We’ve also been spending the last couple of months working with Erin Michele Gabbard to bring these exciting adventures to life in an all-new audiobook edition of Pursuit Without Asking. She has done an excellent job on these stories and we can’t wait to share it with everyone!
Don’t forget, the next installment of the adventures of Mongoose and Meerkat, The Grain Merchant of Alomar, is appearing in the Spring issue out in three weeks!
We’ll have some more exciting Jim Breyfogle news soon! We’ve just signed Jim for another book deal, and we plan on having something out later this summer or early fall! Stay tuned!
In The Grain Merchant of Alomar, our pair of swords for hire are beginning to settle in. They’ve reached the city of Alomar, a cosmopolitan metropolis where anything (and anyone) can be bought and sold, and coin is king.
They’ve finally managed to save up some money (or Kat has, anyway–Mangos has squandered a lot of his on good food and drink and a replacement for the sword he lost back in Sword of the Mongoose) and are hoping that they’ve established a bit of a reputation as mercenary adventurers. Unfortunately, Alomar is a big city, and the Mongoose and Meerkat are still small time.
While they’re trying to get gigs lined up, they’re squatting in an unused wing of a manor owned by a wealthy merchant… who hires them without even knowing they’re living under his roof!
This will be the first time a Mongoose and Meerkat story will appear in Cirsova magazine with illustration [by the talented DarkFilly, who illustrated Volume 1].
Also, it’s still in production, but we’ve commissioned an audiobook edition of Pursuit Without Asking, which should be available by mid-spring. It’s read by Erin Michele Gabbard, who is not only a fantastic reader, she sounds just like we imagined Kat to sound like! More news on that soon, but in the meantime, please back the pre-order for our 5th Anniversary Issue!
One of the things we did with our Mongoose and Meerkat project with Jim Breyfogle was create D&D stats for a few of the stories so they could be run for B/X.
Something I’d love to do for a future Kickstarter would be include some minis for Mangos and Kat. The idea had me playing around with HeroForge, which is a site that allows you to create custom one-off minis for tabletop.
The only problem is that HeroForge DOES NOT allow commercial licensing, so even if I made some awesome minis using their tools, we wouldn’t be able to offer them as part of a Kickstarter or anything else.
That didn’t stop me from coming up with these as sort of a ‘proof of concept’ based on Dark Filly’s designs. If we’re able to, in the future, we’ll have Filly do some model art and get a 3D modeler to make us some 3D models for real minis. In the meantime, I thought these were kinda cool.
The Pulp Archivist has a great review up of both Mongoose and Meerkat and the new translation of the Slayers light novels.
Breyfogle has a knack for the exotic. Jungle ruin, tropical islands, mountainous canyons, magic-ravage battlefield–each new tale thrusts Mangos and Kat into a new setting with strange people and stranger challenges.
Breyfogle has mastered small-scope fantasy, keeping the constant string of odd jobs fresh. Where some authors lean too heavily on the sword and sorcery standby of hacking through evil cultists, Mongoose and Meerkat find themselves more as hired muscle for many mercantile schemes. This thrusts them into different intrigues than just secret societies, and it also requires a bit more thought in solving mysteries and getting paid than just swinging a sword. Yet there is action to spare, as varied as the settings: mountaintop chases on crumbling paths, swims through piranha-filled waters, and the inevitable crossing of blades. The perils are all immediate and local, but brief glimpses of wider events can be seen.
I can now confirm that Cirsova Publishing has acquired the rights to the entire remaining Mongoose & Meerkat series!
We will begin serializing it one story per issue, beginning with Hunt of the Mine Worm in the winter issue out this December, until all 18 stories in the cycle have run.
If you JUST got into Jim Breyfogle’s Mongoose & Meerkat via our kickstarter for Pursuit Without Asking and want to keep on top of things, the next story in the sequence, The Golden Pearl, was the cover story of our spring issue.
We hit our stretch goal to create OSR content, which will be included in the appendix of the Hardcover along with some early concept artwork from DarkFilly. Jim has reviewed and approved the bonus materials, so we’ll be doing the layout for the dust-jacket very soon.
Test drawing of Kat scaling a wall
Also, I want to point out we still have 6 originals of the interior artwork available. We’d really like to be able to move these for a few reasons:
-DarkFilly did an amazing job; we agreed to a split on the art we sell, so the more of this we sell, the fatter a check we can send her for the work she’s done.
-If we sell all of the artwork, we’ll be in an excellent financial position to be able to start making offers on 2021 content.
-The artwork is really cool, and you can brag to your friends about owning a one-of-a-kind piece of Mongoose and Meerkat artwork.
This volume collects Kat and Mangos’ first five adventures with illustrations by the incredibly talented DarkFilly and is available in four formats:
Digital – Some people love digital and prefer that to the weight and warmth of a book in their hands; we aim to please all of our readers, so this one’s for you!
Pocket Paperback – Our buddy JD Cowan recently observed that publishers cutting out the pocket paperback format drastically changed the writing landscape for the worse, and he opined the days of the pocket paperback. Well, we’re bringing the pocket paperback… back, exclusive for this Kickstarter! Get the pocket paperback edition at a pocket paperback price.
Trade Paperback – This is your standard 6 x 9 trade format book. Solid, robust, and standard. This edition will remain in print and be available through retailers, but you’ll get yours ahead of everyone else! It’ll look nice on the shelf with other contemporary Trade Paperbacks, such as our Duel Visions anthology from last year!
Deluxe Hardback – If you’ve ever bought one of our hardcovers, you know how nice Cirsova Publishing’s hardbacks are. This will be a gorgeous deluxe edition that will not only include all five Mongoose & Meerkat stories and the all new novelette, it will include an appendix of unused art and sketches, TTRPG character sheets for Kat and Mangos, a listing of all backers, plus any bonus content unlocked!
This volume features…
The Battlefield of Keres – An ill-conceived bet brings Mangos and his new companion Kat to a vast no man’s land full of relics and magical anomalies in search of a fabled helm!
Brandy and Dye – High atop rock spires, above the breeze from the Devil’s Arse, men toil to collect the valuable guano of the Minix bird for Royal Dye, but when the production is threatened by distillers at dizzying heights, the dyers hire Mangos & Kat to bust a few heads!
The Sword of the Mongoose – When a shady merchant loses a bet with Mangos, he has nothing to pay with but the story of where a masterwork blade may be found! Can Mangos reach his prize before other treasure hunters?
The Valley of Terzol – Kat and Mangos are hired to accompany an adventurer to the ruins of Terzol in search of a lost delivery: a thousand-year-old receipt offers a clue to either fabulous rewards or certain death!
The Burning Fish – Seeking out the fabled Burning Fish for a client, Mangos and Kat instead find a strange cult devoted to keeping a simple life and protecting the secret of the fish at any cost!
As a bonus, this collection will feature Deathwater, a never before published original novelette!