Next short story in the works: " The Land Before Tim".

Word of God has it dinosaurs are involved. Yep yep!

Elf Inflicted is live!

Get it now!

Elf Inflicted coming soon!

It should be $0.99 as part of the current Kindle Countdown.

Woot!

Kindle Countdown going on now!

Right now, all the Caverns and Creatures short stories and novels are only $0.99! The short story collections (d6, 2d6) remain $9.99, so buying the short stories piecemeal is actually a better deal.

Get some!

New story in the pipes

Word of God says it'll be called Elf Inflicted and the rough draft is around 15,000 words. Here's hoping we get another story closer to the 3d6 collection by Christmas!

Issues with Critical Failures 3 downloads

According to Robert Bevan's Facebook, people who downloaded a Kindle copy of Critical Failures 3 in the last day or so would have gotten a copy of Critical Failures 2 by accident. The issue has been resolved now, so you should be able to get the right book now.

Naga Please is live!

The Amazon description: "These big snake bitches think they can step to Dave and the C and C crew? Naga Please."
Buy it now!

Full disclosure: Mr. Bevan was kind enough to ask me to beta read this. I still laid out three dollars for it because I want to see him get mainstream success and every grain of sand helps, right?

New short story coming soon

Title is "Naga Please" and tentative release date is on or before October 6.

Apologies for the lapse in blogging. I've spent the last week and a half moving.

Ok, I spent all but the last day of it putting off moving, but you know what I mean.

New Bevanism

"...+5 Staff of Leprosy..."

From the latest short story, "House of Madness". Pick it up if you haven't already!

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00NQA0Q0A?cache=5694529ab024233fd658e883fd5c7a10&pi=SY200_QL40&qid=1411228688&sr=8-3#ref=mp_s_a_1_3

House of Madness is live! Go! GO!

Get some!

Quote O' The Day

"We're getting near the Piss Bucket," said Tony the elf. "The first person to talk before we get there is getting stabbed in the face."

-Critical Failures II: Fail Harder

Today's Bevanism

"We're going to need something to feed her," said Tim. "Arby's isn't going to cut it."

"I'll keep my eyes open for orphanages," said Stacy.

-Critical Failures III: A Storm of S-words

Quote o' the day

"Every bonus I get comes from either being short or a bigot."

"Are you saying you've got nothing against kobolds?"

"Or course not," said Professor Goosewaddle, keeping his eyes on the book. "I mean, not the good ones."

-Critical Failures III: A Storm of S-words

Coming soon-"House of Madness" (short story)

According to RB's latest Facebook update, we can expect a new short story soon, tentatively titled "House of Madness".

Woot!

New C and C short story in October?

From the Robert Bevan Facebook page:

"Working on another seasonally themed short story to relieve you all of some Halloween money. :)"

Sounds good to me!

Today in Bevan

Today, Robert Bevan hit spot #144 in Amazon sales rankings. That's one gross...

Bevan Quote O' The Day

"He jumped off of the bed as though it were on fire, grabbed the femur like it was made out of second chances, and backed up against the corner of the cell with the shit hole."

-Critical Failures I: Shit Is About To Get Real

Robert Bevan review of "Bumping Uglies"

" I'm super thrilled and honored by this."

This means a lot. I wrote my fan fiction trying to be respectful of the Caverns and Creatures universe while I shat all over it. I don't know if I have more Rule 34 in me, but if I do, it'll be something to do with Drizzt and Bruenor.

No lawsuits yet.

Mr. Bevan was even nice enough to post a link to this blog on his FB  page. Woo-hoo! Intellectual property: appropriated. Brand: diluted.

But seriously, he's been a hell of a good sport about this, so major props to Mr. B.

7200+ words, and even the non-swears are tainted by association

Whew. It felt good to get that out. Like Metamucil breaking through months of constipation.

Bumping Uglies-Conclusion (fan fiction)

     Leaning back on his elbows, Cooper tilted his head back and closed his eyes. The combination of warm sun, cold water between his toes, and being well on his way to shitfaced was making him sleepy. The bellyful of booze inside him sloshed gently as he reclined, drawing a small burp out of him and then a tiny fart. Between the soft birdsong and gentle buzz of bees pollinating the hedge, Lord Hefnus' snore was almost completely drowned out. He could almost feel the fatigue washing away from him, much like the filth on his submerged feet. For the first time since Mordred had banished him and his friends into this fucked up fantasy world, Cooper felt at peace.

     Naturally, this was the point at which Rhonda sat down beside him and grabbed his junk.

     Cooper's eyes jerked open and he sat upright. The sudden compression of his torso squeezed out a squeaker of a fart. This had the effect of making Rhonda simultaneously recoil and tighten her grip.

     Cooper roared, “What the hell--”--and here Lord Hefnus stirred in his chaise lounger, reducing Cooper to a stage whisper--”what the hell are you doing?” Hefnus subsided back into slumber.

     “Making Julian jealous”, replied Rhonda as she waved away the fart with her other hand. A few awkward strokes and she already had Cooper at half mast. “Although Dave would probably have done the trick, and not made me nauseous, either.”

