Food for Thought
By Ives Benton Eaton
[Commission for Geofax]
Who would have thought that answering a Craigslist ad would change one’s life so completely?
But that is just what had happened to Richard Goodman—“Rick or Rich but never Dick”. Rick was a struggling college student who had answered a Las Vegas Craigslist ad for a roommate. He’d been living on a friend’s couch, and if he stayed much longer he would have neither the friend nor the couch.
The ad was

Spellkeep
By Ives Benton Eaton
—and with a puff of displaced air, they reappeared in a rolling green meadow.
A nearby river, bordered by smooth stone roads, filled their ears with the roar of its rapids and scented the air with fresh, cold mist. Wisps of white cloud dotted the deep blue sky. Orchards of citrus fruits and fields of grain, rippling in the gentle, warm breeze, patched the surrounding lands in shades of green and gold. Snow-capped gray and lavender mountains, from whence the r

Dick
By Ives Benton Eaton
This is the story of a wizard and an unfortunate encounter with a succubus.
Now, aside from the soul-draining aspect of their kisses—or other more intimate “embraces”—most males would regard an encounter with a succubus to be at least interesting, if not good.
Not so for our wizard, who went by the cumbersome name of Erhain Aragard Dystellenol. Erhain was a lore-master in the Magnus Bibliotheca of the Ordo Ars Magica—or, in plain language,

Chains Stronger Than Steel
By Maomix and Ives Benton Eaton
Sometimes you get the dragon, and sometimes the dragon gets you.
—Gerehardt Grenthaler, dragon hunter, several months before a dragon got him
It was a good day for dragon slaying.
A single rider made her way across the ford in the river, then examined the green and gently rolling plains surrounding the low limestone cliff-face exposed by centuries of erosion by that same river. The spring had brought out the characteristic blue cor

Voracious Beasts and Where to Find Them on Āen
Āen: a world of magic, adventure, heroes, and villains; of dreams and fantasy; of everyday people brushing elbows with mighty knights and puissant wizards.
And sometimes getting eaten.
As one might expect, there are many critters on Āen that regard people (humans, elves, dwarves, gnomes, halflings—you know, people) as part of their diet. This document is primarily about those who are large enough to swallow at least human-sized creatures wh

The Gift Horse
By Ives Benton Eaton
[Commission for Leshana]
It was Leshana’s turn to clean Bastard’s stall.
That wasn’t the Clydesdale stallion’s actual name; the komodo dragon lord’s prized steed, a gift from the regional commander himself, had a name in the Herps’ own tongue, but it was too full of consonants and sibilants for her to pronounce. Like all the other fox slaves who worked their master’s stables, she just called him Bastard.
Bastard was a

Comes the Storm
By SomethingSilly and Ives Benton Eaton
“You may be called upon to lead men and women to face evil—good people who are not battle-hardened warriors, nor brave adventurers, nor powerful in arms or magic. You may call upon them to exhibit bravery beyond your own, since you have martial and divine power beyond their ken. Your ability to do this is at least as important as those powers.”
—​ Kelligan Corman,
Knight-Commander of the Knights of Sacred Just

A Fairly Fair Ferry Fare
By 1ring42 and Ives Benton Eaton
Put not your trust in dragons, for they speak with forked tongues.
—Psenellan proverb
It was time to go.
The half-elves Āelyssa and Altāvion had spent many a month in Spellkeep, that fabled and mighty city of wizards and the center of power for the Ordo Ars Magica, the Order of Magical Art. Āelyssa was there to learn sorcery under her mentor, Hucinseram Nomen; Altāvion was there because he could never, under any circumstances, b