iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Mathan Campbell @mathancampbell.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

I don't think anyone who knows me was surprised by this passage.

These caves had been Glic warrens once. When Humans from the islands first arrived at what would become Port Taig, the Glic took pity on the poor freezing settlers and invited them into their tunnels to shelter through that first bitter winter. In thanks, the settlers had murdered them, built a city on the surface above, and turned their homes into a sewer.
Knowing the history was one thing, but Scatha had seen the bones piled up in the caves. She avoided this place when she could, but Aloric had made the caves his hideout so she’d followed him down.
She crouched as she entered one of the lower tunnels, walking towards the ladder out of the sewers and into the city above. She emerged into sunlight on the uphill side of town. This was a wealthy neighborhood - tall houses built of white limestone instead of the brick walls that dominated the rest of the city. Many of the houses were as big as the buildings that might house a dozen families down the hill, and much of the wealth to build these big houses came from the rents that the poorer people paid. She’d lived in those tenements when she first arrived in the city and seen the way people lived, families working day and night to scrape by and giving most of what they made to the landlords at the end of every month.
She thought darkly that most of the city would be better off if they did to the people on the hill what those rich people’s grandparents had once done to the Glic.

Mathan Campbell @mathancampbell.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

Ailith is still a child here, and her adopted Human parents are slowly realizing they cannot force her to be Human. When Sealgairean raiders steal most of their flock, they take it out on her.

It was her eighth birthday and she had spent it banished to her loft. She had been sent to bed without dinner again after refusing to eat their food. Sealgairean raiders had taken most of their flock and the woman who was not her mother had malice in her voice when she told the girl they could no longer give her meat at every meal. It might have been true, but she believed she was being punished for the actions of the raiders because they were Sealgairean like her.
Days passed, and she was hungry all the time. They tried feeding her beans - dull, lifeless beans. They were not enough. The food tied her stomach in knots and left her doubled over in agony. Her mother openly mocked her and told her to stop being so dramatic.
She did not yet know that she would die without meat, but she felt her body failing. Her father was concerned but did not dare contradict his wife. It had been four days since she had eaten meat and she was so hungry it felt like her stomach would digest itself. Her limbs ached, and she was dizzy more and more often.
As she howled her rage, her heart broke again. She had tried so hard for so long to make them love her, but their fear of her was greater than any love they might have once felt.
She retreated from the ladder, sitting on her bed and examining herself in a small mirror. Even aside from her face, no one could have mistaken her for Human. Her eyes went to thick-muscled arms and legs, so different from the dainty Human girls in the books they’d given her. Hands that ached where they had cut her claws short again.
She knew she was a monster. The woman who was not her mother said so openly. The man would not admit it, but more and more often the realization was there behind his eyes. If they could have tamed her and made her Human, they would have. They couldn’t. She could not be what they wanted her to be.

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Mathan Campbell @mathancampbell.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

In today's #WIPSnip, Ricarin & company have just delivered a group of settlers to the border town of Locnai, when the leader of the town council - an old friend - asks them to stay and help defend it. Doing so risks all their lives - and is outside the contracts they've signed.

Before she could interject, Ricarin did. “Let’s hear him out, Darin. What do you need, Kester? Speak plainly - we’re all friends here.”
“Well, a typical Sealgairean raiding party would be four or five warriors. That we could handle easily enough. But the Glic say there’s a full warband crossing the pass. Their scout didn’t get a good look, but maybe as many as ten. I don’t know that we can survive that.”
Lias was confused. “Only five or ten? With the new settlers, there are almost three hundred people here!”
Kester shook his head. “Have you ever seen Sealgairean? Their armor makes them very hard to kill, and they’re far bigger and stronger than any Human. Experienced warriors can hold their own, but we have precious few of those here. It could be they just steal sheep and go but…” He sighed. “I know this is a big thing to ask, but I need - we, all of us need - you to stay a few more days. We can pay you well for the delay, and you might not even need to fight.”
“And if they do come?”
“Then your swords might be the difference between everyone here living or dying. These are good people. They’re better off thanks to the training you’ve given the new folks, but I’m still whipping the Militia into shape and they aren’t warriors yet.” He clearly hated to beg but had no choice. “We need your help.”

After saying goodnight to Kester, they all retreated to the newly-built tavern and found a corner to talk.
When they were all gathered together, Darin started them off.
“Alright folks, if this was a normal decision it’d be up to the four of us who own a stake in the company to make it.” He nodded to Scatha and Lias. “But this isn’t a normal decision and the contracts you all signed to join us weren’t for this kind of risk, so we’ll vote on it. Any objections?”

