Monthly Archives: June 2023

The Mighty Sons of Hercules is Live!

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The Mighty Sons of Hercules is live on Kickstarter!


Long ago, in ages past… there were men who travelled the world, seeking adventure. Fighting injustice, defending the weak and the helpless, looking to right wrongs wherever they are found: these were the Mighty Sons of Hercules!

Cirsova Publishing invites you to join eight of the Mighty Sons of Hercules on their daring adventures! You’ll be amazed by their impressive feats of superhuman strength. You’ll be dazzled by the exotic and dangerous beauties who would seek their downfall. You’ll cheer as they save the innocent from peril and mete out justice to dastardly villains. 

Wherever righteousness must have a champion, there you will find the Mighty Sons of Hercules! Whenever there is need and no mortal man can suffice, a Mighty Son of Hercules shall appear!

Featuring the Adventures of…

  • Melkart – The Phoenician trader-warrior Melkart is betrayed by the poison-happy King Mithradatos of Pontus in Melkart Unchained, an all-new novella-length epic from Mark Mellon!
  • Maxus – The Cult of Dusk has been raiding for slaves to sacrifice to poison the spirit of the land! Maxus must stop the raiders of the wicked Queen Niuniu in Abe Strongjohn’s Maxus and the Lake of Blood!
  • Umaeo – The Tyrant of Syracuse has kidnapped a princess returning from a journey to Delphi, sinking her ship in the very bay of his city!  However, unbeknownst to the Tyrant, a Son of Hercules was aboard the boat which ferried her in Owen G. Tabard’s Mighty Umaeo and the Tyrant’s Test!
  • Makheist – When a desert village is threatened by bandits, Makheist, a wandering stranger, teaches a young boy what it takes to become a man in Misha Burnett’s Summer of the Stranger!
  • Tumak – Though he is persona non-grata, the indomitable Tumak is the only man the king can turn to when the city is terrorized by a beast on the nights of the full moon in Nathan Dabney’s Against the Beast of Gnak-Kor!
  • Diametrius – A jealous and petty queen seeks revenge on the giant Diametrius for spurning her in Michael Tierney’s Battle of the Rages!
  • Herakles – The evil Empress Shahlimeer plans to unleash a plague of darkness and devils that only a Son of Hercules can stop in Adrian Cole’s Ever the Blood Endures!
  • Maciste – The legendary strongman must break the conditioning on a people who have willingly submitted to slavery under a race of evil serpents in J. Manfred Weichsel’s Maciste in the Land of the Snakes!

Sword & Sandal adventure, also known as Peplum, experienced a cinematic boom beginning with the 1958 Hercules starring Steve Reeves.  In this new wave of costume epics, the mythic strongman was king. Between characters like Hercules, Ursus,  Maciste, and countless others, there were hundreds of silver screen stories of demigods, gladiators, and swashbucklers fighting bandits, evil viziers, and cunning queens to save the good and innocent from slavery and oppression. 

The Sons of Hercules was created by Embassy Pictures to package and sell these films in bundles for syndication. They took a handful of Maciste movies and several other unrelated films, redubbed them, and gave them a cool cowboy western theme song. Each week, viewers could tune in to see a new installment featuring the adventure of a new Son of Hercules.

This fiction anthology particularly pays homage to this TV series. Cirsova Publishing approached several of its very best writers with a challenge to either create original standalone adventures or rework existing unpublished stories that would fit the strongman theme. In addition to several original characters, this anthology includes both J. Manfred Weichsel and Misha Burnett’s takes on Maciste and Mark Mellon’s adventuring Phoenician merchant, Melkart, who has already appeared twice in the pages of Cirsova Magazine.

REWARDS:

Helot $3 – (eBook)

 eBook copy of The Mighty Sons of Hercules

Hoplite $20 – (Paperback)

Paperback copy of The Mighty Sons of Hercules featuring cover by  Kevin John Jacob.