     “I'm not complaining, but this may not be the best idea on your part”, said Cooper. “There's no telling what kind of diseases I'm carrying.” To accentuate his point, he plucked a louse from his scalp and squashed it between two filthy fingers.

     “Well, that's the beauty of living in a fantasy stereotype”, was Rhonda's response. “I get a Saving Throw to not be affected by diseases, and in the worst case scenario, we have a fifth level cleric back at the bar who will cast Cure Disease if he knows what's good for him. Now let's get this over with.”

     Cooper scooted back from the edge of the pool onto the grass and jerked the front of his grimy loincloth to the side. A piece of hide apparently taken from some fur-bearing creature just before it died of mange, it had seen better days. The only way to distinguish the front from the back was that the stains were lighter colored in front. He couldn't believe this was happening. Was he really about to get laid as an almost superhumanly repulsive half-orc? For free?

     Meanwhile, Rhonda had hiked her robe up around her hips, revealing a pair of well-marbled thighs. It was a shame that fantasy art had evolved since the seventeenth century, she reflected. She squatted down and advanced on Cooper.

     Cooper, seeing a pyramid of dumpy female flesh approaching, crawfished back a little farther involuntarily. He'd done worse, while not even drunk as he was now. But somehow Rhonda's perpetual scowl cut right through the gentle haze offered by beer goggles and fired anti-boner rays at his crotch. “Geez, can you whip out your tits or something? You're looking at me like I killed your dog, and I could use the distraction.”

     With the disgusted grunt that accompanied her almost every motion or sentence, Rhonda obliged. Spitting into her hand, she reached for the bumpy, grey shaft of Cooper's schlong. Maybe he was just a shower and not a grower.

     “Um, actually, can you put them back in? It turns out, nipples don't make pancakes more interesting. It's actually kinda really fucked up.”

     “You think this is any easier for me, asshole? I had to use a perfectly good first level spell slot to cast Grease. Close your eyes and think of England.”

     It was good advice, Cooper reflected. With Rhonda's hand working his semi-stiffy, he exhaled and flipped through a mental Rolodex of carnality. A Waffle House at Christmas...no. Blindfolded in a dark barn at an alligator farm...almost. And then, it came to him unbidden, a memory of a happier time, of soulful brown eyes regarding him with utter trust and love, a choke chain, and some strategically placed peanut butter... “Houston, we have liftoff”, he said, grinning through his tusks.

     “Finally”, said Rhonda as she slid onto Cooper. No sooner had she climbed aboard than her eyes crossed, and she started spasming. Her head and limbs jerked around as if they were on marionette strings, and a series of low grunts came out of her mouth as she fell right back off into the grass. Her vision blurred, then went white.

     Slowly color flowed back into Rhonda's field of vision, then formless blobs coalesced into Cooper's bestial face hovering above hers, showing equal parts fear and confusion. Also, a bulbous green booger almost but not quite hanging out of his left nostril. Of course.

     “Are you okay? You went grand mal there for a minute. How many fingers am I holding up? Do you smell burnt toast? Um, do I get to finish?”

     Rhonda waved away Cooper's hand and questions, then rubbed her temples. “I'm fine, back off for a second and let me think, okay?” She stood up and ran her hands through her hair, then began a monologue, pacing back and forth by the side of the pool.

     “Okay, so we know this world is a product of Mordred's imagination, and follows a lot of common fantasy tropes because he's too lazy to do much world building on his own. I think what just happened was that I ran up against the limits of Mordred's imagination. I have to give him credit for knowing that women can have orgasms, but I'm pretty sure he has no idea how they happen, or what it takes to make them happen. And because he's such a patriarchal little shit, he probably assumes that all the average man has to do is stick his wang in a hoo-hah, and that woman comes her brains out, maybe literally, haha, and becomes his sex slave for life.”

     “Does that mean you're going to finish me off now?', asked Cooper plaintively.

     “There is probably some sort of opposed Charisma roll”, reasoned Rhonda. “I started out Hostile, so with your penalty, you might have needed a Natural 20 to have even had a chance. Don't look too gloomy, though, there's still a thing or two I want to test out.”

     With that, Rhonda pushed Cooper back onto the grass. Gritting her teeth, she straddled him once more. “Back home, I almost never got off unless I was angry. The only time I ever enjoyed myself was right after a fight.” She started to move up and down slowly, gritting her teeth and occasionally letting out little yips like a coyote. “I would get to thinking about how my ex was denying my agency by trying to tell me how to drive, how he would never check his privilege--” -here her thrusting started to pick up momentum- “wouldn't admit he was homophobic because he'd never had sex with a man, participated in numanumnumnum rape culture by following the Lakers, ohshitohdamnohhell, he, he, he, would expect me to pick up the tab at dinner!”

     At this last, Rhonda started spasming and bucking uncontrollably. The extra friction was too much for Cooper, who in his imagination had been dipping a finger into the peanut butter jar for a second round. As his body arched up in orgasm (orc-gasm?), a long rumbling fart erupted from between his clenched cheeks, followed by a medium sized turd. Even his massive strength couldn't hold Rhonda's twitching body aloft for more than a few seconds, though, and his ass slammed right back down into the mess.

     It was probably time for a new loincloth.