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Mathan Campbell @mathancampbell.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Sensory overload and #autistic burnout are a totally valid reason to escape the city and become an adventurer, right? Honest, given the number of #neurodiverse writers and fans in the #fantasy genre, it's pretty weird we never see autistic experiences described openly. #WIPSnips

“This your first caravan?”
“Yep, glad to be getting back out of the city.”
“Where are you from originally?”
“Farm, north of here a ways. Not too far.”
Between bites Darin replied, “I should have guessed from the way you handled the horses. So why a caravan?”
“I came to the city to be a writer, but all anyone wants to hire me for is manual labor or being a guard. Figured if that’s the best I can get, I might as well see the rest of Talav while I do it.” He didn’t say that he’d chosen the job because he felt like he was drowning in the city, that the isolation of the road was infinitely preferable to the constant pressure of being around other people. But he thought it so loudly he was almost surprised when Darin responded to the spoken answer instead of the unspoken one.
“What do you write?”
“All sorts of stuff. Mostly just trying to make sense of the world, figure out what it all means.”
Darin nodded cautiously, looking at him differently now. “I can’t say we’ve ever had a philosopher on the crew before.”
Ricarin laughed at that. “I wouldn’t call myself a philosopher, not really. If I am, I’m a philosopher with bills to pay. I’m just here to work.”

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Mathan Campbell @mathancampbell.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

A public service announcement from every resident of #rural #NorthernCalifornia who is sick of tourists adding hours to the time it takes us to get anywhere: Use the turnouts & let people pass. It's not hard.

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Mathan Campbell @mathancampbell.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

Mirabelle is back in Port Taig trying to enjoy a beer at the Sailor's song when a group of men start getting loud with each other and Hanna asks her to intercede. (From 'A Thoughtful Kind of Monster'). #writer #booksky #WIPSnips

At one of the tables a group of people in conspicuously new road leathers was arguing and things were getting heated. Hanna glanced at her and then at them and Mirabelle sighed. She walked over and grabbed a chair, sitting down beside them at the table, to their immense and obvious surprise.
“Evening lads, what seems to be the trouble here?”
“Excuse me miss, this is a private conversation” The speaker was a sniffy little weasel of a man and she grinned at him, showing teeth.
“That may be. But you’re having it loudly in a public place. Hanna doesn’t like people shouting in her bar, so keep it down or have it someplace else.”
Another of them tried to get loud at her and she shut him down quickly. “I’m asking nicely this time. Next time I won’t.”
The sniffy man seemed shocked. “Are you threatening us? Seriously? There are ten of us here!”
“I know, hardly seems fair does it? You’d need at least another ten like you to have any chance at all.” There was mockery in her voice but not meanness and she held up empty hands. “Seriously though lads, this is your last friendly warning. Calm it down or take it somewhere else.”
She started to stand but one of the others said “Wait a moment, you might be exactly what we need.”

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Mathan Campbell @mathancampbell.bsky.social · 30/07/2026

Nothing is inevitable. Keep resisting #AI slop!

000

Mathan Campbell @mathancampbell.bsky.social · 28/07/2026

In today's #WIPSnips, Richard is on a caravan to the Borders. While camping they get to discussing the threat of sealgairean raiders coming through the passes and Maol, one of his companions, tells a story that will already be familiar to readers of Ailith's story line. #fantasy #writer

“I’ve helped fight off raiders a few times. It’s part and parcel of growing up in the Borders. Sealgair ain’t people, they’re monsters - real monsters. You can reason with a human or a sihean, hell even a glic. We might not always get along but there’s a mind under there you can reach, even if they do look kind of funny.” He smiled at Bélan and added “No offense meant.”
Bélan quipped “None taken, humans do look funny” to general laughter from the group and Maol continued.
“A sealgair though, all you are to that thing is food.”
Richard interjected “They’re supposed to be fantastic metal smiths, that means they can think. They can’t just be animals. If we could find a way to talk to them…”
At this Maol practically snarled. “There was someone in the village where I grew up that tried that, and it cost him his life.”
“So a folk story from your village. That sounds reliable!” Mirabelle chuckled and Maol scowled at her before continuing.
“Not a folk story. I was ten when it happened and I saw the house, saw what that thing left in its wake.”
She raised an eyebrow skeptically and said “Well, go on then.”
“This fellow, well he and his wife couldn’t have kids and he found an ash-gray baby on the mountain and brought her home. A year later she’s growing fangs and claws and killing livestock for fun. His wife begged him to get the beast out of their house but of course he didn’t listen.”
“What happened?” Richard wasn’t sure he wanted to know, but asked anyway.

“At eight years old the little monster killed them both and then escaped into the mountains. They found the bodies days later with toothmarks in their flesh. You can’t reason with a thing that would do something like that.”
Mirabelle scoffed “You realize how ridiculous that sounds, right? An eight year old girl killed and ate two adults and then vanished into the mountains?”
“Not a little girl, a monster - don’t make the mistake he did and try to humanize something like that. And you don’t have to believe me but it happened.” Maol was upset about being challenged and got up to go refill his mug, leaving the rest of them at the fire.
Richard didn’t know whether to believe him or not. Hoping to defuse the conversation, he asked Bélan. “How do your people deal with the sealgairean? You’ve been in these lands for a long time.”
“They are actually relatively new, almost as new as humans. They first appeared when my grandparents were young, coming up from somewhere far off to the southeast and the deep desert beyond the Eacad mountains. Mostly we avoid them, they cannot attack what they cannot find. But it is in no one’s interest to have them stay on this side of the Eacad’s so we fight when we must, driving them back through the passes. Fortunately, sealgairean are mostly interested in fighting other sealgairean. If that ever changes, all of Talav will be at risk.”

