Raphael by R. A. MacAvoy

Title: Raphael
Author: R. A. MacAvoy
Year: 1984
Pages: 240 pages
Rating: 1 of 5 stars

This review is, unfortunately, by the numbers. 

Who is this author? R. A. MacAvoy is a wonderful science fiction and fantasy author, who by 1984 had 4 books in print. She is a careful researcher with excellent storytelling abilities. 

What is their idea? In this final chapter in Damiano's Lute trilogy, we follow the plight of Raphael as he wars with his brother Lucifer. 

How effectively does that person tell a story? Raphael is yet again a wonderfully well-researched historical fantasy novel set in 12th century Europe. This time, Raphael finds himself at Lucifer's mercy in Moorish Granada. Stripped of his angelic form and powers, he is sold in slavery where yet again, the growing cast of characters bring this story to a conclusion. 

What are the book's the strengths? The main strength of MacAvoy's writing is the careful research and blending of fantasy to bring her characters to life. The details of daily life in Granada are rich and engrossing while repellant as the main topic of this novel is slavery. Djoura was a fantastic addition to the story as both a powerful heroine and love interest to Raphael.  

What are the book's weaknesses?  Unfortunately, the book suffers from a lack of structure, where the established protagonists from Damiano and Damiano's Lute were secondary characters offered with zero development between the last installment and this one. Gaspare stands out as a very bad evolution from his prior self in other chapters of the story. 

Back in June of '85, White Dwarf Magazine offered the pronouncement that Raphael would be a Disneyfication of the series. While they probably hadn't read this particular book at the time, they weren't wrong. Many of the ideas of the series were heavily subverted by this installment and Raphael would have been much stronger had it been divorced from the rest of the series. 

What was particularly terrible was the Epilogue, which closed out the series perfectly. It was five-star writing tacked on to the end of a very slapdash work and accounts for much of Raphael's one-star rating. If the Epilogue had been tacked on either one of the prior books, on its strength alone, those titles would have been perfect. Even if MacAvoy simply copy-pasted it into each preceding piece. 

Sadly, the first 435 pages were not worthy of the last five pages. 

What made this ending so strong was the growth of Gaspare and the introduction of his family to the wild mix of history and fantasy. Viewed through a historical lens, many of the defining exploits of Damiano and his friends were mistakenly attributed to historical figures, which was an eye-opening insight into the depth of research and planning by MacAvoy. What should be a crowning achievement was twisted into a mere afterthought. 

One mourning star. 

You can search for Raphael on Abebooks.

Damiano's Lute by R. A. MacAvoy

Title: Damiano's Lute
Author: R. A. MacAvoy
Year: 1984
Pages: 254 pages
Rating: 4.5 of 5 stars

In the second of three books, R. A. MacAvoy's Damiano's Lute expands in the concepts from the first book and we find our hero being chased northwards and west by Plague and the Devil. As a sequel, it breaks the mold that follow-ups are afterthoughts. It is well crafted as the first book, rich in detail and peril of the 12th century. 

From 1983 to 1984, MacAvoy had 4 books published, an incredible achievement. 

Damiano's Lute shifts the story's location west and north and elevates Damiano's love interest from an Italian fantasy woman to a much more mature woman of the North. As the story evolves, many historical details pop out and lock this work of fiction into real-world settings. In this edition, MacAvoy explores not just Damiano Delstrego, but his companions Gaspare and Saara, who expand from sidekick and antagonists to fully formed characters with their own purposes and drives to be twisted by The Devil. Every character presented has a purpose and drive within the story of Damiano's Lute. MacAvoy adds characters at a frantic pace, but never leaves them hanging. Each one is added to serve the story with a graceful economy. 

Damiano's Lute stands strong on its own, a worthy second part to the story.

You can search for Damiano's Lute on Abebooks.

Damiano By R. A. MacAvoy

Title: Damiano
Author: R. A. MacAvoy
Year: 1983
Pages: 243 pages
Rating: 4 of 5 stars

Damiano is R. A. MacAvoy's opening book in her well-researched fantasy novel series. The titular hero begins his adventures in 12th century Italy. The author shows her craft by blending historical research with a coming-of-age story of the witch, Damiano Delstrego. 

Delstrego defends his beloved hometown of Partestrada with an unlikely crew: a dancing thief, Gaspare, Macchiata the talking dog, Festilligambe, a feral horse, and Raphael, music teacher and Chief of Eagles. They stand with honor and distinction against fear, bigotry, war, and The Devil himself. 

MacAvoy's detailed research allows magic to stand toe to toe with her chosen historical era to create an engrossing tale of drama and strife. It is rare that a fantasy novel manages to use touches history to the advantage of storytelling rather than merely remind the reader of where and when the characters are. The Devil, saints, and the Pope himself are in those details. 

Damiano is a powerful start to this three-book series. 

You can search for Damiano on Abebooks.

New Pens, New Art - Horses, Castle and Figures.

I picked up some new markers. These are the Faber-Castell Wallet of 4 PITT Artist Pens - Black and Sepia. Each set has one

• B: 1-5mm (Brush spread)
• M: 0.7mm
• F: 0.5mm
• S: 0.3mm

Right of the package, I did a quick sketch of a horse in Sepia. The brown is on the lighter side, but that gives you the ability to layer for deeper colors. 

I really like the feel of these pens. They are on the short thin side, but easy to hold. The brush glides smoothly over most types of paper, but I haven't given them a hard test of textured bristol board or (heaven forbid!) newsprint.

