For the rewrite of Black Mask & Pale Rider, the series is going to end up being ten books long. Each focusing on the location that the four elven riders will end up in. This so far is just a layout, and it may change.
Shani and Pania are introduced, along with their companions, Verit and Scales. They discover the fabled gate between worlds, discuss the situation for a time, and eventually walk through.
Shani and Pania find themselves in very different parts of a new world, as Shani learns she is in Carrolton, Arkansas, and Pania is in the young city of Chicago, Illinois. The year is 1863. This new nation, not yet 100 years old, is torn by war. Shani and Pania have one goal in mind; find each other, and find a way home.
After the two elven gunslingers meet up outside Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, they travel along the road toward a small village not far from Reading. It turns out the village is plagued by a vampire. Shani and Pania determine they need help, and make a call across the planes to Shani’s sister, Wren. It is here that the three learn someone on Earth opened the gates, someone who wished to capture and enslave an elf.
Having put down an ancient vampire, the three ride on south, stopping in the peculiar town of Franklin, West Virginia. On the outside, it is a normal, everyday town. But it is protected by outcast orcs, peace loving goblins, a mischievous leprechaun, and a werewolf who has become a United States Marshal. And here in Franklin, the Devil’s Rider has come to haunt.
The three return to their homeworld, delivering the final story of an ancient evil that plagued the elven world, as Wren presents the very story of the last years and death of this elven mage to the librarians at the House of Wisdom bordering the Desert of Semerkhet. But they know they must return to Earth, and put an end to an even greater evil.
The three come to Oxford, Mississippi, where a vicious band of outlaws controls the townsfolk with an iron fist. Only the figure of J. C. Walker fights back as best he can. This old Confederate soldier finds himself between a rock and a hard place when he accepts the assistance of Shani, Pania, and Wren, along with a Chinese migrant worker named Ming. Can they put down the villainy that is Dorval and his boys?
The deep south. The three riders make it to Shreveport, Louisiana. They follow the clues that will hopefully lead them to a powerful sorcerer and necromancer, but find themselves partnered with a newly freed slave as they investigate the strange occurrences at the Kingston Plantation. They also meet a new ally in the lost Yoruba Elven Princess, Abisayo Temililou.
Having transported the recently freed slaves from the Kingston Plantation across state borders and into the Free State of Indiana, the four riders hope to find some solace in Bloomington, Indiana. What they discover is a lich.
The experience of the Iron Horse, as the four elven gunslingers meet up with the charitable and reserved Reverend Carter Stewart. But this train becomes a death trap that only the five can put down, as an old foe proves she wasn’t as dead as one would expect.
The last stand. Pania is stricken by malady. Abisayo reaches out to those they have met through the world of dreams. As the three elves find refuge for Pania, a group of First Nations people protects them, as Chief Whitecap agrees to find a cure for Pania. Meanwhile, Slowhand Adams, Aurela Dorchester, Sherrif J. C. Walker, Marshal Martin Derringer, Ezekiel Morgan, Dieter van Bueren, Shontaya Jackson, Ming, and the Reverend Carter Stewart hit the trail to put an end to this evil once and for all.
The Adventures of Black Mask & Pale Rider by Tim Holtorf is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 2.5 Canada License.
Based on a work at https://taholtorf.wordpress.com/bmamppr/the-series/.
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