The Morrowdeep Wyrm
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Potipher is officially done with grief. After years of hiding away in his underground hollow, the lonely wyrm is finally ready to rejoin the world.
His grand plan? Rebuilding the long-abandoned theater in the cozy village of Morrowdeep. It’s a wildly impractical project, but it gives him something he’s never truly had before: a purpose, and perhaps, a community.
But raising a theater from the ruins is no easy feat. Between navigating local bureaucrats, wrangling gloriously overdramatic actors vying for center stage, and convincing a village full of fae that wyrms are not gods, Potipher has his claws full.
As the stage takes shape, however, so does the past he tried to leave behind. Potipher is about to learn that while rebuilding a theater takes hard work, mending a broken heart takes a village — and he might just find his home among the cast of characters along the way.
The curse is real, yet the show must go on.
Potipher has earned the right to build a theater in Morrowdeep, and he has the gold to do it, too. While most of the villagers are thrilled, the mayor is not. And he’s determined to make Potipher’s life miserable, by cursing the theater with but a single word:
Macbeth!
Once the title of the play is spoken, a string of unfortunate mishaps occur, threatening the lives and livelihoods of all involved. The only way to break the curse? Perform the play.
Potipher must rally a troupe of eccentric performers, led by the lovely lady Lyric, and stage Macbeth before a sold out crowd, lest tragedy strike the fledgling theater before it can find its footing.
Potipher is turning 500, but he’d prefer people didn’t know. Unfortunately, when you have friends like Grom and Onna, a half-millenia of life isn’t going to slip by unnoticed. After a delightfully debaucherous celebration that involves big fights and even bigger secrets, Pot’s nursing a hangover to end all hangovers.
And the Mayor’s about to make it worse.
The Mayor mandates that the gaudy Ms. Morrowdeep Pageant must be held at Potipher’s new theater – and on a timeline that’s going to force Pot and Onna to juggle the beauty contest with the premiere of their next play, Much Ado in the Underbrush.
Potipher must, somehow, work his way through a chaotic double production while also dealing with everything that comes along with directing a play… including a growing crush on the lead actress.
Potipher has been asleep since the morning after his first night with Lyric Raventhorne, when an early frost settled over the camp and both jugs of her memory tea turned up empty. No healer in Morrowdeep has ever had to treat a wyrm and the town can’t afford someone who has.
So Lyric, Onna, and Grommok rally the only way they know how: they throw a telethon, courtesy of a tinkersprite whose wailing machine lays invisible whisperlines.
But the de-knighted doctor they manage to hire brings grim news: Potipher isn’t only asleep. The trouble isn’t just the tea, but something Potipher left unfinished with his late wife. He’s dreaming his way back through his life with Pris, the wife he lost, and somewhere in that life is a memory he made himself forget.
The only way to wake him up is for the troupe to stage the last play Potipher’s wife ever saw and hope the performance will bring him back.
Morrowdeep has one play and an audience of one.
All it needs now is for him to want to come back.