     Rhonda came to again to see Cooper offering her a glass of lemon water. The bizarre tableau of a grungy half-orc, illusory naked servants, and a snoring senile archmage getting a sunburn in a lounge chair was too much. She accepted the glass, then closed her eyes again. Pressing the cool glass to her forehead, she sighed.

     “So is it true that once you go orc, you...hold on, I know I can come up with something here...” Cooper's face bunched up in concentration.

     “That would have been a one-time offer even if you weren't a walking advertisement for Depends”, Rhonda snarled. Apparently the afterglow had a very short half-life with her.

     “Got it---once you go orc, you're ruined for any other kind of pork? Huh? Huh?” Cooper leered at Rhonda, one of the few expressions that he could pull off really well. His rhyme was met with an outstretched middle finger.

     “Actually, I just had another idea. I bet Mordred automatically assumes that size is paramount when it comes to pleasing a woman. We need to go talk to Julian.”

     “I can assure you I'm way bigger than him! This one time, we were on a raft, and we had to use all our clothes to---” Rhonda shushed Cooper, then helped him to his feet.

     “I've had a change of heart. Don't get me wrong, what just happened with us was awesome. I'd even go so far as to say that you made it tardally awesome. But my plans now go way past getting to Julian by going through you.”

     “Oh, my God, you don't mean---?”

     “Oh, yes, Cooper. I've got to go see a man about a horse.”

 

 

                                                                          FIN

Bumping Uglies-Part 5 (fan fiction)

     Actually, they are a variation of the mmm, Unseen Servant spell, with a bit of, mmm, illusion thrown in to make them, well, seen servants,” said Lord Hefnus. “I seem to recall having flesh and blood staff at one point, but I can't, mmm, remember for the life of me what happened to them.”

     “They're probably fertilizing your killer shrubbery,” opined Cooper, holding his now empty bottle upside down in an attempt to glean a last drop or two.

     “They were retconned into illusions after I told Mordred just what I thought of his creepy little Xanadu. Caverns and Creatures? More like Dungeons and Date Rape!” Rhonda growled. “I explained to him how damaging the male gaze was to women with body issues, and he thought he could make it all better by making the sex slaves mindless automatons! I told him, 'only a privileged cis patriarch would think further objectification was a solution', and that's when he handed me that d20. And I was so close to finishing my degree in Women's Studies, too. Gimme a refill here.” This last was punctuated by waving her glass at the nude image of what seemed to be a human woman from the neck down and a cuttlefish from the neck up.

     “I'd probably banish you too if you implied I was your sister”, said Cooper. “Unless she got the non-bitch genes.”

     “Cisgender, you unspeakable choad. Why don't you try reading a book sometime?”

     “Illiterate, remember? Also, I find choad to be a hurtful and sexist nomenclature. Surely a socially aware woman like yourself knows that is our word and you have no right to use it!”

     Rhonda pretended not to hear, instead turning her attention to Julian and Tim. With Julian's Constitution penalty and Tim's pint-sized frame, alcohol affected them much more quickly than in their real-world bodies. Fifteen minutes ago, they'd been fighting for their lives. Now it looked like they were in a race to catch the train to Blackout City.

     “You two morons better head back to the Whore's Head”, Rhonda scolded. “I'm not dragging your sorry asses, and who knows what comes out after dark in this lech's bachelor pad? Come on, Dave, you're the least fucked up, take 'em home.”

     Grumbling, Dave put an arm around Tim and grabbed Julian's hand. They made their way through the hedge, being careful to give a wide berth to anything even remotely vine-like. As they staggered through Cooper's entry hole in the fence, Julian had to break off and add a splash of bright purple stomach contents to the whitewashed exterior. None of his elven grace was on display as he trotted to catch up with the others.

     “You know, you got me thinking”, said Cooper.

     “You, thinking? That's not what I'd call it”, snapped Rhonda.

     “Shut up and pour yourself another drink”, said Cooper. “Hefnus here is a wizard,” -here he pointed to the gently snoring form of Lord Hefnus splayed across his lounge chair- “and he's practically dead, so that makes him basically a lich, right? A lech lich! What do you think the Challenge Rating on that would be?”

     “Higher than you could count without taking your shoes off, I'm sure. Maybe even your loincloth.”

     “I bet you'd like to see me without my loincloth, huh?”

     “Maybe if I'd just swallowed poison by accident and needed to puke. Of course, standing downwind of you also has pretty much the same effect.”

     “Yeah, well, Julian may have four times as much Charisma as me, but I've got four times the package.”

     “Four point two five, dumbass. And leave Julian out of this. Any comparison you make with him is only going to make you look even worse.”

     “Sounds like someone has a crush on Juliaaaaan”, teased Cooper. “Just wait till I tell him you want to make the beast with two backs, one of them much hairier than the other-”

     “You say a word of that and I'll cast Sleep on you, then Coup De Grace the fuck out of you, you orc-shaped pile of shit!”

     “Simmer down, Her-Menstrually Granger, I'm just kidding around. Have another drink already.”

