Frostgrave: Second Chances

While most of the attention lately has been on Ghost Archipelago, there is a very cool new release coming for Frostgrave this month: Frostgrave: Second Chances! This is the first, novel-length story set in the Frozen City, and it’s a doozy.

Here’s the blurb:

Time is running out for Yelen and Mirika Semova. Though the sisters have earned an enviable reputation amongst their fellow explorers of the Frozen City, their lives are haunted by a curse - the more Yelen uses her magic, the closer the demon Azzanar comes to claiming her, body and soul. But Azzanar is not the only one manipulating Yelen and Mirika...

When catastrophe separates the Semova sisters, it falls to Yelen to save them both. But in a city shrouded in deceit, who can she turn to for help... and what price will she pay to get it?

The story is written by Matthew Ward, who long-time fans may remember from The Tales of the Frozen City fiction collection that was released at the same time as the main Frostgrave rulebook. It was that story that convinced me that Matthew had a real handle on the setting, so when the opportunity came from someone to write a novel, he was the first person I approached. He wrote a synopsis, which I really liked, and everything lead on from there.

In some ways it has been tough to let go a bit, and give someone else room to play within the Frozen City (us writers can be jealous types, you know), but I have been involved at every step, with the power of veto over anything I didn’t like. As it turned out, it was a power I didn’t need. Matthew turned in such an enjoyable, character-driven, fantasy adventure, that I had little to say other than how much I liked it. And that is with me reading it as an unformatted manuscript (which strangely, does often make things much more tedious to read).

If you like Frostgrave, or just fantasy adventure novels, I suggest you give it a try.

To make the news even better, Dmitry and Kate Burmak did such a great job depicting the main characters on the cover, and a couple of pieces within, that North Star / Osprey Games just couldn’t resist getting them sculpted for the game. So, the incredibly talented Bobby Jackson was brought in to bring the sister ‘to life’ in metal. You can order them, along with the novel, from North Star.

If you need one final excuse, the novel also includes a exclusive Frostgrave scenario, written by yours-truly, based on one of the scenes in the novel.

I read a lot of tie-in fiction, and generally it is of a certain quality. I honestly believe this novel rises well above that level and could easily stand alongside most of the mainstream fantasy that is being produced today.