The First Folio: A Dark Renaissance Fantasy Adventure

A character-driven dark renaissance fantasy adventure

When you cast your horoscopes or work your alchemy, you’re using the movements of the heavens as you know them. But what if you’re wrong about how they work? The stars and the planets we see — they don't orbit us in spheres. We orbit the sun. What if you could see the way the heavens were truly constructed? What if you could build calculations that were perfect? What power would your magic have then?

After incurring the wrath of his patron, Elector Palatine Philip of Heidelberg (where his duties included a little alchemy on Wednesdays, murdering wizards on a Thursday), Faust and his loyal werewolf bodyguard Wagner find themselves exiled from the city they called home and in need of another fresh start.

Settling in Nuremberg, Faust works his way into the orbit of the Prince-Bishop, who sends him to recapture a missing academic and the book he stole. That journey takes Faust back to Heidelberg, into a confrontation with the very devil to whom he sold his soul, and reveals a cosmic truth that nobody should ever know.

This is the first book in The Faust Quartet.

Mark Lawford started his writing career freelancing with Atlas-Games on their Ars Magica Fifth Edition TTRPG. He's done a few bits for Cubicle 7 and more recently has been working with Shewstone Press on the brilliant Magonomia game.By day, he's a technology scrum master for one of the UK's leading insurance firms.In those couple of hours between the day job and writing about dysfunctional wizards, he's a competitive powerlifter.Until he makes his fortune selling adventure stories, he continues to live in Eastbourne on England's Sunshine Coast.