Short Story

The Glass Harvesters

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All There in the (Monster) Manual are stories based on creatures from the Dungeons & Dragons Monster Manual. Over 2022 I released a different story fitting the theme every single week and I’ve now expanded to Dungeons & Dragons’ Monsters of the Multiverse and even the Pathfinder Bestiary. Could be fantasy, science fiction, horror, or something else entirely! Check them out on the main page of the website.

This Week’s Inspiration: Giant Crab

This story is a sequel to The Birth of Cities, it contains spoilers although doesn’t require a read to understand this one.

The glass harvesters follow the movements of the enormous calderustaceans, mining their abandoned volcanic shells for pockets of glass formed from molten sand and minerals once they’ve cooled. Far from home, fifteen-year-old Jairo’s most sincere desire is to prove himself a worthy member of Captain Marquez’s crew.

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The Gnome

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All There in the (Monster) Manual are stories based on creatures from the Dungeons & Dragons Monster Manual. Over 2022 I released a different story fitting the theme every single week and I’ve now expanded to Dungeons & Dragons’ Monsters of the Multiverse and even the Pathfinder Bestiary. Could be fantasy, science fiction, horror, or something else entirely! Check them out on the main page of the website.

This Week’s Inspiration: Gnome

Trigger Warnings: Cruelty to Animals, Cruelty to Children

Tobey didn’t trust the gnome in Ms Haberfield’s garden. Every time he went outside, he could feel its painted eyes following him, watching, waiting for something. But when he tries to get rid of it, things don’t quite go as he expects.

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Ashes

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All There in the (Monster) Manual are stories based on creatures from the Dungeons & Dragons Monster Manual. Over 2022 I released a different story fitting the theme every single week and I’ve now expanded to Dungeons & Dragons’ Monsters of the Multiverse and even the Pathfinder Bestiary. Could be fantasy, science fiction, horror, or something else entirely! Check them out on the main page of the website.

This Week’s Inspiration: Smoke Mephit

Little remains to show that a leper hospital ever existed on the isolated spot Kensie and Sara come across while hiking. After all, the building burned down over seventy years ago and took a number of patients with it. Not everything, however, has moved on.

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Life Finds a Way

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All There in the (Monster) Manual are stories based on creatures from the Dungeons & Dragons Monster Manual. Over 2022 I released a different story fitting the theme every single week and I’ve now expanded to Dungeons & Dragons’ Monsters of the Multiverse and even the Pathfinder Bestiary. Could be fantasy, science fiction, horror, or something else entirely! Check them out on the main page of the website.

This Week’s Inspiration: Cranium Rats

The streets are clean thanks to the city’s new garbage disposal units, removing not just litter but a great deal of the vermin who fed on it as well. But not everything is moving on, some are finding new ways to make it through a changing world.

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Shark Problems

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Tim and Lisa have sharks. As their hunting grounds are cleaned out, these cold-blooded killer fish have come to infest the pair’s inner city apartment. And that’s just the beginning of their problems.

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It started with the mystery object sitting in the kitchen sink. About ten centimetres long, shaped like a football and surrounded by a spiral of fins. Green so dark it was almost black. It looked like a zucchini designed by a seven-year-old boy.

Tim was tidying around the sink when he saw it. Lisa had gone out last night for a friend’s birthday so Tim ordered pizza and drank a few beers while he watched the footy, and empty bottles sat around the sink. Picking up the weird object, he found its texture felt rubbery like seaweed. Hollow, and split open. A couple of shrivelled cords trailed off one end like it was meant to plug into something. Maybe it was one of those Chinese vegetables he saw in the supermarket sometimes but never bought and couldn’t name. That didn’t explain where it had come from though, unless Lisa had brought it home. Tim rubbed the split in its side and water dribbled out. It even smelled a little like seaweed, and salt.

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Astronaut Exorcism

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All There in the (Monster) Manual are stories based on creatures from the Dungeons & Dragons Monster Manual, over 2022 I released a different story fitting the theme every single week! Could be fantasy, science fiction, horror, or something else entirely, check them out on the main page of the website.

This Week’s Inspiration: Horned Devil

An astronaut has been possessed by a demon on the Babel Space Station. Exorcist and priest Francis Flannagan has no choice but to brave the final frontier and confront the creature in this alien battleground, 400 kilometres above the surface of the Earth.

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The Other Dog

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All There in the (Monster) Manual are stories based on creatures from the Dungeons & Dragons Monster Manual, over 2022 I released a different story fitting the theme every single week! Could be fantasy, science fiction, horror, or something else entirely, check them out on the main page of the website.

This Week’s Inspiration: Doppelganger

The other dog stalks this home through rooms I cannot access, always on the other side of the glass. He wants to take my life for his own unless I can stop him.

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The Little People

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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: Halfling

The little people live in tunnels beneath your house! The little people eat and play and pray. You should learn all you can about the little people while you have the chance!

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Do They Know It’s Christmas?

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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: Zombie

One year after the zombie apocalypse, Carter faces the possibility of spending Christmas all alone… except for the company of a horde of half-frozen, decaying, flesh-eating ghouls.

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Climb to Oni Mountain

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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: Oni

Meighan and her family find themselves competing on the ultimate Japanese game show, Climb to Oni Mountain! But as they progress, the rounds keep getting darker and stranger, as well as more dangerous. The only way out is to win.

If you’d like a version of this story to take away and read on your ebook device, feel free to download it from here! I’m generous that way.

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