Samples of My Recent Work for Urban Mammoth

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Regular visitors to my blog, all seven-and-a-half of you, have probably clicked on my ‘Freelance’ page and been presented with a list of unfamiliar publications and terminologies. Since I haven’t blogged about my freelance fiction work as of yet I thought I should, especially as two recent publications from Urban Mammoth are now available for download.

Writing stories and background and doing collaborative world-building for these gaming publications is really what spurred me onward into the world of short fiction and editing. Some day I plan on blogging a more detailed article about my experiences writing in someone else’s world — which turns out to be, to the opposite of my expectations and the assumptions of most people I’ve talked to, an enormously freeing experience as a writer. Provided, of course, you’re working with the right people — which I was lucky enough to have found over at UM.

Now, before I point you to the .pdf samples, I should probably explain just what they are all about. Urban Mammoth is a miniatures game company which creates rules and models for tabletop wargames. The games are a bit like the combat session of an rpg, but represent the actions of squads or armies, and use tape measures to measure things like movement and range and dice and numerical tables for the resolution of combat and morale tests, to name just a few aspects of the game. If you still have no idea what I’m talking about, think of it as a freeform game of chess, with more rules, simulating a battle, played over hills and city streets with collectible and paintable figurines. Got it? Good.

These games used to be mostly about historical simulations — indeed some are even played at military academies. The explosion of Games Workshop onto the scene sort of rewrote the rules of how these games are designed and marketed, and now the most popular games aren’t those that let you stomp Ptolemaic peltasts with Seleucid elephants, but those that take place in their own science fiction or fantasy world. Games Workshop’s world has become so popular that it’s invaded our pop culture, from its own very popular (and often quite good) novels and video games to inspiring the works of others. Ever wonder where the green orcs in World of Warcraft came from? Look to GW.

So, I’ve done work fleshing out the game universes for a few games over the years. Everything from writing pseudo-histories and timelines, to short pieces of flavor text that take the form of mock excerpts or snippets of data, to serialized short fiction in the action-adventure vein. It’s all been enormously fun, as some of my ideas have made it into the actual nitty-gritty of the games themselves, and characters I have created have later been immortalized in lead (or, really, ‘white metal’).

UM’s most recent release is called CLAU Team Actions, and it’s an expansion to their game Urban War that lets players put giant battle-suits into the fray. My short intro story is the first thing in the sample .pdf and, even if the example rules mean nothing to you, scroll further to check out the art and photos of expertly painted miniatures.

CLAU Team Actions Sample

Another recent release is something called Iskandria: Planetary Data which is an entire book of background information and fiction, about 98% written by me. I’m pretty pleased with it, as it is the summation of all the work I have done for Urban Mammoth over the last few years and contains a lot of writing and ideas I’m very proud of. Only a few of the sample chapters or stories in this sample are complete, so don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Iskandria: Planetary Data Sample

Both of these books are now avaialble as .pdf downloads at the Urban Mammoth site if you happen to be an Urban War or Metropolis fan. They will also both be released as hardcopies soon. I’m proud to have been a part of them, not only were they fun to work on, but the end products look spectacular. Just a glance at some of the sample artwork and I’m sure you’ll agree.