     Pouring out the last of the Whistlethorn from the bottle that hadn't been tainted by his mouth, Cooper topped off Rhonda's glass. For a moment, the only sound was Lord Hefnus' soft snore. When he wasn't conscious to order his servants around, they would stand in place as if there was an invisible art class somewhere rendering them in charcoal. Handing off the glass, Cooper sat down and put his feet in the pool. None of the brightly colored fish darting around in it stopped moving or floated to the surface, so they were likely illusory as well.

     Rhonda cast a glance at Cooper splashing his feet in Lord Hefnus' pool and took another sip of the amazingly smooth brandy. With a shudder, she noticed that his legs were significantly paler from the shins down. Shallow and about ten feet across, the water in the pool wasn't tea-colored yet, but it was definitely getting there. Steeling herself, she finished off the glass, then sat down next to Cooper. This was going to be tougher than she expected.

*** 

Bumping Uglies-part 4 (fan fiction)

     Wandering towards the market square, Julian and Ravenus stopped for a moment at the sight of a fence with a small hole drilled into it and a grappling hook at the top of it. The sounds of trickling water and female laughter wafted over enticingly, making Julian's long elven ears twitch. Closing his eyes for a minute, Julian smiled and blushed simultaneously as he imagined the debauchery that must be going on just a few dozen feet from the street. His reverie was broken by Cooper tossing pebbles at his face.

     “Step aside, buddy,” Cooper said while clambering out of the cart. “I need to check on Shangri-la. Don't wait up, Tony, we'll meet you back at the bar.” With a mocking salute to Cooper, Tony went on.

     Turning to face Julian, Cooper's grin expanded, showing brown and rotting tusks. “Dude, this place is like the Playboy mansion! When Mordred did his world-building, it's where he put the spank bank. That creepy little virgin wasn't completely wasting his time. Last week they had a naked badminton tournament. Here, check it out.”

     “That's cool and all,” opined Julian. “But why isn't every perv in the city lined up against this wall? And if this is the Playboy mansion, where's Hugh Hefner?”

     “Not to worry, dude, I did my homework. It's Lord Hefnus”-here Julian groaned and did a face palm- “and the guy is like 117 or so and totally out of it. Used to be some kind of heavy duty wizard, and still holds an honorary seat on the city council. But nowadays, pretty much all he does is sleep, drool, and throw naked picnics.”

     “Ok, leaving aside the fact that you somehow made a Gather Information check despite the fact that you aren't even housebroken, don't wizards usually have all kinds of weird magical protection? He could have fifty-year-old spells laying around just waiting to turn somebody into a frog or summon demons to rip off our heads and shit down our necks.”

     “I'm telling you, he's just a geezer who likes to party. As long as you're quiet, it's safe as-”

     “Shit! Getitoffgetitoffgetitoff me!” What was unmistakably Dave's voice came from over the fence, followed by Tim's startled whoop. Cooper and Julian looked at each other, perplexed, then looked at the top of the wall. A flash of red beard could be briefly seen above it, covered in vines and foliage, then dipped back down.

     Always the first to act, Cooper hauled his axe from the strap on his back. “I'm really angry!” No sooner had he said the words than his pupils shrank to tiny black dots, his arms bulged, and his beer gut relocated itself vaguely upwards on his torso. With one swing and another backhand, he laid open the flimsy wooden fence, revealing a scene of panic, mayhem, and titties in all shades, shapes, and sizes. Some sort of giant vine had a hold of Dave, who was ineffectually flailing at it with his mace. Tim had dropped his crossbow and was poking at it with a dagger. Some sap was oozing from the vines, but Tim didn't seem to be making much headway. A dozen yards off, Lord Hefnus dozed in his lounger while nude women stood around him, seemingly oblivious to the intruders.

     “Don't worry, Dave! I won't leaf you hanging!,” roared Cooper, charging forward. As he moved in, the long grasses and rose vines of the hedge reached in towards him and tangled up his feet, sending him sprawling and his axe flying out of his hands.

     Julian stood at the new gate Cooper had just bashed open. His friends were in trouble, maybe way out of their depth. He didn't think a Magic Missile would do much to a giant plant, much less a Ray of Frost. There was an old standby that had served him well many times in the past though...

     “Horse,” said Julian, pointing at the area near Dave. A roan stallion popped into existence and immediately reared as the vegetation holding Cooper down started to reach for it. “Start eating the vines around Dave,” Julian told the horse, while reaching into his pockets for a pinch of horse hair to cast another Mount spell.

     While the carnivorous plant had three new targets to deal with, Tim was able to jump up onto the vine holding Dave up in the air and drag it down. His tiny halfling hands were able to pull away the vines constricting Dave's throat, revealing ugly purple welts. Then he started sawing away with his dagger as carefully as possible.

     Still in the throes of his Rage ability, a few scraggly branches weren't about to keep Cooper down. Struggling up to his feet, he snatched his axe away from the vines' clutch, and started hacking away at the main vine leading into the ground. This sent the entire vine structure into spasms of pain. Some of the smaller vines started twitching randomly, and the larger vine around Dave uncoiled, leaving him gasping and choking.

     The horse Julian had summoned made its way towards Dave and bent its neck down. Seeing that Dave was already free, it noticed a large bunch of succulent smelling fruit. Leaning in, it took a bite. With a toss of its mane, it pulled the fruit free and started chewing. Green fluid spurted from the base of the plant where the sac had been torn, quickly turning to almost black.

