Decades back, in the mid-’90s, I was the developer for the Mutant Chronicles roleplaying game for Target Games in Sweden. It’s a dark future setting in which corporations rule the solar system and strive to protect us from demonic/alien forces of mind-bending evil invading from beyond. It’s been featured in RPGs, board games, and collectible card games and was even the subject of a 2009 movie starring Tom Jane and Ron Perlman, for which I wrote the novelization.

It also made its way to comic books in the form of a miniseries for Acclaim, called Mutant Chronicles: Golgotha. My old roommate William King (from when I lived in Nottingham, working for Games Workshop) wrote it, with interiors by Davide Fabri and covers by Simon Bisley.

What isn’t widely known is that I was contracted to write a follow-up miniseries based on Dark Eden, the new name for the spoiled Earth in the Mutant Chronicles setting. My college roommate Bryan Winter designed a collectible card game for this new region, based on his Doomtrooper game, and Target and Acclaim were eager to cross-promote a comic with it.

They hired me to write a four-issue miniseries set in Dark Eden, based on a concept that Jeff Connor and Nils Gullikson concocted. I finished all four scripts as was paid for them, but unfortunately, the comic never saw the light of day. Paolo Parente (for whom I wrote a novel–Blood and Thunder–for his miniatures game Dust) was slated to draw the interiors, and I saw some of his work for it at one point. It was flat-out gorgeous.

People in the know have asked me about this countless times over the years. Some of them have even wondered aloud if I could share the script with them. Because Target owned those scripts wholesale, I didn’t have the rights to do that though, so the scripts simply sat on a series of computers for all that time.

Recently, though, I was chatting about this with Fred Malmberg, the original owner of Target Games and the current owner of the Mutant Chronicles through his new company, Cabinet Entertainment. There’s a shocking bit in that first issue’s script that he still remembers and talks about to this day. (You’ll probably know it when you see it.) He said, “Go ahead and put the first issue up on your website. See what people think.”

So… I actually managed to excavate the script, but I discovered that I’d written it in a version of Word that’s no longer supported. Despite that, I managed to extract the text from it, and then I reformatted it in Scrivener and exported it as a PDF. It took a bit of doing, but it’s complete and reads much like it originally did.

Because of all that, if you click on the image below, you can now–for the first time ever, 24 years since I wrote it–read the script for Mutant Chronicles: Dark Eden #1 and (I hope) enjoy it.

On July 7, my latest novel hit shelves. Rise of the Arch-Illager is an officially licensed novel based on the brand-new hit video game Minecraft Dungeons. It’s for ages 10 and up, and it focuses on the origins of the villain of the game, the legendary Arch-Illager himself.

The book is already selling well. It debuted as the #1 children’s ebook on Amazon. It doesn’t hurt that Minecraft is one of the most popular games of all time.

I had a wonderful time working on this book with my editor, Alex Davis, over at Del Rey, and with the fine folks at Mojang, the company that created the game. They recently interviewed me for Minecraft.com, and you can read all about the development process there.

You can tell I’m busy when I don’t have time to post about a book’s debut until after it’s actually out. Despite being hunkered down at home – or perhaps because of that – I seem to be busier than ever.

Besides the novel, this month I also released Shotguns & Sorcery: The Roleplaying Game, which has also been selling well. You can get it through DriveThruRPG, or – if you want one of the few remaining copies left from the first print run, we’re selling those through eBay. I’m happy to personalize and sign those when we ship them out too.

Anyhow, I hope you’re all hunkered down and keeping safe. I’m going to miss seeing many of you on the convention circuit this summer. Shows like that have been a huge part of my life since the early ’80s, and giving those up is like losing out on summer camp, family reunions, and the best parties of the year all at once. But as I’ve been telling lots of people over the past few months, better to miss you this year than to miss you forever.

Hey, folks! Shotguns & Sorcery: The Roleplaying Game is officially on sale! That means if you missed out on the Kickstarter that Outland Entertainment ran years ago, you can now grab your very own copy of the game and join the fun.

The game is based on my fantasy noir novels and stories and powered by Monte Cook’s Cypherâ„¢system. It’s written by me, with rules by legendary game designer Robert J. Schwalb. It contains everything you need to launch a full-fledged campaign.

You have two basic options for purchasing the game.

First, I have 120 copies of the original printing for the Kickstarter available, and those are currently up for sale on eBay. Those books are boxed up in my garage, and if you zap me a note at matt@forbeck.com when you buy one of them, I’d be happy to personalize and autograph your copy before we ship it out to you. (Don’t dally with that email though. My kids – *COUGH* shipping assistants – move fast.) If you ask, I’ll also toss in a PDF of the game for you for free.

Once those copies of that printing are gone, they’re all gone, barring a few that I’m keeping on hand for myself. If you want one, get on it so you don’t miss out.

Second, you can grab a PDF of the current version direct from me via Gumroad, or you can order one through DriveThruRPG. You can also order a print-on-demand version of the book from DriveThruRPG, which comes with a free copy of the PDF too. (Since those printed books don’t ever get anywhere near my house before they reach you, I can’t sign those directly.)

The two versions of the book are nearly identical. In the latest version, I fixed a few typos, made a couple minor graphics changes, and added an index in the back of the book. Other than that, they’re the same. It’s up to you which version you’d like more.

We have a number of other Shotguns & Sorcery RPG products in the works that should be coming out later this year, so don’t be shy. Go grab the game now, gather up some friends and dice, and get playing!

My friends over at DriveThruRPG have set up a number of bundles of gaming goodness, through which you can get loads of games for cheap and support some amazing causes. Seriously, there are way too many things there for me to list, and the money goes to causes like Black Lives Matter, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, and the National Police Accountability Project. They’re also highlighting all sorts of Black creators and donating the DriveThruRPG portion of the profits to the charity of the creator’s choice.

If you grab the Black Lives Matter 2 Bundle, for example, you get nearly $600 worth of TTRPG PDFs for only $10. Among those is a copy of my dystopian supers RPG, Brave New World, which is normally $10 all by itself. Go stuff your storage with gaming goodness and do some good for the world at the same time.

As I announced yesterday, pre-orders for Shotguns & Sorcery: The Omnibus are now open. The way the various online retailers sell these, I can only set up pre-orders for ebooks, but I’m planning on making paper copies available as well. You’ll just have to wait until February 18 to purchase them.

The one on the top comes from Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing service and has a matte finish, which looks pretty sharp. The other two come from DriveThruFiction, and they both have glossy covers. The hardcover (on the right) has the cover laminated straight to the boards, much like you’d see with a textbook or a gaming book.

The one from Amazon (on the left) is actually as thick as the hardcover from DriveThruFiction. That’s because it’s printed on slightly thicker paper. Over the course of 610 pages, that makes a noticeable difference.

I’m also waiting on a copy from Barnes & Noble that comes as a hardcover with a dust jacket. Once I get them all in and get a good look at them, I’ll figure out the exact prices. They’ll probably range from $20-$30 each, depending on the covers.

If you have Amazon Prime, you might wind up with free shipping on the book through them. If you order through DriveThruFiction, I believe you’ll pay shipping, but you’ll also get the ebook edition packaged in with the hard copy for free. And if you go with Barnes & Noble, you’ll get the classy (and most expensive) dust jacket version instead.

One fan recently asked about the availability of signed copies. I’ve never bothered much with selling those direct before, but if there’s a call for it, I’ll see what I can work out. They’ll be at least a little bit extra to cover the shipping and such. If you’re interested in such a thing, let me know.