The Twelve Books of Christmas: Part Six

My sixth book of Christmas is the third title I wrote for the Dark Osprey line. Knights Templar: A Secret History was actually my first contribution to that series.

I first read The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail back in the 80s, and I was amused when The Da Vinci Code turned the same basic story into a blockbuster success. I had a lot of fun chasing the Templars through a maze of history, rumour, conspiracy theory, and wild speculation, and I crafted the device of Dr. Emile Fouchet as an overarching structure to hold everything together, and create a fiction within which everything – absolutely everything – was true. I have since been approached a couple of times by people wanting to get their hands on Fouchet’s research, which I take as a sign that my fiction was a successful one!

Here is what some reviewers said about the book:

“It all makes for a fascinating read, and like the best fiction, leaves that nagging thought that it just might be true.”
– RPGNow.com

“…the most interesting retelling of the Knights Templar history I’ve seen …  this is the first time that I’ve seen the dots connected so flawlessly.”
– Weirdmage’s Reviews

…and here’s a link to the book’s page on Osprey’s web site. It is available in paperback, ePub, and PDF formats.

Tomorrow, and every day until Christmas, I will be covering another title. If you’re not done with your Christmas shopping, or if you are expecting to receive some gift tokens, take a look: you might find something you like.

Click here for Part One: Colonial Horrors.

Click here for Part Two: Nazi Moonbase.

Click here for Part Three: Werewolves – A Hunter’s Guide.

Click here for Part Four: Theseus and the Minotaur.

Click here for Part Five: The New Hero, vol. 1.

Click here for Part Seven: The Lion and the Aardvark.

Click here for Part Eight: Thor – Viking God of Thunder.

Click here for Part Nine: Tales of the Frozen City.

Click here for Part Ten: Blood and Honor.

Click here for Part Eleven: The Dirge of Reason.

Click here for Part Twelve: More Deadly than the Male.

The Bundle of Holding

The latest Bundle of Holding features seven titles from Osprey’s Osprey Adventures line: just $16.95 gets you all seven PDF ebooks with a retail value of $104.00. A couple of them are mine, and I’m in some very good company, including Chris Pramas, Phil Masters, and series chief Joseph A. McCullough. Here’s a link: take a look and I think you’ll be impressed.

Thor: Viking God of Thunder retells the Norse myths and covers Thor’s history from 6th-century Germany through the Viking Age to Marvel’s Avengers. Here’s a link to some of the great reviews it’s received.

Knights Templar: A Secret History is a roundup of history, rumor, and conspiracy theory surrounding the Templars and the Holy Grail. It even includes a brand new conspiracy theory that I made up, based on actual events and relationships, that could provide a great setting for all kinds of games. You can read more about it here: scroll down to the comments for links to reviews.

The Osprey Adventures line includes a lot of well-researched titles that are ideal as systemless sourcebooks for games. Take a look: you won’t be disappointed.

The Obligatory Black Friday Post

The fine folks at Osprey Publishing have announced 30% off all their books, including my Osprey Myths and Legends titles on Thor and Theseus and my Dark Osprey contribution to Templar conspiracy theory.

The sale also includes Osprey Wargames. I recommend checking out Of Gods and Mortals, the mythological tabletop skirmish game.

More on Thor: Viking God of Thunder
More on Theseus and the Minotaur
More on Knights Templar: A Secret History
More on Of Gods and Mortals

Knights Templar: A Secret History

After I finished writing Thor: Viking God of Thunder, Osprey Publishing asked me to write a Templar conspiracy title for their Dark Osprey line. Knights Templar: A Secret History is due for release later this month, and pre-orders are open on your favorite online retailer. The first review I’ve seen tells me the finished product lived up to my intentions, which is always nice to know.

I had a lot of fun writing this book. As well as poking about in the dark corners of history, I was able to spend time reviewing the history of the Templar conspiracy phenomenon and add a brand new one of my own devising. I deliberately refrained from making up any historical facts – that would be too easy – but I really let myself go when drawing conclusions from them. It was something like kitbashing, a modeling term for the process of assembling parts from different kits in a way the designers never intended and producing an entirely new plane, tank, or whatever.

This isn’t my first book on the Templars. The Colonial Gothic Templars sourcebook was a similar exercise on a smaller scale, geared to the needs of the game and focusing on Templar activity in the North American colonies during the Revolutionary War era. This new book suffers no such restrictions, and I trace the Templars – and the Holy Grail – across the Atlantic and back again as they engage in a three-way secret war with the Vatican and the Freemasons. Are the Templars using the European Union to create a global state ruled by a heretical religion? Read the facts and judge for yourself.

The Mystery of the Templars

An order of devout warrior knights? An arrogant multinational, accountable to no one? A cabal of diabolical warlocks? Saviors of lost wisdom? Guardians of a secret that could bring down the Catholic Church? Victims of a plot by Popes and Kings?

The Knights Templar have been called all these things and more. I grew up on the Roger Moore Ivanhoe TV series (before he was The Saint, and way before he was James Bond) and a subtitled import of the French series The Accursed Kings, as well as fantasy and horror sources like the TV drama The Dark Side of the Sun and late-night showings of imported movies like Tombs of the Blind Dead. I also read everything from Enid Blyton’s retellings of stories from the Crusades to The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail and The Da Vinci Code. Somewhere in the middle of all this I started playing D&D, which probably didn’t help my obsession with medieval mysteries.

About a year ago, I wrote a roleplaying sourcebook on the Order of the Poor Knights of Christ and the Temple of Solomon, to give them their full name. It covers the history of the Order and the various legends and conspiracy theories that have grown up around it since its suppression in 1312, as well as an outline of the role that surviving Templars play in Rogue Games’ Colonial Gothic historical horror RPG.

The book was originally released in various electronic formats, but Rogue Games owner Richard Iorio II has decided that it merits publication in printed form. More than that, it’s getting a new layout and and added section: an excerpt on the Templars taken from Thomas Wright’s resoundingly-titled opus The Worship of the Generative Powers: During the Middle Ages of Western Europe. Published in 1865, this remarkable work takes a sweeping view over practically the whole of religion, including “the study of certain abnormal practices incidental to membership in secret orders and societies.” Needless to say, the Templars were accused of plenty of those during the torture and trials that preceded their dissolution.

A 10-page preview of the book is online at the Rogue Games web site, and the book itself should be available later this month. Meanwhile the original PDF and Kindle versions are still downloadable, sans the chapter from Wright.

I’ll never forget an exchange from the 80s TV series Robin of Sherwood, in which the Sherriff of Nottingham finds a lone Templar operating on his patch and tries to warn him off:

Sherriff: I represent the King!

Templar: And I, the King of Kings.

Sherriff: (pause) Ah.