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Mathan Campbell @mathancampbell.bsky.social · 25/07/2026

Abolish the Senate and Electoral College and they can add as many states as they want, otherwise it's at California's expense and we already pay too much and get too little.

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Mathan Campbell @mathancampbell.bsky.social · 21/07/2026

My latest research rabbit holes have been metallurgy & blacksmithing. I took a class years ago & have dabbled since, but one of my characters is a much better smith than me. I wanted her techniques / composition of alloys she creates to be accurate & possible with tech available. #FantasyIndiesJuly

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Mathan Campbell @mathancampbell.bsky.social · 21/07/2026

In today's #WIPSnips, Ailith is scouting for materials in the deep desert of Fasak when she finds something that will change her world forever. #writer #fantasy #HeroesCreed

Far out in the desert she saw a reflection in the sand. She nearly dismissed it as the shimmer of heat, but the morning was still cool. Nor could it be water, all of the springs in this area were well known. It felt like something was drawing her eye to it, calling her. The sensation was eerie but soon gone and forgotten. Against her better judgement, she went to investigate.
In the countless centuries since the ancients fell, most of their works had been utterly erased by the passage of time. Only a few ruins remained, and in the deserts of Fasak the sealgairean and other scavengers had long since picked most of them clean. But there was steel here, half covered by sand and intact. It must have been unburied recently for there was no mark of rust upon it.
Working together, the women swept the dry sand away to reveal bare gray stone, pitted by time but intact, with a square steel door flat on the ground and inset directly into the stone. Amazingly, the dry sand had protected both stone and door from the countless years.
By now the day’s heat had come on in earnest and they were far from any shade or shelter. The other women were eager to return, but Ailith was unwilling to leave her prize. There was a thick place that might have concealed a lock but no visible keyhole, and their efforts to pry the door open were fruitless. Ailith carefully placed a small mound of precious aluminum shavings salvaged from other ruins on the door, adding powdered rust from another pouch and then striking her knife on flint to throw a spark into it. It caught and blazed brightly as she looked away, covering her eyes. The afterimage shattered her vision and it took several minutes for her to recover her sight. In the meantime, the fire burned through the steel and lock and Carag and Merris were able to lever the door open.

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Mathan Campbell @mathancampbell.bsky.social · 21/07/2026

In today's #WIPSnips, Ailith is scouting for materials in the deep desert of Fasak when she finds something that will change her world forever.

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Mathan Campbell @mathancampbell.bsky.social · 29/06/2026

#WIPSnips - Water! In today's snip, Ailith has escaped the farm where she was raised and is climbing the mountains to the east that separate Talav from Fasak in search of her own people. It is not going well. From 'A Thoughtful Kind of Monster' - #writer, #fantasy, #booksky

The world swam and she was conscious again. By some miracle of will, she dragged herself to the river that came roaring down from the peaks high above where melting snow fed a thousand little streams before they joined. She half-fell into the water, landing painfully on the stones and letting the icy cold of it banish the heat of the day. There were a few little fish here no bigger than her thumb and she grabbed at one of them desperately but missed.
The cold of the river quickly chilled her to the bone and she realized she was going numb, if she stayed in much longer she might not be able to get out. Hands scrabbling at the sand and stones, she dragged herself out and lay there in the sun letting it warm her up again.
Tenderly, she untied the strips of fabric from her hands to reveal the wounds, deep gashes where the glass had cut her. She washed her hands in the icy cold water before washing the makeshift bandages as well.
Attracted by the scent of blood in the water, a small river lamprey swam towards her and she snatched it out of the water, striking its disgusting head hard on a rock and then raising it to her mouth. She was too hungry to wait and had no fuel for a fire anyway. There were only a few bites of meat on the little parasite, but that was far better than nothing. Inspired, she repeated the trick, using her own blood as bait and catching and devouring another of the little fish. Further attempts were fruitless.
She gave up and re-wrapped her hands, bent to the river to drink her fill, refilled the water skin, and stood - too quickly as the world swam around her. She fell to her knees wincing as she landed.

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Mathan Campbell @mathancampbell.bsky.social · 28/06/2026

#wipSnips - In today's snippet, Richard is about to head out with his caravan company towards the Borders - the disputed territory between human and sealgairean lands. Mirabelle is considering joining to keep an eye on him. From "A Thoughtful Kind of Monster" #writer #booksky #fantasy

“The Borders…” She sat up in bed thinking.
“Don’t tell me you’re worried about me?”
“Alright, I won’t. But you know as well as I do that the settlements out there have been reporting more raiders coming through the passes. There was an article about it the other day…”
“Bah, sensationalistic nonsense designed to sell newspapers.”
“Sure, but the raiders are real enough.”
“Well, that’s why we’re hiring extra swords.”
“How many and what’s the pay?”
“Are you thinking of hiring on?”
“Well, I miss you. And if you get yourself killed out there I’ll never forgive you and I don’t want to be angry at a dead man.”
“You really are such a romantic…” He laughed at her. “You know I can handle myself.”
“I know. It’s those other idiots I worry about. I don’t trust them to bring you back to me where you belong.”
“I will always come back to you. That’s a promise.”
“You’re sweet, but we both know that’s not how the world works. Besides, there’s no harm in me helping to make sure, is there? Unless you don’t want me to come for some reason?”
“No! I’d be thrilled to have you! But I don’t want you to feel like you’re having to compromise for me or resent me.”
“Tell me again how much you want to have me.”
“More than my next minute of air.”
“Well then get over here!”