     Cooper's attacks on the taproot had angered the plant before, but suddenly it was beyond pissed. Uprooting a few yards of itself, it wrapped around Cooper in a deathgrip. Even raging, it was all he could do to not have it squeeze his internal organs out like shit-flavored toothpaste. Grapevines and rosebush branches all converged on the horse, and once more it reared up and screamed as the flesh was stripped from its bones. The vines that had recoiled from Dave were joined by others, and they wrapped him and Tim together in a chlorophyll burrito.

     Julian watched in dismay as his friends' struggles with the murderous vegetation weakened. The horse he had summoned gave a final terrified scream as vines crushed the life out of it, then the cocoon of thorns and branches collapsed as it went back to wherever it had come from. Racking his brain for anything that could buy a little more time, he raised his hands and started chanting the nonsense words that would bring forth a Magic Missile.

     “Ustulo radius!”

     Julian felt a searing heat from behind him as a yellow ray streaked past his left shoulder and struck the plant in the fruit cluster that had been the horse's first and last meal. No sooner had it struck than the grapevines and the animated hedge of roses and grass shuddered, then went still. Tim and Dave started to unravel themselves from what they had thought was going to be their final embrace. Cooper managed to shrug off the vines, then start chopping them at random. “Fuck you, plant! Have a drink of this!” Lifting up the front of his loincloth, Cooper started to spray the hacked up vine with putrid urine.

     Julian turned around to see Rhonda standing just outside the hole in the fence, trying to strike a dramatic pose. “You boys looked like you needed some help,” she said with a smirk. “Lucky for you I came along.”

     “Thanks for the assist, Hogwarts,” said Cooper, shaking off. “What brought you out here? Shopping for a new broomstick? Or did you need to replace the one stuck up your butt?”

     “None of your damn business,” snapped Rhonda. “And speaking of sticks in butts, I bet Dave would be glad if you tried using a cork sometime.”

   “Get a... room, you two,” gasped Tim, rubbing his throat. He turned to the weakly struggling Dave and helped him get the last few vines untangled. “Time to put those magic hands of yours to work, buddy.”

     Dave looked beyond Tim and pointed. A rough semicircle of women in the altogether had formed near the scene of the fracas. Propped against two Amazonian human women, Lord Hefnus blearily grinned at the group.

     “Mmm, very naughty of you, breaking my fence and killing my hedge, very naughty indeed,” he said, his head lolling to the right. “Ought to string you up good and proper, mmm, except I'm all out of rope. Won't you all come in for a drink?”

     Glances were exchanged. Julian looked at Rhonda, who had nothing but a disgusted sneer for him. Then he looked at Tim, who was sharing a look with Dave. Tim was pointing an index finger at his temple and spinning it in a circle and looking at Dave questioningly, while Dave just shrugged. Cooper, confronted with breasts at several different heights, was doing his best to give himself whiplash.

     “Whistlethorn, mmm, Brandy, anyone?,” asked Lord Hefnus, lifting a deep purple bottle from a dais covered with them. “Only the, mmm, '47, I'm afraid, nasty war with the minotaurs that year, or was it centaurs? Dracotaurs? Definitely, mmm, one of those taur people. Mmm, at any rate, it was amazing anything got harvested...Cinnamon, mmm, fetch us some glasses, won't you?” A platinum blonde with a deep tan separated herself from the gaggle of playmates and arrayed five clean glasses for the group.

     “No need, this one suits me just fine,” said Cooper, snatching another bottle from the dais and upending it. “Pig,” Rhonda muttered. Draining a third of the bottle in one gulp, Cooper emitted a belch that started in his toes and gained volume as it worked its way up and out.

     “Now there's a man, er half-man, anyway that enjoys his drink!,” said Lord Hefnus, the fog of senility seeming to lift a little. “Drink up now, mmm, all of you.” Dave, Tim, and Julian all grabbed their glasses eagerly, Rhonda gingerly. “To our gracious host,” said Julian, raising his glass. “And the lovely ladies he surrounds himself with!”

Bumping Uglies-Part 3 (fan fiction)

***

     His face red with exertion, Dave struggled to keep up with the little group of Tim and the alchemists. No matter how hard he tried, his armor and stubby dwarven legs ensured he was never quite able to keep up with the rest of the group. This meant he was always going to take rear guard.

     Tim was darting around the cluster of potion brewers, alternately keeping an eye out on the front and flanks. Pickpockets were his main concern, but even a careless NPC blundering into them could cause them to drop and break a fragile potion bottle. No doubt Mordred had drawn up a table detailing any number of horrible outcomes that would occur in that eventuality. Looking back, he saw Dave leaning against a fence, panting. “Haul ass, Dave! We're almost to the market square!” Dave didn't appear to hear him, and put his face up against the fence. Tim trotted back to see what had caught Dave's attention.

     Dave motioned Tim to come closer. “Oh man, check this out! Someone drilled a hole in this fence here and-look, just check it out!” Music and laughter wafted from over the top of the fence.

