all things fantasy…Those of us who spent our time hiding our books from parents or teachers…Those of us who treated certain brands of fiction as religious experiences…We are kin. We are family. We are united by a simple belief: the moments we experience through fiction leave as profound a mark as any other.

If you agree with that, then Spell Saga™ 2nd Edition is for you.

Hail, Weatherguard. Hail, Minstrels, and more: we explore this world together.

(And be sure to tune in next week for HOW we’re going to do that).

Spell Saga™ will always be free. But if you want to help, you can always send a small donation to my Venmo @SUBHEATHEN (though you are free to decline the offer).

My goal is to make Spell Saga™ a full-time job. For those of you hoping for more content and quicker releases, a subscription-based service will be announced soon.