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Mathan Campbell @mathancampbell.bsky.social · 27/06/2026

#WIPSnips for June 27 - Root! In this scene Mirabelle is visiting Ben Droigh and takes the opportunity to hear glic music. The glic (from the gaidhlig word for 'clever') are subterranean humanoid insectivores whose songs are legendary. From 'A Thoughtful Kind of Monster' #writer #fantasy #BookSky

Mirabelle had to duck to pass through the door, but inside the place was truly remarkable. It bore only the most superficial resemblance to anything she might have recognized as a tavern. The room was cut into the limestone of the cliff with ceilings a bit over ten feet tall. In the center was a circle of pillars framing a dome lined with softly glowing moss. Below the dome was an inverted round stage cut down into the floor, and all around it were tables and chairs. Sounds resonated strangely in the space, diffusing outward towards the edge and then deadening.
The audience was mostly glic - far more of them than she would have imagined lived in the city - but there were sîhean as well. As far as she could see at first glance, she was the only human. Many were already seated while others served themselves from a large table set high with glic delicacies - cave moss, grubs, roots. The presentations were beautiful, but there was nothing she had any interest in eating! She found an empty table near the front and waited.

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Mathan Campbell @mathancampbell.bsky.social · 24/06/2026

#WIPSnips for June 23, Mirabelle and her friends are wounded, bleeding, and nominally victorious at the gates of Ash Clan. Unfortunately, the people they came to save are already dead and they are out of water for the journey home... #fiction #writer #fantasy

“Among our people, negotiation begins with the exchange of names, I am Mirabelle.”
“I am Ailith, but among our people, we do not negotiate.”
“You are grieved at the loss of your son. We have also lost many friends, companions who were like brothers to us. We can avoid more deaths if we can reach an agreement with words.”
“Death is the price of life for a hunter, and it is the price of war.”
“But we are not at war with you!”
“We are sealgair, we are at war with everyone.” Ailith’s tone was dismissive, as if telling a very stupid child an obvious truth.
Mirabelle tried again. “We have had enough of killing, and our people do not kill except in self defense.” She felt the falsehood in the words. Knew they were a lie even though she wished they weren’t. She continued on regardless. “We will leave you in peace, but you must pay a death price for the harm your warriors caused.”
“What is this ‘death price?’”
“A ransom or penalty. We want our wagons and horses returned, enough clean water for the journey home, and the machines your warriors took from the ruins we were exploring. Do that and we walk away. No one else has to die. Your children do not have to die.”
“You would demand tribute and threaten a sword over our children’s necks?!” The sealgair woman snarled and Mirabelle recognized the shift of her weight as she considered attacking.
“I am offering you a way to save them. We have slain your warriors, what would a rival sealgair clan offer you?”
The woman did not respond but considered. “If we do this you leave and return over the mountain?”
“Yes.”
The woman shouted up at her friends on the wall who had gathered around to stare at them. There was a brief argument in Sealgarni, followed eventually by nodding of heads. Eventually she turned back to the humans and spoke again in Talan. “We will pay this death price. But you will not enter our keep. Stay. Wait.”

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Mathan Campbell @mathancampbell.bsky.social · 24/06/2026

#WIPSnips for June 23, Mirabelle and her friends are wounded, bleeding, and victorious at the gates of Ash Clan. They might successfully cut their way through the women and children inside so get the water they need for their trip home, but she'd prefer to negotiate. #fiction #writer #fantasy

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Mathan Campbell @mathancampbell.bsky.social · 22/06/2026

#FantasyIndiesJune - The big tropes I've picked a fight with in my #fantasy #WIP are the Good King that will fix everything and monsters that exist just to be killed. My monsters are as fully fleshed out as the humans and every king in my world is a monster - literally, metaphorically, or both.

List of sharing prompts for the #fantasyIndiesjune hashtag

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Mathan Campbell @mathancampbell.bsky.social · 21/06/2026

In today's #WIPSnips, 8 year old Ailith was adopted by humans who told her that she was a monster. When she was 8 she proved them right and fled over the mountain. But a child's mind could not have possibly planned for the journey ahead, and as night falls she wishes for a better jacket.

With an act of will she tried again and stood, steadying herself on a hanging willow tree. A raven scolded her from above for shaking the tree and she bent to grab a stone to throw, but the bird was gone before she could. Gritting her broken teeth she started climbing again. She had to keep moving. She could not die here! Would not!
She climbed for most of the rest of the afternoon. The raven had followed her and several more of its friends joined it, waiting for their meal to stop moving. She managed to stun one of them with an improvised sling made from her bandages and a smooth river rock, but it recovered before she could climb to where it fell and for the next hour the birds followed her, dropping stones on her and harassing her as she went.
When night came she crawled into the bushes to hide, stuffing her jacket with leaves and pulling her hat down low over her ears for warmth as she clung to her stuffed bunny and shivered.