Signed Hoplite $30 (Signed Paperback – US-Only) – 

Paperback copy signed by author Abraham Strongjohn.

Myrmidon $40 (Exclusive Hardcover) – 

Linen-wrapped hardcover copy of The Mighty Sons of Hercules featuring a reversible dust jacket with both the Kevin John Jacob cover and a special contributor cover by author/artist Michael Tierney!

This item will be limited to this Kickstarter and will not be available for retail!

Signed Myrmidon $50 (Signed Hardcover –US Only) –

 Receive a hardcover signed by author Abraham Strongjohn.

Patron Tiers – Advertise in The Mighty Sons of Hercules

We’re selling advertising space in The Mighty Sons of Hercules. Patron-level backers will have the opportunity to run a full-page that will appear in the back of the book.  [All formats.]

Ads should be submitted as high-res image files, 5″ (w) x 7″ or 7.5″ (h) and must be ready no later than 2 weeks following the end of the Kickstarter.

  • $100 – Ad + ebook
  • $110 – Ad + paperback
  • $115 – Ad + signed paperback
  • $125 – Ad + Hardcover
  • $130 – Ad + Signed Hardcover
  • $135 – Ad + Hardcover + Paperback 
  • $145 – Ad + Signed Hardcover + Signed Paperback 

Bookplates – ($6 Add-on, International)

While we can’t do signed books for international orders without charging exorbitant shipping prices, we can mail out signed book plates separately for anyone who is interested.

Where Is the Money Going?

The authors have agreed to let us include their stories upon success of this Kickstarter, at which time they will be paid the agreed-upon rates for their stories. If we do not meet our goals, the stories will be released subject to renegotiation, but the collection will most likely not happen.

  • Artwork – $500 [Already Paid For]
  • Proofing/Edits – $250  [Already Paid For]
  • Content – $1400 [~70k words of fiction at a 2-cent per word semi-pro rate]
  • Shipping/Fulfillment – $1555* [max estimate based on only selling trade paperback copies]
  • Printing Costs – $1300-$2100
  • Kickstarter Fees $600

Gangbuster Month for Cirsova Publishing!

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This June was our best month ever for residual royalties!

The Cirsova Summer issue has sold over 100 units.

We’ve sold over 300 units in total, and have earned over $1,000 in residuals for the first time ever!

The Based Book Sale numbers were interesting for us. While they made up 92 of the 193 sales during the active week, it accounted for only ~$50 out of the ~$350 revenues for the week. Of course, no one was buying Cirsova Classics titles in the first place, so all of those sales were gravy, and hopefully people who bought the Spring issue for 99 cents will pick up the rest of this year’s issues to continue the serial [and check out our other great stories!] Not sure if it’s enough to sway us one way or the other on “going wide” [we’re looking into some things] which would prevent us from participating in future sales, but I’m grateful that some of our titles that were languishing may have gotten some renewed interest!

I suppose now the trick is can we keep up this sort of momentum?

Small Worlds is shipping out soon, so we’ll be putting the retail edition up on Amazon in August, as well as the audiobook for An Atlas of Bad Roads, which will give you something to look forward to.

Our big push for July has to be The Mighty Sons of Hercules, even if it takes away from some of our residual sales with no new titles dropping on Amazon next month.

The money we have at the end of July, maybe at the end of August, will be the money we will have to acquire 2024 fiction, so it’s fantastic news that we did so well this month [revenues will pay out in September].

Anyway, if you’ve already bought all of our titles and have more money than you know what to do with, don’t forget that Cirsova has both a TeePublic merch store and an eBay store where we have some high-end items listed.

The Based Book Sale is Live!

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Every year, Hans G. Schantz hosts a big digital booksale, where dozens if not hundreds of titles are available for 99 cents in eBook. This year, I had both the wherewithal and no outstanding Kindle Unlimited Suspension*, so we were able to participate by including a few titles!

Our participating titles include:

Be sure to check out everything!

The Changed Class for B/X

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Setzell [Bottom] and Yoruni [Top] are two of the Changed in Light Unto Another World.

