Escalation

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For 2022, I’ve been wanting to write more ‘creature features’ and generally improve my short story writing. My partner got me a Dungeons and Dragons Monster Manual for my birthday so I came up with the idea of writing a story every week based on a different creature from that – All There in the (Monster) Manual. Hope you enjoy!

This Week’s Inspiration: Couatl

Wallécre handler Tosh is going to be the very best, like no one ever has been! But first, he has to get to Tangerine Town to defeat the local wallécre maestro, and another young handler, Richie, is standing in his way. His wallécre are going to have to battle right to the bloody, bitter finish.

Trigger Warning: Cruelty to (Fictional) Animals

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Into the Labyrinth

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For 2022, I’ve been wanting to write more ‘creature features’ and generally improve my short story writing. My partner got me a Dungeons and Dragons Monster Manual for my birthday so I came up with the idea of writing a story every week based on a different creature from that – All There in the (Monster) Manual. Hope you enjoy!

This Week’s Inspiration: Minotaur Skeleton

For years, seven young men and seven maidens were sacrificed to the beast that roamed the inescapable halls of the labyrinth. But the minotaur is dead and rumours of treasure have drawn the attention of a group of mercenaries. In the endless dark, however, something even more vicious has survived.

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The Birth of Cities

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For 2022, I’ve been wanting to write more ‘creature features’ and generally improve my short story writing. My partner got me a Dungeons and Dragons Monster Manual for my birthday so I came up with the idea of writing a story every week based on a different creature from that – All There in the (Monster) Manual. Hope you enjoy!

This Week’s Inspiration: Dragon Turtle

Once in a century, the city of Yoruga goes ashore at the site of her ancient hatching ground to birth a clutch of eggs that will hopefully grow into a new generation of cities. Seeking a purpose in life, young Jairo stays behind with a force of volunteers to help protect the eggs. At first it’s a grand adventure, but the work, and the hatching itself, are fraught with lethal dangers.

This week’s story is a long one, the longest one I’ve written for All There in the (Monster) Manual so far. So if you have an ereader and would like to take away a copy with you, feel free to download this MOBI file instead!

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Once Orcs Were Warriors

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For 2022, I’ve been wanting to write more ‘creature features’ and generally improve my short story writing. My partner got me a Dungeons and Dragons Monster Manual for my birthday so I came up with the idea of writing a story every week based on a different creature from that – All There in the (Monster) Manual. Hope you enjoy!

This Week’s Inspiration: Orc

Niklaus is a typical orc in an untypical age. Although he has a wife, twin sons, and an office job, his blood longs for the ancient ways. For bloodshed and the glory of battle. As the petty frustrations and humiliations of modern life mount, Nik is on track for an explosive eruption when old ways meet new.

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The Floor is Lava

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For 2022, I’ve been wanting to write more ‘creature features’ and generally improve my short story writing. My partner got me a Dungeons and Dragons Monster Manual for my birthday so I came up with the idea of writing a story every week based on a different creature from that – All There in the (Monster) Manual. Hope you enjoy!

This Week’s Inspiration: Magmin

Playtime has never been so lethal, as Kevin and his friends discover the floor has transformed into bubbling, searingly hot, molten lava. Not everyone will survive as they make the treacherous journey from playroom to kitchen, across the dining room and to freedom through flames and choking clouds of smoke, pursued by evil lava monsters.

Trigger Warning: Children Dying Horribly

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The Ooze That Ate Everyone

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For 2022, I’ve been wanting to write more ‘creature features’ and generally improve my short story writing. My partner got me a Dungeons and Dragons Monster Manual for my birthday so I came up with the idea of writing a story every week based on a different creature from that – All There in the (Monster) Manual. Hope you enjoy!

This Week’s Inspiration: Ooze

Having come to earth inside a meteorite, the Ooze has now consumed every living creature, every man, woman and child, every animal, every insect, every tree and plant, on the face of the earth – except for one person. Time has come to find out exactly why they were saved.

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The Hunt

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For 2022, I’ve been wanting to write more ‘creature features’ and generally improve my short story writing. My partner got me a Dungeons and Dragons Monster Manual for my birthday so I came up with the idea of writing a story every week based on a different creature from that – All There in the (Monster) Manual. Hope you enjoy!

This Week’s Inspiration: Cockatrice

The gods never made a creature more foul than the cockatrice. Its gaze paralyses, its breath sickens, and its bite turns living flesh into stone. But if Gould is going to get back into the good graces of his crime lord boss, he needs to capture one and bring it home alive. Is he hunting the cockatrice though, or is the cockatrice hunting him?

Trigger Warning: Cruelty to Animals, Cruelty to Humans

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Leviathan

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For 2022, I’ve been wanting to write more ‘creature features’ and generally improve my short story writing. My partner got me a Dungeons and Dragons Monster Manual for my birthday so I came up with the idea of writing a story every week based on a different creature from that – All There in the (Monster) Manual. Hope you enjoy!

This Week’s Inspiration: Kraken

Asteroid miners discover the frozen corpse of an alien creature over two kilometres in length on the outskirts of our solar system. The first proof humanity is not alone in the universe. But where did it come from, and how did it reach us after four billion years adrift in the depths of space?

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The Pig

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For 2022, I’ve been wanting to write more ‘creature features’ and generally improve my short story writing. My partner got me a Dungeons and Dragons Monster Manual for my birthday so I came up with the idea of writing a story every week based on a different creature from that – All There in the (Monster) Manual. Hope you enjoy!

This Week’s Inspiration: Nalfeshnee

Half-orc Hack doesn’t know where he fits in the world but desperately wants to prove himself tough enough to join the fully blooded orcs of the Greenskins MC. But when a delivery to a rival motorcycle club led by a hulking kamapua’a known as ‘The Pig’ goes disastrously wrong, the young half-orc might wind up fully dead.

Trigger Warning: Attempted Sexual Assault, Gore

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Art

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For 2022, I’ve been wanting to write more ‘creature features’ and generally improve my short story writing. My partner got me a Dungeons and Dragons Monster Manual for my birthday so I came up with the idea of writing a story every week based on a different creature from that – All There in the (Monster) Manual. Hope you enjoy!

This Week’s Inspiration: Ettercap

Moreau is one of the hottest artists on the planet, but he doesn’t work on canvas or with clay. His medium is the human body, his art expressed through extreme surgery and body modification. He makes human beings into artworks, but art isn’t always about beauty. Art makes you feel something, and that something isn’t always nice.

Trigger Warning: Body Dysmorphia, Eating Disorders, Self Harm, Surgery, Body Horror and Gore (yeah, there’s a lot going on in this one)

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