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Mathan Campbell @mathancampbell.bsky.social · 16/06/2026

In my #WIPSnips for today, Richard is hungover after having to go drink for drink with a sailor the night before to pump him for information about the disappearance of a settlement and needs a place to sit and be human in the city while he recovers #writer #fantasy #fiction

A wide-brimmed hat firmly on his head, he walked back out the door and into the light of an objectively lovely morning that he had no interest in appreciating. The alley here was narrow, paved in cobblestone, and crisscrossed with washing lines. Thick red brick walls slick with moisture from the fog and growing moss in places rose high above the alleyway, layer upon layer. To Richard, humanity here felt stacked nearly as tight as the bricks, the weight of them pressing down on him. He desperately wanted - needed - to get back on the road and away.
He tried to console himself, thinking that the city wasn’t all bad. There were significantly more book shops than you’d find in the average forest for a start! The thought made him smile and he pulled his journal out of a vest pocket and wrote it down before continuing on.
Up ahead the alley emptied out onto a wide boulevard busy with carts and people. He turned left and walked uphill maybe a quarter of a mile, purchased a pair of meat pies from his favorite cart, and walked down another alley until it opened up onto a wide square where he found a seat under a broad spreading oak tree.
By the look of it, the tree predated the city - one of the lucky few that hadn’t been cut. Broad spreading branches shaded a large portion of the square here, softening the sunlight that filtered through its leaves. Richard had first found it years ago when he came here fleeing that cursed farm and arrived homeless, nearly penniless, and looking for work. For a country boy, life in this rat warren of bricks had been overwhelming and finding a place he could sit in the shade and think had been like air to a drowning man. He had spent countless hours here in the years since and always made a point of taking lodgings nearby when he was back in town. He thought of the tree almost as an old friend and felt as if he could breathe a little better when sitting in its shade.

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Mathan Campbell @mathancampbell.bsky.social · 16/06/2026

We've been here before. We are being robbed, all of us are being robbed, every single day as the value we create is stolen and hoarded by sociopaths.

nursery rhyme from 1764:
They hang the man and flog the woman
That steal the goose from off the common
But let the greater villain loose
that steals the common from the goose

The law demands that we atone
when we take things we do not own
But leaves the lords and ladies fine
who take things that are yours and mine

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Mathan Campbell @mathancampbell.bsky.social · 14/06/2026

My scene snip for June 14 - Richard, an #autistic writer / adventurer, describes his ongoing project. Writing him in a way that is both authentic and accessibly to NT readers is one of the hardest & most rewarding parts of the project. #WIPSnips #BookSky #Writer #Fantasy #actuallyautistic

Richard dropped back and walked on his own for a while. He had been embarrassed when Darin asked if he was a philosopher, but it wasn’t so far from the truth. He was just a philosopher with bills to pay! He wondered ruefully how any person could claim to know the meaning of life if they spent it indoors instead of out in the world.
More than anything else he just wanted to matter. He’d spent his whole childhood hearing his father tell him how stupid and useless he was until he’d believed it. For the few years he’d spent at school he heard much the same from his teachers and even the other children. He missed subtext, took things too literally, could not see the invisible social rules that they seemed to all just know.
His current project was a set of quotes and observations about life on the road and what it would mean to be the hero he dreamed of becoming. He hadn’t started with much in the way of a role model or any specifics beyond being the opposite of his father, but he worked at it. Slowly he was building his own moral framework and understanding of the world.
Like its author, the work was very much a work in progress, but when it was done he hoped to finally inhabit a model of the world that made sense, that was internally consistent, that he could use to find his way in a larger world where never seemed to quite fit.
He called it his “Hero’s Creed” and secretly hoped that someday it would be read all over Talav, proof that he was not so broken as they had all believed. First though, he’d have to do something worthwhile, something that would make people care about what he had to say.

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Mathan Campbell @mathancampbell.bsky.social · 14/06/2026

For today's #fantasyIndiesJune, here's the map I've made for Talav and Fasak. I used Wonderdraft to draw it and am pretty happy with it overall. #writer #booksky #fantasymap

A map of Talav and Fasak, the (part of the larger) fantasy world where the Hero's Creed books are set.

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Mathan Campbell @mathancampbell.bsky.social · 14/06/2026

I missed day 13 of #fantasyIndiesJune so here's my saturday snippet a day late. In this scene young Ailith, having escaped her human captors and climbed a mountain to find her own people finally encounters them. It does not go as planned.