     Tim looked into the hole Dave vacated and saw a tableau that would have made Hieronymus Bosch hand in his paints and take up heavy drinking. A garden with fruit trees, flowers, fountains, and a shallow pool. Naked females of every fantasy race Tim had seen and a few he could only guess at were lounging around the pool and splashing each other. A wizened man in a purple silk robe sat in a chaise lounge under an umbrella. An elf and a gnome woman in their birthday suits seemed to be giving him a pedicure. A persistent tugging on his shirt sleeve that seemed to increase in urgency...

     “C'mon, Tim, quit hogging the view!”, Dave whined, finally opting to use his superior dwarf mass to push Tim aside and replace him at the peephole. “Don't you need to be guarding the potion peddlers or something?”

     “No more than you, dickweed”, said Tim. “Change of plans: we need to crash that fossil's party, and damn the consequences.” Reaching into his backpack, he pulled out a length of silk rope with a halfling-sized grappling hook at the end.

     “I don't remember you buying that”, said Dave.

     “Me either”, said Tim. “I don't even recall seeing it in the pack, but I guess if you have Thieve's Tools, it's just assumed you have whatever you need to do rogue stuff. Just another fucked-up way this world works. Thanks, Mordred.” Content that the grappling hook was secure, he handed the rope to Dave. “Ladies first.”

     Had they been in their real-world bodies, the fence would have been a minor challenge at best. At half their height, though, it was a major obstacle. Dave's first attempt was to take a running start and try to run up the side of the fence. After skidding back down, Tim tried to give him a boost up. All this succeeded in doing was Tim getting Dave's hobnailed boot in his face. Finally, Tim got on his hands and knees and let Dave run up, then jump off his back. This got Dave two-thirds of the way up, letting him apply the strength in those stubby dwarven legs to power him up to the top of the fence. Dave wavered at the top of the fence for a moment, then managed to throw the rope back to Tim before doing a Karl Wallenda over the other side. Judging from the rustling and muffled cursing that immediately followed, Tim deduced the landing had lived up to Dave's usual grace.

     Much lighter on his feet than Dave, Tim was able to scramble up the side and perch on top of the fence. He grinned down at Dave, who was still trying to extricate himself from a rose bush with inch-long thorns. “Now, don't you wish you'd put a point or two in the Climb skill?”

     Dave finally managed to pull himself free of the bush's grasp and fall on his back, panting. His armor had deflected most of the thorns, but his face and arms were peppered with tiny oozing holes. After wiping the blood from his face with his leopard-furred forearm, he covered his face with one hand and muttered, “I heal me.” His body shuddered with something like a piss shiver as one by one, the holes stopped bleeding and new skin grew over them. “That feels so good, it's almost worth getting chewed up by a plant. Now let's go catch an eyeful of skin before they kick us out.”

     Making their way around the perimeter of the fence and taking care to avoid the prickly hedge, Tim and Dave made their way towards a tiny grape arbor. “It's a small miracle nobody saw or heard you flop over the fence”, whispered Tim, “but I don't want to take any more risks than we have to. We'll hide out here and spy out just what the hell's going on here.”

     Using the hedge as cover, Tim and Dave watched the elderly man drift in and out of consciousness as he received a shoulder massage from the elf maiden. So intent were they on getting a glimpse of pert elf boob, neither of them noticed the grapevines slowly unfurling and reaching down towards them...

***

     After swapping out the last full piss barrel at the tanner's, Cooper swung a leg up to take shotgun on the cart's bench. “Nuh uh, big guy”, said Tony. “You're still wearing about a gallon of orc perfume there. In the back you go.”

     “You wouldn't do this if I was Rosa Parks,” sulked Cooper.

     “Feel free to sing 'We Shall Overcome' if you want, but your reek is making me gag,” said Tony. As if to punctuate his statement, one of the mules lifted its tail and farted.

     “You don't wanna challenge me in that department, mule!”, Cooper said. Nestled among the barrels, he lifted one leg to release a prolonged bass fart that ended in a wet gurgle. Not to be outdone, the mule released another pile of turds as Tony twitched the reins and the cart started back towards the Whore's Head.

     “Have you ever thought-and I realize that where you're concerned, I'm using that verb in its loosest possible meaning,” asked Tony, “that maybe changing your diet could help you in that department? I mean, if you weren't blotto twelve hours a day, you might not have constant beer shits?”

     “Have you ever considered-and understand, I'm saying this as one of her most loyal customers, that if your mom charged more than a dime for head, she could have retired by now?” Yawning, Cooper stretched out. “Let me know when we go by Lord Hefnus's estate. I want to check out that peephole I drilled in his fence."

***

Bumping Uglies-Part 2 (fan fiction)

     Cooper strained to get the first barrel onto the wagon. Tony the Elf watched with barely concealed contempt. “Try using your legs more”, he offered in a tone that suggested he was less interested in being helpful and more interested in seeing Cooper fall onto his face and into the steaming pile of turds the mule pulling their wagon had just deposited onto the street.

     “Up yours, long-ears. These things are all kinds of heavy. Why don't you get down and give me a hand?.”

     “Well, for one, I just had my tunic washed, and for another, it's taking all of my Handle Animal skill to keep the mule from bolting from the stench.”

     "C'mon, the piss doesn't smell that bad. Certainly not much worse than it did when it was beer.”

