fantasy – Ross Payton: Author and Podcaster

When adventurers raid the dungeon of an immortal sorcerer known as Akil, he realizes he has to flee before the inquisitors find him. A heretic, thief and killer, Akil lives only for the next scheme to enrich himself and his personal code. To escape, he’ll have to deal with the border guards, patrols and other threats. With only the clothes on his back and a magical sword, he’ll be hard pressed to survive the hunt.

The Heretic Cycle is a new fantasy serial from author, podcaster and game designer Ross Payton. Follow the saga of a villain who builds dungeons, fights parties of adventurers and performs forbidden magic; a man damned by his choices and must wander the world alone for a crime that can never be forgiven.

Available at Amazon and Smashwords (for all other ebook formats).

In this thread on the Something Awful Forums (I start posting on page 4), I’ve been throwing out random ideas for various RPGs. I thought I would collect all the ones I’ve written so far. Some good, some bad. Which ones do you like?

a post apocalytpic utopian community powered by zombies on treadmills
shrunken alligator’s head grants wishes but only Florida related wishes
alternate reality game that thousands of nerds play in world wide is in fact, not related to the latest NIN album, but is run by a few bored vampires. They embrace the first five people to solve the last puzzle.
The resurrection spell is a massive social controversy similar to abortion in America. Anti-life activists assassinate priests who raise adventurers from the dead.
Cthulhu mythos cultist embeds occult knowledge in fonts. The space between letters forms Aklo runes and when certain sentences are typed out in these fonts, they form spells that summon hungry monsters.
African militias weaponize dragons with great effect. A rebel group in Nigeria led by someone like Henry Okah takes over oil production and demand more favorable terms from the West.
New meaning to the word twink: in a D&D-style fantasy world, adventuring/dungeoneering is a sexual fetish for ultra rich old perverts. They outfit pretty young mercenaries and wizards to fetch rare artifacts from remote corners of the world – but all the magical items have scrying devices so the pervs can watch the adventurers hack oozes and squirm through tight corridors.
a few teenagers find a buried alien artifact – ipod sized supercomputer with self-replicating nano fabricators. The geek figures it out first and builds high tech battle armor for himself and his friends to fight crime and protect the world from evil aliens. Twist comes when the geek realizes there’s too much work for him and his friends. Recruits several hundred 4channers/Anon members and gives them an identical suit of battle armor. They set up a system of watches so that there’s always one on duty at all times. The world is now protected by anarchist geeks with alien hypertech but everyone thinks there is only one. Alternatively they fight scientologists who use Xenu derived alien tech to try and dominate the world – Anonymous geeks die in battle but there’s always more teens ready to fight and die for the lulz.
Meat packing companies frequently hire immigrants to work in the slaughterhouses as they can’t get citizens to work in the plants. One slaughterhouse hires a southeast Asian immigrant, from the tcho-tcho tribe. He does well at his new job and sends a letter to his tribe explaining he can get all of them jobs at the slaughterhouse. That’s when the tribal shaman and priest of Shub-Nigguruth decides to immigrate to America. Within months, the slaughterhouse becomes a hidden bastion of the cult, as they breed living cattle with horrific monsters and raise horrid undead guardians from grafted flesh sculptures of various creatures.