The girl woke to find herself surrounded, tall gray shapes in the darkness loomed over her under the desert sky, lit by the last embers of her signal fire. Their conversation seemed animated, though it was in a guttural yowling language she did not understand. She tried to speak to them but they could not understand her - they did not speak Talan and she had never had an opportunity to learn Selgarni.
Still, she was overjoyed - the fire had worked! They had seen her signal and come to bring her home!
She tried to stand but was unsteady on her feet and was taken completely by surprise when one of them kicked her back to the ground roughly. Without thinking, she reacted in rage, lunging at them and slashing futilely with claws cut too short to matter. A blow to her head with the hilt of a sword sent her spinning and she finally caught a glimpse of him in the moonlight. He was tall - far taller than any human - and strong with forearms as big as her waist and teeth like blades. After a life spent among humans, he looked like a nightmare come to life. He seized her by the throat and lifted her into the air, legs dangling uselessly as she struggled to breathe and flailed at him. The stars seemed to dim and she heard a cruel laugh as she struggled against the closing darkness.
He threw her to the ground hard and she lay gasping as his knee landed on her back and he began tying her arms behind her.
She snarled at him like a feral animal, struggling but unable to escape. Of all the betrayals in her young life, to be treated so by her own people after fighting so hard to find them was one of the bitterest. She might have pleaded with them or made threats, but what would have been the point? They could not understand her and she would not beg.
Instead she grew silent and made a promise to herself - she would survive this, and she would find a way to win vengeance. Whatever happened, whatever it cost, her captor would die by her hand. She swore it there in the dirt of the hil…

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Mathan Campbell @mathancampbell.bsky.social · 12/06/2026

Day 12 #fantasyIndiesJune! - I do my best thinking and writing at night after the kids are in bed and the world is quiet. I love the peace and the solitude of late nights. It would all be lovely if the world didn't expect me to wake up in the mornings! #writer #nightowl #ChronotypesAreReal

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Mathan Campbell @mathancampbell.bsky.social · 12/06/2026

In today's snip, Richard and his caravan have been ambushed on the road by bandits and he has a moral crisis after being ordered to tie the surviving enemies to a tree and leave them where they will likely freeze or be eaten by animals. #WIPSnips #BookSky #Writer #Fantasy

It was well after dark when Richard’s caravan finally reached the roadhouse where they’d be spending the night. They all pitched in to get the animals taken care of and everything stowed before heading inside to strip off mud-covered clothes and get dry, get dinner, and get drunk. Not necessarily in that order!
Richard lingered a while longer in the cold after the others went in, looking back the way they had come and wondering at the fate of the men he’d tied to a tree and left. Yes he had been under orders, but orders mean nothing without hands to carry them out. He could have refused. He should have refused.
And then, he thought, he’d have been fired and forfeited the rest of his pay, after which one of the others would have done it. No one would have been saved.
If those men had wanted to kill him and his companions they’d have picked them off from the hillside with their crossbows and he’d be dead. Their reluctance to kill had gotten at least two of them killed instead, probably all of them. He told himself there must be a lesson there - that he had to let go of sentiment and live in the world as it was, not as he wished it to be.
He breathed out slowly, watching his breath turn to steam in the air and float away, as insubstantial and meaningless as his guilt and regret.
It was wrong. It was all wrong. There had to be a better way.
He pulled the knife he’d taken from the man he’d killed and looked at it. Decent quality steel, eight inches long with a straight blade and a handle carved from antler. He threw it at a post where it stuck firm. If he’d been a moment slower in killing its previous owner it might have opened his guts and he’d have been the one feeding animals tonight.
He wasn’t going to change the world, not tonight, but Darin had promised to start training him in the morning and he clearly needed the lessons.
He pulled the knife from the post and slid it back into its sheath before heading in after the others.

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Mathan Campbell @mathancampbell.bsky.social · 11/06/2026

My yard is not tidy, but it is full of life. That's a tradeoff I am happy to make. #nolawns

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Mathan Campbell @mathancampbell.bsky.social · 09/06/2026

#WIPSnips for today on Warmth. This is from what will likely become the third book in my series. Kelik, the daughter of my antivillain MC from the first two books, is exploring the empire her mother has conquered when she encounters the Ramsfeet, a small clan that joined the empire willingly.

Wood for fires is a scarce thing in the desert - most often the people here cooked their food by placing it on spits suspended above great concave mirrors during the heat of the day - but solstice was marked with fire everywhere in the wastes to symbolize the passing of the sun. The Ramsfeet (as they called themselves) had gathered dry bushes and dead wood from the shade of cliffs where a few trees grew to build a small bonfire. The hard and dry desert wood burned fast and fierce and she huddled near the fire for warmth, listening to their stories and their songs, singing along to the ones she knew and listening to learn the ones she did not.
The Ramsfeet were a small clan, the deep desert here did not produce much game and there was little water to be had - they survived by gathering snow in sun-baked clay urns and hoarding it the rest of the year with only occasional replenishment from summer storms that would cause flash floods. In the old days, mothers had been forced to sacrifice children born in dry summers to the desert because they could not afford to drink enough water to produce milk. The song the women sang about it around the fire, voices twisting together in remembered sorrow, broke Kelik’s heart.

