Under the Rainbow.

Jou shuffled back from the O-tent. The beds of fake flowers were dim. Henshin lay the other side of the membrane. It was easy for those outside to see Henshin. It was Henshin’s job to look content. It was Henshin’s duty to appear content.

The outer edge of this orange zone was picked out by such figures in partial repose. All gentle against the pavilion wall. They had it better than the Reds and always felt that, of all the Oranges, they were favoured by those above. What other Orange zone could boast the birthplace of Apo-te Tse? It was a given for Henshin’s father that if his child demonstrated perfect contentment then he would rise to the Yellow. 

Jou turned the child-sized backpack in his hand. The picture on the back was faded and skipped frames as he did so. In his other hand he rolled his guide orbs. They made a click, click, click like the damaged bearings on the skateboards from Hawks Green. 

Kick, push, kick, push. The motto of Hawks Green mocked Jou again. He’d tried. Henshin had helped. All of their credit spent on bribing their way to the top of the treatment list. A Blue Doctor. One of the lords with a saviour complex. Just another parasite. This one feeding on the hope of an addiction beaten. At least in the Orange the hawkers and harvesters admitted it. There was no pretence of altruism in their part of the rainbow. The Heirophants though were the same no matter the colour. 

His Hierophant had demanded more and more of Jou. More visitors. More worshipers. More donations and more … supplications. He’d assumed it would stop when he got older. In a way it did. He was no longer the receptacle of the Hierophants graces. Instead he was now the procurer. The accomplice. Sweet Henshin who had done everything to help Jou. Sweet Henshin who now lay in the O-tent with their new friend who was approved of. This one wasn’t a street hawker, a tour guide, a bawd for a Hierophant. This one wouldn’t drag Henshin towards the milk. 

Jou shifted position again. He hadn’t intended to get a better view but he did. It was too uncomfortable to sit in one position for long. There was Henshin, eyes wide open, staring into the dark haze of night. Henshin’s protector sat close and cross legged. He looked to be as old as Jou but there was not a trace of scars or sores that he could see.

As the filtered sun rose Jou lay back. He let the milk take his breath from him while holograms of long dead flowers and bees flicked to life around the tent. Beneath the blisters of the dwellings on the wall he could hear the stall merchants setting up while the shanty town broke down. The light of the sunrise faded and he heard the call to prayer. He heard the answer from all across the zone. 

“Violet knows best.” 

Wyffen Press: Speculative Fiction, Character Sketches, and ready to run 5E/PF scenarios.

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Speculative Fiction, Roleplaying Resources

(Occasional recipes) 

So this will be my companion blog to my Ko-fi site. I’ve been very lucky to have been given the chance to spend most of my working hours writing. Most of my writing will be either fiction Sci-Fi & Speculative fantasy fiction, or resources for 5E and PF1. 

Who Am I? 

For the past thirty or so years I have been writing and playing roleplaying games with friends. I started playing at the age of fifteen and I think it was the original Warhammer Fantasy Roleplaying (WFRP) that was my first game. I may not be sure about that but I’m very sure that my Mum had the police out looking for me when I wasn’t home by 11pm ! 

WFRP and Champions played a big part of our dice rolling and silly voices for a good length of time. After a short while Cyberpunk slipped into the mix. Once I moved up to Edinburgh a few years later I was introduced to Shadowrun, Aliens, Star Wars, and many others. I spent so much time studying rule books that I forgot about text books.

As time moved on and friends moved away the opportunities to play became fewer. At the start of Covid I’d managed to get a couple of friends together and with the addition of some of the locals at Castle Comics we had just got a regular night going. With the advent of Covid things changed. Another of my other friends had been using Roll20 for a while to play online with his generation of our hometown’s diaspora. He invited me to join a game doing an online Pathfinder playthrough of Icewind Dale. Within a couple of weeks I was in three games and running two of them. 

I set my games on a version of Earth in 1300. In the 14th Century Europe was in turmoil anyway. Imagine it on an Earth where, after an absence of a thousand or so years, the magic has returned. For just over two hundred years the elder races have been returning and people are learning that the myths are all realities. I’ve been writing a lot of support material for it which I’ll publish here. I’ll also be publishing excerpts of Badly Chosen. This is the first book set in Earth 6:1300 and it will be available via the KoFi site in full once it is finished. 

Other work published on here will be :

  • character background sketches either for my own characters or those that have been commissioned from me .
  • Complete and ready to run Roleplaying Scenarios for 5E of PF. To start with these will be as PDF or ready for upload to Roll20. 
  • There will also be some non-Earth 6:13 fiction.

You can contribute to my beer/artist/development fund over at ko-fi.com/wyffenpublishing. There will be access to various other things there too like Discord servers, play test nights, Convention news and commissions for character backstories and art.

Nice to meet you! 

W.