I’m going with “the Changed” for lack of a better name for this class. This is another one of the B/X class ideas I’d been toying with based on Yakov Merkin’s Light Unto Another World series. Essentially, normal humans have had horrible magic experiments done on them that allows them to turn into a powerful magical beast more-or-less at will.

The Changed may be a bit more unbalanced than the Honassi, but I’ve done my best to make it playable.

This is a high-risk, high-reward class with potential for big damage and decent survivability at low level, but with a some elements to encourage caution and keep it from being too overpowered as a playable monster class.

While they will dish out damage, they’ll obviously make themselves a target, and inability to utilize armor prevents them from tanking at low levels without Dex mods. High HP and Monster attack dice are countered by using Dwarves’ XP progression but starting down a tier.

The Changed will have two HP pools, which are rolled and tracked separately. In their human form, they use a d4 hit die. In their changed form, they are treated as large-sized monsters with Level + 1 HD + 2.

When in human form, treat them as Normal Man for purposes of attack rolls and saving throws regardless of current level. While transformed, the Changed attacks as a monster as determined by current hit dice. When in changed form, treat as a Dwarf of equivalent level for saving throws. While in a Changed state, may not add WIS bonus to saving throws against Charm Monster or Hold Monster and suffer a -2 penalty to those saving throws.

The transformation takes a full round to take effect. The transformation will destroy any clothing and worn items, including magical items [which will do 1d6 x their enchantment bonus in damage to the wearer in addition to other effects of destroying said item]. While transformed, the Changed has 3 attacks per round [Claw/Claw/Bite] and a natural armor AC based on current level. Reverting to Normal form takes a full round.

While in a Changed state, damage that would reduce HP to 0 will render them unconscious and cause them to involuntarily revert to human form. Any excess or additional damage applies to the HP tracked in their normal state. Example: HP 2 / 10; 10 damage would cause the Changed to revert and fall unconscious; 12 damage would cause the Changed to revert and die.

Healing a Changed receives will replenish their Normal state HP first, then their Changed state HP. A Changed that was forced to revert to a Normal state may not transform to a Changed state until their Changed state HP has been raised greater than 0.

Being in a Changed state incurs a -2 penalty to all reaction rolls, and any CHA bonus the Changed has is not applied when in a Changed state. Living non-extraplanar enemies facing a Changed suffer a -1 Morale penalty while facing them in a Changed state.

All non-CHA stat bonuses apply in both Normal and Changed states. CON bonus applies to both HP tracked for Normal state and Changed state.

The Changed does not have or receive XP bonuses from Prime Requisites, however must have a minimum STR 9, DEX:12, and CON: 12.

While the individuals who have been altered by magic to transform them into one of the Changed may be “good,” the magic used in creating them is inherently Chaotic. When in the Changed state, the Change will always have a Chaotic alignment. Attempts to detect the alignment of the individual when not in a Changed state will reflect both their chosen alignment and the chaotic alignment of their beast nature.

Level 3 Changed attack as though their natural weapons are magic.

Level 4 Changed have Detect Magic as an innate ability.

Level 6 Changed have a special Magic Backlash attack. Whenever the Changed is the target of a spell, rod, staff, or wand and successfully makes a saving throw, the Changed may attack per the spell Magic Missile, creating one missile per level of the spell which targeted the Change. This ability may be used in addition to normal attacks. The Changed may store a number of these missile charges equal to their current hit dice. Charges may be used individually or all at once against one or multiple targets. Charges may not be retained after reverting to Normal state.

Interview Up at DMR + First Review of Summer Issue!

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I’ve had so many things going on this week, I’m only just now able to talk about the interview we did with Matthew Pungitore over at DMR Books! The interview went live a few days ago, and I think it’s one of our best yet. We talked a lot about Sword & Sandal and Maciste, and I got to plug our upcoming anthology The Mighty Sons of Hercules!

We also got the first review in of the Summer issue from Tangent.