Hush hush my baby
my sweet little one
Your mothers milks has failed
Beneath the desert sun
I give you to the desert
That you be born again
I’ll mourn for you my love
And hear you in the wind

They sang long into the night accompanied by stringed drums and bone flute, the songs resonating in the canyon and matching the pitch of the wind. Many of the songs were strange to Kelik’s ears. Pressed on all sides by larger clans who wanted to take the little they had, the Ramsfeet had long relied on the desert to fight their battles, hiding from would-be attackers. They had no tales of mighty warriors, preferring clever tricksters who disappeared into the desert without a trace.

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Mathan Campbell @mathancampbell.bsky.social · 09/06/2026

Day 9 for #fantasyIndiesJune - my Tagline. This is a hard one! Maybe "Deconstructing tropes of masculinity and violence through heroic dark fantasy in a world where all the monsters are people and a lot of the people are monsters."

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Mathan Campbell @mathancampbell.bsky.social · 08/06/2026

So that's where I find inspiration, in the conflict between what people want to believe and the world as it is. In cruelty and kindness and the duality of the fact that the same being can embody both. And sometimes in my cat who is taking a break from murder to curl up next to me as I write this.

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Mathan Campbell @mathancampbell.bsky.social · 08/06/2026

This is from one of the early scenes with Ailith as a child, the first moment she begins to realize how different she is from the humans who found her on the mountain and adopted her. #WIPSnips #writing #fiction #fantasy

She was three. Like a cat, she chased movement instinctively. Her needle-sharp teeth and razor-sharp claws tore apart dolls and toys with reckless glee, much to the consternation of her human parents. Perhaps scared to leave her unsupervised, they had taken her out into the fields with them as they worked.
Their garden was small and surrounded by a low stone wall that they hoped would contain her and keep her out of trouble. The ground was rocky here and poor, but improving slowly through careful husbandry. For now, it supplied very little beyond their own needs. Mostly, they got by on their sheep which grazed on the mountain nearby. Today, they had finished harvesting the cabbages and their chickens were running free to forage on the leavings and fertilize the fields before the next planting. Her parents set her down at the end of a row and set to work weeding the beets nearby.
The sounds and smells of the place were overwhelming at first, the dark scents of earth, the sharp ammonia scent of chicken leaving, and a hundred others - a riot for the senses. She did not understand how her parents could ignore them so - it did not occur to her that their senses were too dull to even perceive them. She sat still for a little while, eye’s closed and getting used to this new bigger world. The buzz of an insect’s wing across the field, the sharp scent of compost, the taste of the air. It was delicious. Opening her eyes, the fields stretching off into the distance seemed endless. She clapped her hands and squealed with joy just for the sheer freedom of it.
Ten yards down the row, her eyes spotted movement and she was off and running on chubby legs. Suddenly she pounced on a chicken in the yard, sinking her claws into the bird up to the knuckles and killing it with a bite to the throat. The taste of hot blood in her mouth sent tingles of joy down her body. She looked at her parents, proud and expecting praise for her kill, and saw horror on their faces.

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Mathan Campbell @mathancampbell.bsky.social · 07/06/2026

Setting up for the monthly #Pathfinder game I run for my kids and their cousins. The white bag is full of clay for them to make things they encounter. #dnd #dadlife

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Mathan Campbell @mathancampbell.bsky.social · 06/06/2026

My #saturdaysnippet is from the scene where Ailith meets her husband. She's had been forced into a marriage with an abusive man and drugged the wine at the wedding feast to leave the clan defenseless against enemies. When the neighboring rival clan attacks, their king finds her waiting.

Ash Clan
Negotiation is battle by other means. Do not hesitate to use every weapon at your disposal.
- Words of the Queen

The night Rathmar first met Ailith, he had come searching for her husband. Vor had been a thorn in his side for years, a cunning and ruthless opponent who had killed many of Ash’s warriors. His wedding was the perfect time to strike.
When they’d found the gate unlatched and the guards unconscious, it seemed too good to be true and his men suspected a trap. As they slaughtered the warriors, their enemy’s new king was nowhere to be found. Even as his men died leaderless, Vor was absent.
When Rathmar and two of his lieutenants entered the great tent at the center of the camp he did not know what to expect, but he definitely did not expect the heavy scent of incense and a woman in bloodstained wedding robes sitting by her king’s corpse and leisurely eating a pickled sheep’s heart. As his soldiers approached her she ignored them, looking at him as if evaluating a cut of meat before standing.
“You were to be Vor’s wife, yes?”
“So he told me.”
“And do you not mourn your husband?”
“What is he to me? I owed him a debt and I have repaid it. Why would I grieve for a vanquished enemy?
“You wear wedding robes.”
“I am unmarried, my wedding bed lies behind you, undisturbed.”
He laughed aloud at her daring.
“He was your enemy as well, wasn’t he?” she asked pointedly.
“Not as much of an enemy as I thought, to be killed by a woman.” He turned to go and gestured for his men to take her, but in the time it took him to turn away, a hidden blade had pierced the eye of the first man and she had torn the throat from a second with her claws before his sword could even clear its sheath. Rathmar turned at the sound and suddenly she was inside his guard with her body pressed tight against him and her claws at his throat. She whispered into his ear “I have killed one king today, should I make it two?”