     “The piss? No, that's not the smell I'm worried about. Hurry up, we have five more taverns to hit, and Snulbug at the tannery likes his liquid gold fresh.”

     After securing the barrel, Cooper climbed up into the back of the wagon. Trying to spark a conversation, he asked Tony, “So what do you know about Rhonda? I used to think she was the town bicycle, but I walked in on her dropping the kids off at the pool this morning and I could have sworn I saw cobwebs on that thing.”

     “Rhonda? I don't know, and I don't want to know. When you're an elf, anyone who isn't another elf pretty much looks like they got rejected from the cast of Deliverance for being too inbred. Even accounting for that though, she just rubs people the wrong way. When I think about it though, it's weird. Most women with her looks develop a great personality to compensate. I actually kind of respect her a little more for staying a bitch.”

     “I've got a low Charisma too, and I don't try to compensate”, Cooper protested. “Aren't you being hypocritical?”

     “Dude, you could put out an orphanage fire every day of the week and you'd still be the guy who sharts on Dave every other morning. There's only so much a friendship can take, you know? Now don't get me wrong, you and your friends have done a lot since you got here, but if you're trying to get your dick wet, you need to look elsewhere. Even if she didn't loathe you, she has issues of her own. Frostbite on the pecker is the last thing you want, man”.

     “What, are you saying she's frigid?”

     “Like I said before, I don't know, and I don't want to know. But I was thinking more of her casting Ray of Frost on your johnson. Your actions in this world can have consequences you wouldn't even be able to imagine in the real world. Herpes might look like a blessing.”

     At the mention of herpes, Cooper scratched under his loincloth thoughtfully. “That's exactly what I thought after banging your mom! But seriously, I haven't found a hooker here yet willing to take my money. Guess I'll just keep rubbing them out while I think about Stuart's wife.”

     Tony shuddered, then twitched the reins to get the mule moving.

***

     Julian wiped the sweat from his forehead before throwing another armload of sliced carrots and potatoes into the giant cauldron. He'd never really appreciated the effort Barney put into keeping all the other real-world adventurers fed before today. After making it clear through a series of sighs and gestures, that Ravenus, with his tendency to drop shit at random intervals, was not welcome in the kitchen, Barney had gone on an extended smoke break, leaving Julian to his own devices.

     Julian sniffed the stew. It didn't seem to be burning, but then again, it wasn't nearly as appealing as what Barney managed to dish out every night. Maybe he would put a point into the Cooking skill, the next time he leveled up...

     When he turned back to the counter for another round of slicing, Julian saw that Rhonda had come into the kitchen from the tavern's main room. He wasn't sure what to make of the weird little smile on her face, or the way the front of her robe wasn't tightly drawn around her neck as usual. He'd never seen her wear makeup before, but there seemed to be a crude blotchy rouge applied to her cheeks, in much the same haphazard manner as the local whores would wear.

     “I heard Frank had you slaving away back here today”, Rhonda drawled, putting her hands on the counter and leaning forward. “I thought to myself, 'I bet he won't know what he's doing in the kitchen without a woman's...guiding touch.” Here, she lightly stroked a carrot on the cutting board.

     Julian swallowed. “Um...”.

     Rhonda leaned forward, her robe falling even farther open. “So how 'bout it? Do you like what you see?”

     With a Charisma score of 17 and a maxed-out Diplomacy skill, Julian was usually able, if not to smooth-talk his way out of just about any situation, at least be charming or good-looking enough to cover up for any social faux pas. However, the laws of Mordred's universe dictated that every so often, the dice that governed it would throw up a 1.

     “Stretch marks?”

     Rhonda picked up the carrot and threw it at Julian. “I don't know what I was thinking, I should have known all you elves are gay!” Drawing her robe tight, she stormed back out the way she had come in. Stunned, Julian picked the carrot up from the grimy floor and wiped it off on his serape. “Five seconds”, he mumbled.

     With a squawk, Ravenus appeared at the sill of the narrow window that offered the kitchen's only ventilation. “Is everything all right, sir? It felt as though you were under attack!”

     “Nothing like that, buddy, but it sure feels like I dodged a bullet. I don't think I can do any more damage to this stew; let's see if we can meet up with Tim and Dave.”

     Gathering his staff and serape, Julian left via the kitchen's back entrance. Ravenus perched on his shoulder, chattering away. Neither noticed Rhonda furtively following them.

***

Bumping Uglies-Part 1 (fan fiction)

Bumping Uglies

by Gordon Guano

       (with apologies to Robert Bevan)

     No matter the hour, Cardinia's Collapsed Sewer district is never entirely quiet. The bustle of the day, with vendors hawking their wares and counting out an honest day's wage, gives way at dusk to the more furtive rustling of rogues trying to make a dishonest night's wage. More questionable items are traded in back alleys in a quiet rustle; these deals often end in a dying gurgle from one party. After midnight, drunken revelry can be heard from behind closed doors, and night watchmen in the more upscale districts can be heard calling the hours. Through it all, the constant gurgle of fermentation in the aforementioned collapsed sewers can be heard.

     Dawn comes on gradually, with vendors unfolding shades to their stalls, and a building cacophony of roosters heralding the sunrise. It is generally not considered to be the official start of a new day, though, until the Whore's Head tavern has been emptied out by Cooper's inaugurating fart.

