The Phillip Drayer Duncan Newsletter - September 2025

Happy Labor Day!

I'm celebrating by laboring. Hammering at the keys to get another Blade Mage done for your reading pleasures. Dirty as your pleasures may be. Don't be coy. I know what sort of books you read!

What am I working on?

The Appalachian Argument (Blade Mage Book 7): Still with the editor but very hopeful we might see an October release. Fingers crossed. And of course, I'll send out an extra newsletter to share the cover once I have it.

Super excited to get this one in your hands. Lots of changes happening in Wyatt's life, and we get to see some old friends. And old enemies. Stay tuned!

Fun with Friends! (Blade Mage Book 8): I had really hoped to finish my first draft before the end of the month, but I didn't quite make it. In fact, I didn't even come close. Based on my scratchy outline, I'm about halfway. In fairness, I should have known. In fact, the adult who lives somewhere in the dark, dank recesses of my childish mind knew. He was all like…

"Hey, Dingus! It's me! The grown-up voice you always ignore. Anyway, you know this book is like nearly nonstop action, which always takes you longer to write? You do know that, don't you?"

And the rest of my brain was like… IGNORE. Poop face emoji. Dinosaur. Clown face. Lizard wizard. SQUIRREL! When the fuck did we get ice cream?!

So anyway, yeah, this one has a lot of action. A lot. And I write those scenes by pen, so I'm just going to have to be a little patient with myself.  

Where are we going to be?

So many places.

We've effectively ended our convention season, and to celebrate we're going to kick back and relax by… Going frikin' everywhere. Just not conventions this time. We're headed to a slew of fairs and festivals where we'll actually have a table with our books!

If you follow my Facebook, you may have seen this already. If you don't follow my Facebook… What the heck? Follow me. It's not even hard. It's right here.

Anyway, I made our schedule like we're rock stars going on tour. If you live anywhere in these parts of the world, come see us!

What's going on in life?

Of special note, our friends Lori, David, Brandy, and Ed traveled in from Dallas. They're amazing people we've known for… Geez, nearly as long as I've been going to cons.

I may have told this story here before, but whenever I get a chance to introduce them to people, I like to say I met Ed and Brandy in a bathroom. That is a true statement of fact. They also met each other in that bathroom. Don't worry, it's not that weird. It was a con party. The bathtub was where the beer was. Thus, we were in the bathroom. We ended up calling it BathroomCon, and it forever lives on in infamy, lore, and legend. A few hours after that, in the wee hours of the morn, I got to meet David and Lori as they asked the following question. "Do you know where our daughter is?" Luckily, this story has a happy ending, as Ed and Brandy were simply sitting outside chatting. Eventually, the two got married and lived happily ever after.

And also, David is now one of my beta readers, so he gets to read Blade Mage books before you do. Ha!

And in case David or Lori read this, thanks again for J.H.'s birthday dinner and for making that extra special for her! You are the best!

We had a buttload of other friends there as well, but I'm not going to try to list them all. Besides, I don't think most of them are subscribed, so they'll never know. Let's just say they're all exceptional and move on.

And honestly, the convention was a big blur of bollocking baboonery… I couldn't think of more 'B' words to make that sentence work. Anyway, it was amazing. From the bar con, to the con itself, we had a wonderful time.

My Stupid Ass Leg

Got some good news on my dinged-up knee thing. If you read my newsletter… Uh, whenever it was, I mentioned how, in my infinite wisdom, I messed up the back of my leg or knee. Well, I've visited the physical therapist finally, and he was convinced it's a chronic hamstring strain. According to him, that's good news because they can fix it. Also, he thought the ligaments were in good shape. Basically, my legs are just so super powerful that I over-extend them when I run. He didn't say that part, but I'm pretty sure it's what he meant. Yeah, we're going to go with that.  

He also promised me a world of pain to get it fixed. So, this should be fun.

Fantasy Football season is here!