He looked down meaningfully at the knife he held to her kidney. “You would die with me.”
“I am armored under these robes, your blade would turn and you would die gasping.”
“And my men would cut you down the moment you left this tent.”
“I would rather kill and be killed than ever again wear a collar.”
He saw the ring scar on her long strong neck and looked into her eyes, burning red. The heat of her and the smell of fresh blood on her lips was intoxicating.
He sheathed his dagger and held up his hands. “I apologize for under-estimating you, fierce one. I will not repeat the mistake.”
She released her grip on his throat and stepped back.
“You are forgiven.”
“What is your name?”
“Ailith.” She held his gaze and licked his lieutenant’s blood from her claws.
“That man was a trusted friend who saved my life more than once.”
“A pity his king gave him such a foolish order or he would be alive to do it again.”
“Indeed.” A short pause stretched into a long one as he considered, her gaze was powerful and he fought the urge to look away. “Well Ailith, you said you owed Vor a debt and repaid it. What do you believe you owe the man who has conquered your clan?”
“Vor found me as a child and made me a slave. When I won my freedom he sought to possess me again, and his clan has paid for that mistake. You have done me no wrong by killing my enemies.”
“Let me speak plainly. You may leave this tent as my wife or as my slave. We have ruled out the latter. As for the former, you are fierce and would give me strong sons… but I wonder if I would emerge from our wedding bed un-bloodied.”
“No more bloodied than you want to be.”
He smiled. She smiled in return.
He might have attempted to betray her, but Rathmar was honorable in his own way. He might have attempted to kill her, but doubted he would survive the attempt. She was beautiful and fierce, and the destruction of Iron Claw was a proud dowry. Besides, he was a young king in search of wives anyway. There was only one decision he could mak…

“Well then Ailith, I offer you marriage - you will be my third wife. If you accept, no one will ever try to place a collar on your neck again.
“It is a good offer.”
“Then we are agreed?”
“Almost, there is the matter of my brideprice.”
“And who would I pay it to?” He might have scoffed at someone else, but nothing about this woman suggested that she was joking.
“You will pay it to me. I ask for two deaths and a life.”
“Go on…”
“The deaths I have already claimed. You will let your men know the price of my displeasure, and there will be no reprisals against me for their weakness.”
“And the life?”
“The woman, Carag. You will give her to me as a gift, as I was once given to her, and I will free her as she once freed me. I will pay another debt and you will benefit as well - she is a master smith and will make strong armor for your warriors.”
“I know this woman, she is marked for death as the mother of my enemy.”
“Carag had no love for her son and would have killed him herself had she been able.”
“And you swear to this? On your life, she will take no action against me or my men?”
“I swear it.”
He thought a moment, searching her face for any sign of deceit and finding none. “Then we are agreed and your debt to Carag is paid. We will be married at the new moon.”
Ailith nodded her agreement and they walked out together.
Rathmar spoke to his men as they exited the tent. “This is Ailith, slayer of Vor. She will be my third wife and give me many fierce sons!” If they were surprised at the decision - or at the fact that his lieutenants did not emerge with him - they did not show it.

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Mathan Campbell @mathancampbell.bsky.social · 25/05/2026

True for Rome and all its imitators ever since, including this one.

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Mathan Campbell @mathancampbell.bsky.social · 15/04/2026

One of the big problems / risk points with AI is that people inside the AI bubble assume what comes out of the machine is correct - all evidence to the contrary. When incorrect data gets backed into products without adequate human review, bad things happen.

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Mathan Campbell @mathancampbell.bsky.social · 12/04/2026

If you think you're part of the "resistance" to fascism and also want to disarm the working class, you're actually a collaborator and need to either come to terms with that fact or change your stance.

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Mathan Campbell @mathancampbell.bsky.social · 04/05/2025

Reminder that the Lorax took the same approach of speaking out and bearing witness that Democrats are taking and it didn't work out so well. Resistance must be active or it's meaningless.

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Mathan Campbell @mathancampbell.bsky.social · 05/04/2025

Howard Zinn, with some words many of us need to read today.

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Mathan Campbell @mathancampbell.bsky.social · 16/02/2025

Found a friend while weeding to remove non-native plants at the edge of my woods. Not a worm, look close to spot the legs! #amphibians

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Mathan Campbell @mathancampbell.bsky.social · 14/02/2025

Happy chosen birthday to one of my heroes, Frederick Douglass. I first read his autobiography when I was 12 and was inspired by his intellect, his humor, his courage, his integrity, and his determination. If ever I find myself doubting that a person can change the world, I return to his story.

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Mathan Campbell @mathancampbell.bsky.social · 14/02/2025

@aclu.org shared this on another platform. The text is clear and unambiguous. It has also been violated before - the Chinese Exclusion Act forcibly and illegally deported many Californians of Chinese descent, stripping them of homes and citizenship.

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Mathan Campbell @mathancampbell.bsky.social · 05/02/2025

Here's the first iteration from 2 years ago. One of the things I found in my research is that one of the big threats to wildlife from backyard ponds is temperature variations and a bigger pond is far more stable in temp, which makes better habitat. So I started at roughly 10x12 and then expanded.

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