Summer issue is out now on Amazon.

Cirsova Summer 2023 Issue Is Here!

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The Cirsova Summer 2023 Issue is out this week!

Amazon Softcover

Amazon eBook (out 6/15)

Lulu Softcover

Lulu Hardcover

One-of-a-Kind Softcover with Sketch

One-of-Only-Four Hardcover with Sketch

Novel
The Gold Exigency
(Part 2 of 4)
By MICHAEL TIERNEY
Conrock and the others track the Black Star Reavers to the base of the mysterious Five-Thousand Fingered Hand in the hunt for the abducted Philean women!

Novelettes
Curse of the Iron Moon
By FRANK SAWIELIJEW
A woman with a strange artifact seeks answers in the mysterious Iron Fortress! But even with the help of her guide, will she escape the cultists who pursue her?!

Across the Poison Sea
By ADRIAN COLE
On Earth to complete his training, Arrul Voruum learns of the discovery of an artifact of immeasurable worth and power from the days when the empire fell!

The Red Queen of Ustari
By SHUYA NANAHARA
While searching for an artifact in a treacherous cliffside crypt, Marche the Fleet, heir to the Waning Moon, encounters a most unlikely—and dangerous—adversary!

Terror-Trap of the Jintra
By JOHN GRADOVILLE
Treasure hunter and xeno-trapper Ransome Quartermain has found a deadly planet with a vast trove of advanced alien technology! But his team’s not the first!

Short Stories
An Affair of Honor
By WILL LOWRY
Lothair av Drevdagen, a young dispossessed nobleman from a line of duelists, has challenged Carlo Alberti di Braviagni for the hand of his sweetheart Alvana!

Meat on the Bone
By TIA JA’NAE
Family restaurants in Chicago have been forcibly run out and replaced by high-tech eateries! Can former restauranteur Ike strike a blow for his old BBQ joint?!

Olvir’s Dream
By C.D. CRABTREE
Olvir is granted a miraculous dream, in which a goddess offers him favor for a quest! Can he fulfill the lovely Felyikki’s request and defeat a cunning wizard?

The Machine of Fear
By HAROLD R. THOMPSON
A cult in Rajoon has harnessed the lethal powers of a fear-inducing machine! Can bookish Corps of Exploration officer, Captain Anchor Brown, stop the cultists?!

The Ruins of the Dalgre
By RICHARD RUBIN
On his way to sell his services to the Earl Ryker, Burke Fletcher, the mercenary marooned on Rigel IV, is attacked by a strange and monstrous creature out of time! Stranded, Burke comes upon a beautiful Rigelian being pursued by White Giants!

The Serpent and the Spire
By J. THOMAS HOWARD
In earth’s twilight, mankind’s numbers dwindle amongst the ruins! Can a lone ptero knight rescue two young women who might bear the next generation?!

Also, don’t forget, we’ll begin taking pre-orders soon for The Mighty Sons of Hercules!

Huge News for This Week! Own Rare and One-of-a-Kind Copies of Cirsova!

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The Summer Issue is going live.

We finally got the finished cover in.

We were left with a one-of-a-kind copy of the Softcover and a one-of-only-four copy of the Hardcover featuring the sketch cover. [Michael Tierney will have 3 of hardcovers.]

We are auctioning these incredibly rare bits of Cirsova memorabilia to raise funds for the 2024 acquisitions budget.

Other news:

Michael Tierney’s Wild Stars is completely back in print.

The “lost” issues of Cirsova are all back in print. [6, 7, and 8]

The Mighty Sons of Hercules will begin funding soon on Kickstarter.

Misha Burnett’s Small Worlds will begin fulfillment as soon as funds transfer.

As soon as Small Worlds fulfills, we’ll get the Atlas of Bad Roads audiobook up on Amazon.

Open Submissions are just two months away. Get writing if you haven’t been already!

Speaking of Open Submissions, Cirsova is in desperate need of cash, so be sure to buy, buy, buy!