I've always thought it funny that jocks made fun of geeks for RPGs and DnD only so they can gather and play a stat-based role-playing game called Fantasy Football. For years my friends wanted me to play, but I thought it sounded boring. When I finally relented, I was like… Oh, this is just an RPG. Got it. And I've enjoyed it ever since.

I still don't watch football, but I can read stats and make educated guesses, and for the past several years I've always finished near the top and brought home a few championships.

In the league I'm the dungeon master for, Real-life Axel was our first champion despite my warnings to the others that we absolutely could not let that happen. The following year he showed up to the draft with printed t-shirts declaring himself champion and demanded we all wear them. Obviously, that didn't happen.

Last year we had some fun drama. One of the guys didn't show up for the draft, so he lost his first-round pick and didn't get a keeper. You may not know what that means, but I assure you it sucks and served as an adequate punishment. And then he didn't manage his team, so I kicked him out and gave his team to my brother.

That's where things got interesting.

Despite the terrible start, my brother effectively RPG'd the shit out of it and built a functional team. Still, it looked like he'd miss the playoffs based on his record. And then the unthinkable happened. The platform we used, past tense because I switched us afterward, changed my playoff settings. Originally, the top 2 teams were supposed to get a week off. Instead, the number 1 team, who'd been unbeatable, ended up having to play my brother. And he WON. And the following week he beat the number 2 team. And then, sadly… Beat me in the championship. Wild.

What have I been reading?

What games have I been playing?

I don't even want to talk about it. But I will…

So, I tried to get rolling in Baldur's Gate 3 again, but for some reason, it kept refusing to launch on my PC. And when it did launch, it wasn't working very well. The problem, it seems, were the handful of quality of life mods, I'd added. Flipping mods. I thought they were pretty innocuous. Like, make my characters move a little quicker and weightless gold. No actual cheats or anything that would have a huge impact. Or so I thought.

Once I disabled and deleted the mods, my saves still misbehaved. When I deleted those saves and started a fresh game… Surprise! The game launched and had no issues.

So, I started over yet again. But I also got mad and decided to start…

Wasteland 3

One of those titles on my long list of games I really want to go back and finish. So, I fired it up and have been working through it here and there.

What a game.

Fun fact many people don't know… A long time ago, in the before times, in the long, long ago, there was a game called Wasteland. Cool story, bro. Never heard of it. It was an old PC game. Like, late 80s or early 90s. Anyway, the people who made it would go on to create a little-known franchise called Fallout. They made both Fallout 1 and Fallout 2 before eventually selling the rights. And then, as all of us game geeks know, Bethesda made Fallout 3, and that was that.

The original creators of the Fallout series stepped away, blah, blah, blah, and created a new company called InXile and made the game they would have made, if they had made Fallout 3. It was called Wasteland 2. It was a badass game. If you like Fallout but the turn-based play style of Baldur's game, Xcom, or Divinity, you should definitely be on the Wasteland bandwagon.

Wasteland 2 was brutal, gritty, and a little tough to get the hang of. Wasteland 3 is slightly more player-friendly and certainly sold a lot more copies. Both are damned good.  

I finished Wasteland 2 a few years back, but still haven't finished 3, so here we are. Highly recommend both.

What shows have we been watching?

Either way, this is one of the best shows ever made. Yeah, I said it! One of the best shows ever made. If you haven't watched it, you're missing out. Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman are the shit. But I'm sure you already know that. What you might not know however…

Anyway, Sherlock was an amazing show. And it's no wonder Martin Freeman and Benedict Cumberbatch became household names. It's just a shame Andrew Scott didn't as well. And the rest of the cast, frankly.

Also, as someone who grew up reading the Sherlock Holmes books, this show has been the closest cinematic version of how I imagined Sherlock and Watson as a kid. Robert Downey Jr.’s version wasn’t far off either. Or Huch Laury as House which was based on Sherlock.

Final Thoughts

It's been a busy month, and it's only about to get busier! If you're in the area, come visit us at one of the fairs or festivals we have on the schedule! Otherwise, see you next month!

Oh, and more on The Appalachian Argument will be coming soon! Are you excited? I'm excited! Get excited!