     “For fuck's sake, Cooper, is your colon possessed by a demon or something?”, Tim asked, holding his nose, as the rest of the tavern's denizens assembled outside the front doors. Some were leaning against each other for support and a few were openly retching. Dave, as usual, had gotten the worst of it. He had been sleeping on the floor next to Cooper, and been spattered. Apparently Cooper's loincloth had ridden up in the back over the course of the night.

     “Shitohshitohshit, it's in my beeearrrd!”, wailed Dave. Casting about the bar for the nearest clean liquid, he upended the spittoon over his head. At least it was an improvement. Cooper, for his part, was groggily coming to from his comfortable puddle of dried vomit on the floor. His eyes grew wide as Dave waddled back across the floor and planted a kick on his ass.

     “Now it's on my feeeeet!”

     “Come on, guys, you know I can't help it!”, said Cooper. “And you know I'll clean up my puke as soon as I get up. That's gonna have to wait though. That fart was just a turd honking to get the right of way.”

     Staggering through the back exit in the kitchen, Cooper was confronted with the dual outhouses behind the tavern. Normally he was content to do his business against the side wall, as the privies were built more on the scale of a typical human and not a six-foot-plus half-orc. It had been pointed out that his piss was making the wooden walls rot at an accelerated rate though, and he was already starting the day in the hole.

     Throwing open the door to the nearest outhouse, Cooper was confronted by the sight of Rhonda the wizard's bare lower torso. She was contorting her pudgy body, holding her hiked-up robe under her second chin, and trying to clean off the remnants of her morning dump with a corncob.

     “What the fuck, Cooper? This is the women's outhouse! Can you not fucking read?”, shouted Rhonda as she dropped her robe to cover her distressed bird's nest of a bush. She raised her hand and started to mutter an incantation, then seemed to think better of it.

     “As a matter of fact, no, I can't read”, said Cooper defensively. “Barbarians are illiterate, remember? And for all I know, that picture on the door is Julian. He wears a dress, too, you know.”

     “It's a robe, dipshit. And you're such an ignorant swine, if we drew a dick on the other picture, you'd probably think it was for the gays and never leave. Actually, that gives me an idea...”

     “I don't have time to banter with someone who looks like she has a troll doll in a leglock”, grumbled Cooper. “This dump has been knocking on my back door politely so far, but it's about to break out the battering ram”. Opening the other outhouse's door, he reached in and pulled out a terrified halfling trying to light a pipe. “Sorry dude, but I need this more than you.” Positioning himself over the hole, Cooper's sphincter let go with an almost seismic rumbling.

     After the commotion had died down and everyone had gotten some breakfast in them, Frank the gnome began handing out work assignments. Tim and Dave drew security detail, making sure that the other real-world players who had selected the Alchemy skill made it safely to the market to hawk their potions. Julian would have to stay in and scribe out a Ray of Frost spell onto a scroll. Using them to chill beer or make blocks of ice had become something of a phenomenon among the upper crust, and demand for them was insatiable.

     “This is fricking stupid”, complained Julian. “It's a zero-level spell and it takes me, like, an hour to write one of these. I need half as much time to rest as anyone else, you'd think that would double my productivity. But no, I just have to sit here with my thumb up my butt until tomorrow.”

     “The rules can be dumb”, Frank agreed. “But by no means are you going to be sitting around with your thumb up your ass. Barney needs help prepping for dinner in the kitchen. Or if you don't like that, you can help your butt-buddy Cooper haul barrels of piss to the tannery.”

     “Potato peeling it is”, sighed Julian. “A wise choice, sir”, squawked Ravenus, flapping down from a rafter to settle on Julian's shoulder. “Not that I would expect any less from you.”

     Frank shook his head. “I guess I've seen it all now. The dead brought back to life, magic spells-it all pales in comparison to seeing a skinny elf ass getting kissed without lips. There's a riddle that would tie the Sphinx's dick in a knot. Now off to work, the both of you.”

Fan Fiction: Bumping Uglies

Ok, a little bit of background here. After Critical Failures 2 came out, I asked Robert Bevan via Facebook if Caverns and Creatures was Rule 34 compliant yet. It seemed to me that there was some tension between the characters of Cooper and Rhonda, and if it wasn't going against canon, would he let me write it as sexual tension? In what can only be described as a tragic lack of judgment, he said yes.

Because of my job and nomadic lifestyle, it has been all kinds of hard for me to get a flat space, my laptop, and a wifi connection all together at the same time. I've been working on this since February. It's definitely given me an appreciation for the work that goes into even a light comic fantasy novel. . So what I'd like to do is put my short story here, broken into several chunks. It's my love letter to the universe of Caverns and Creatures, even if it comes across more as a manifesto written from a tarpaper shack.

I'm new to Blogger and mostly only get to update by phone, so bear with me.

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Damn, but that is an impressive pic of the gang. Art by Josh Diffey (http://darthcestual.deviantart.com/)

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I'm making this blog for myself and other fans of Robert Bevan's books.  The plan is to repost Bevan updates, post fan fiction and art, discuss the Caverns and Creatures universe.and other fun stuff.