Today marks the debut of Exalted: Circle of Protection, a brand-new original novel set in the world of the third edition of the Exalted tabletop roleplaying game. It’s the tale of a young woman named Palym, who leaves her village to travel to the big city – and promptly wanders into a magical disaster that nearly gets her killed. She finds herself in Heaven as a newly minted Exalted (hero) of Mercury, charged with investigating the death of the hero who saved her life.
I wrote this novel for the backers of the Kickstarter for the Exalted RPG. It’s the sequel to the short story “The Circle Will Be Broken,” which appeared in the anthology Exalted: Tales from the Age of Sorrows.
You might notice that I have a co-author on this book, something that’s relatively rare for me. The last time was when I wrote Guild Wars: Ghosts of Ascalon with my pal Jeff Grubb, and the reasons for this are almost identical.
The latest edition of the Exalted roleplaying game was being developed as I wrote the book, which made for a bit of a challenge, as things in the setting evolved separately while I was writing my story. Because of that, one of the developers of the game – James Huggins – offered to come in and make sure that the novel matched up well with what he was helping create for the game. In the end, he contributed so much that I asked the publisher to credit James as my co-author on the book.
The plot and characters in the story are mostly mine, but James did phenomenal work to make sure that it wasn’t just a great story but a great Exalted story. For that, he deserves cover credit for sure.
Anyhow, I hope you enjoy the story. It’s full of twists and turns and deals with things like family and friendship and love – and magically gifted heroes battling gigantic, brain-bending monsters capable of leveling entire cities. Just the way we like it.
