The crossroads port city of Etria is always hungry for entertainment. The Merry Vixen offers excellent food and a variety show, and it is known for its performers being, in one sense or another and to varying degrees, transgender. Dancer Nikki stumbles into the murder of a woman, which dumps her squarely into the middle of a massive threat to Etria and possibly the world—or, maybe more accurately, into the struggle to prevent that threat. Completely out of her depth, she asks for help from her friends, many of whom are from outside Etria and here to start a new life. Meanwhile, our villain, who just wants magical power at any cost, is plotting how to remove the worst obstructions between him and a source of power that would satisfy even him, and if Etrian citizens die in the process and he unleashes monstrous vicious creatures from outside reality, well, why should he care?

Expect arcane magic, stage magic, animals, dragons, mysterious backgrounds, a very old device no one should be using, a transman raising his beloved small daughter with his gender-fluid brother, an unrepentant villain, and his bigoted henchmen, all in a complex independent city with a roughly Victorian tech level but a vastly more diverse culture.

CW/TW to be determined. It'll have a few - the bad guys are Not Nice People.

"Around the Vixen" is a series of character snapshots written to clarify for myself what some of the central characters were doing just before the story starts. They're a little rougher than the story itself will be, but I thought I'd share them to introduce characters I'm currently working with and very fond of. These posts are available 2 weeks earlier on Patreon at my sole $1 tier, and additional character notes are available only on Patreon (you can just wait the 2 weeks and they'll be available for free). THE STORY ITSELF IS STILL IN PROGRESS and looks like it's going to be something like trilogy/tetralogy-sized when finished, and I can't promise a date. I will not be posting any of that until it's done and edited properly.

Raven in cover art is, as near as I can determine, public domain. Cover will probably be tweaked a bit eventually.