These are wonderful pens at this price point. 

Having fooled around with the sepia pens, I used the smaller nibs to do some sketches in black. I did two quick figures studies and some sort of space fighter. Even the small nibs glide nicely. Almost too nicely. I didn't want to lift the pen, which gave these studies a scratchy look. 

That's my hand, not the pens. 

Man with halberd	Swordsman

Later today, I will test them out with another drawing of a castle. 

The Best Thief Ever Rolled...

I said I wasn't going to create characters for the 31 day challenge back in this post here. Then I posted a list of 20 sets of die rolls for other people to use for characters. 

Well, tonight I got bored and started plugging in stats into characters. So shoot me. I lied. 

My method was from the original red box rules and I assigned stats in the order I rolled them. I started with clerics and went through every character type in order, one block of stats for each. When I got to the end, I started over until I ran out of statistics. 

The red box requires certain stats of 9 or better with a few exceptions. Clerics require a 13 in Wisdom while Thieves, FIghters and Magic Users have no required minimum stats. Every character type benefits from having one or two high stats for a better return on experience. Prime requisites kind of exist, but not really.   

When I made this list of die rolls, this one jumped out. It's the only time I ever recalled rolling four 1's in a roll. Then I thought how bad it would be to have this set of stats. As luck would have it, this block of rolls was assigned to a thief who has no required scores. I cocked my head in thought. 

Strength: 10
Intelligence: 16
Wisdom: 3
Dexterity: 11
Constitution: 15
Charisma: 18

Oh my god. He exactly the thief that you don't want in your party! He has high intelligence, enough to look down on people. He is charismatic so he can lead people into harms way. His constitution garners a slight bonus to hit points, hopefully enough to get out of some horrible mess he is bound to create. 

He's perfect! 

If you give a handwave to his backstory, he has a ton of gold because he stole his gear from mom and dad. He has some vaguely weapon-like implements from the kitchen and backyard plus handfuls of gold to lead his associates astray with promises of more. Of particular note are 3 maps his dad had in his chest of drawers. Obviously, those must lead to treasure even if they are clearly standard maps of the Kingdom, the County and the Capital. What trouble could that be? 

Obviously, the surviving family dog's wisdom is just high enough to not to want to be a part of this. 

This guy was rolled to be rolled. 

The 2021 Reading List... So Far.

I have a full reading list that keeps getting longer. I'd like to do a bunch of reviews this year as my yearly series. I have acquired a lot of new books already and it's not even my birthday yet. 

In no particular order, here is what's on my reading plate. From Dunromin University Press, SM16 The Book of Legends. The description reads, "In the style of a Rogues Gallery, this new publication from Dunromin University Press if chock-full of ideas and resources for any games master."

EDIT Jan 25th: It looks like this title got an update. 

New Book SM16 The Book of Legends

From Rick Wayne, I have two titles in the Feast of Shadows series. 

And a few more titles from DriveThruRPG: 

Domain Building from Third Kingdom Games plus Lake of Abomination Map Packet, The Lake of Abominations -- Hex 17.23 and OSR Alternative Classes from the same company. 

This week I'll probably finish the Domiano series by R. A. MacAvoy. 

The One Shot Idea

I'm not good at creating one shots, however my reading activities have sparked an idea and an urge to do so. Not exactly a one shot, but series of them where the characters names remain the same but the skills and perhaps players change. 

At the beginning of 2020, I started rereading The Damiano Trilogy by R. A. MacAvoy. It's a historical fantasy about witch who finds adventure galavanting around Europe in search of his heart. Its pretty standard fare for early eighties fantasy, swinging from super light to moderately dark concepts. Clearly, the 90's antihero was not yet in fully realized, but these contemplative stories had the kernel of the idea gestating a decade before. 

At about the same time, I purchased Aquelarre Breviarium. I got the Spanish Language edition, so it's been a slow slog for me. But from the character descriptions, it seems like this rule set captures the ideas of the Damiano series very well. 

Aquelarre takes history and morphs it into a playable system. Characters don't have classes, they have professions. There are no races, there are cultures. 

Damiano, the titular character could be a couple of different professions, however the Trilogy breaks the character into different phases or evolutions throughout the series. This is fairly neat for a character in a game because each aspect is divorced from the others except for the name. 

Damiano could be un Mago or un juglar (minstrel),
each distinct from Saara the witch and Gaspare the dancer. 

The lengthy list of professions are well suited for dealing with not only the main character but also the associated secondary characters. I could see doing a series of one shots where the characters from the books display one profession per session. The names stay the same, but the professions change. Therefore, if the players change for each one shot session, no one cares. 

If you like you can pick up Aquelarre in English via DriveThruRPG.

#31daychallenge, Part 2

Get those dice warmed up. It's time for the #31daychalllenge. Roll a character a day. 

Yesterday, I declined the challenge myself, but offered 20 sets of die rolls to create your own character. I want to spend my time reading a blog a day in January. 

Today, I'm reading blogs. Games in Libraries is up to the challenge, as is Spodding. 

Now for the plug. I wrote a book called "Zero to Hero: Uncommon Commoners" specifically designed to roll up NPCs and to give Player Characters professional skills. It's meant for B/X and AD&D e1. It's available at DriveThruRPG for PWYW. I also have a handy dandy character sheet for AD&D e1 and Unearthed Arcana. It's a scan of a sheet I created in the 80's in PDF format. Suitable for printing. 

And with that, I am off to read some blogs.