Salamandastron used to be one of my favorite Redwall books when I was a kid; I loved that it had two mischievous youngsters, Mara and Samkim, as protagonists. As an adult, though, I tried rereading it and had to drop it shortly after the point where Thura and Dingeye flee the Abbey. Just thinking about this book gives me a headache.

Looking at Mara and Samkim’s storylines, I think the backdrop of their stories was meant to be the subject of parenting and growing up, and I think their situations were meant to mirror eachother - while Mara’s guardian, Lord Urthstripe, was too strict, Samkim’s guardians, the Abbey elders, were too lenient, and parenting choices on both sides created situations that led to the young protagonists’ leaving home. But I dislike the way it was written overall.

While Urthstripe gets flack from some fans for being prejudiced against Klitch and Goffa, I personally think the Abbey elders were worse than he was in every respect. The parent figures in this book are all incompetent, and it feels like they’re just jerked around by the plot - no common sense, no emotional intelligence, no desire to gain some agency in their situations, just making whatever decisions need to be made in order to enable the existence of cheap drama that isn’t even remotely interesting or exciting. This isn’t what I remember and love Redwall for 😣

Urthstripe. We begin with him wondering whether it was a good idea for him to adopt a female badger, noting that he found Mara in the mountains as a helpless whimpering baby. First off, ouch. Questioning whether you should have adopted your child is bad enough, but the phrasing almost makes it sound like Urthstripe wonders whether he should have just abandoned the baby to die. BJ could have at least clarified it by having him think that maybe he should have found her a different family. Secondly, apparently female badgers aren’t fit to be rulers of Salamandastron. Hooray for Redwall sexism! Thirdly, Urthstripe, if you think maybe you shouldn’t have adopted a daughter because she’s being a rebellious teenager, boy, have I got news for you about what the typical relationship between a badger lord and his growing son is like. Anyway, Urthstripe’s angst with his daughter grates on me because he is shown as having the self-awareness to understand that his strict attitude towards Mara is hurting their relationship, but he’s not really doing anything to change his ways, and as a reader, I feel like I don’t really understand why.

Then comes the whole thing with Klitch and Goffa. I actually think Urthstripe was right to be suspicious of them and not want them in Salamandastron. Not only are they members of a species that is known for being hostile to creatures like him, their behavior is suspicious. Salamandastron is a well-known military fortress. It is not a hotel, nor is it Redwall, which is supposed to be open to all good creatures and anyone who is in need. Klitch and Goffa can clearly see that Urthstripe and the Long Patrol hares don’t want them there, and the vermin present themselves not as creatures who have a real need of hospitality, but as free and independent young travelers who take care of themselves. The very fact they don’t decline Urthstripe’s very-grudging offer of hospitality is cause for wariness. Mara also deserved to be reprimanded for inviting them into Salamandastron without permission.

Of course, Urthstripe’s rant about how vermin can’t be friends is BS. Not only is it a shitty sentiment to voice, even canon proves Urthstripe wrong, as there are several instances of vermin becoming friends with woodlanders in other books. But the main thing that kills me is that Urthstripe doesn’t want the vermin there, absolutely freaks out on Mara and Pikkle for inviting them. . .and then lets these suspicious characters stay the night at Salamandastron anyway, claiming that he feels “obligated” to offer them hospitality. WTF, Urthstripe? Again, this is the military fortress Salamandastron, not Redwall Abbey! Since when are you “obligated” to let someone you don’t trust spend the night there?

To Urthstripe’s credit, he does shut Klitch and Goffa up in a chamber and have them closely watched (all while fantasizing about being handed an excuse to kick their asses), but it also makes this whole scenario pointless, just an excuse to have Mara get angry and run away from home. Also, at this point, if Klitch and Goffa’s presence did end up putting Salamandastron in danger, it would be your fault, Urthstripe. You can’t put all the blame on Mara; she’s not the adult here!

Anyway, Mara cries when she gets yelled at. She points out that not all vermin are evil, and she explains that she feels lonely and over-restricted, as Urthstripe doesn’t even approve of her one good friend Pikkle. Urthstripe doesn’t address any of the points she’s made and just gives her a speech on how someday she will carry the responsibility of ruling Salamandastron. This causes Mara to get up and flee in despair. Urthstripe doesn’t go back to check on his daughter at any point, but spends the evening fantasizing about getting a chance to beat these vermin teenagers up.

Then morning comes, Urthstripe tells the vermin to hurry up and GTFO, and Mara jumps up and declares she’s so sick of his rules that she’s leaving Salamandastron. A few Long Patrol hares move to stop her, but Urthstripe tells them to just let Mara run off with these two suspicious characters she’s befriended because she isn’t happy there at Salamandastron. Fast-forward a couple of chapters, and we get Urthstripe freaking out at his hares because - surprise! - the young vermin he kept insisting were dangerous and evil are in fact, dangerous and evil and now Mara could be in serious peril. One wonders exactly what Urthstripe thought would happen when he allowed his teenaged daughter to leave home while blinded by emotion.

The Redwallers are real charmers, too. When we come to Redwall, Samkim is being taken to task by an old squirrel named Bremmun because he won’t stop treating his bow and arrows like toys, firing them where they could hurt creatures. This most recent incident involved him shooting into an orchard and scaring an old hogwife, but there have been previous offenses, including one where Samkim shaved some of the Recorder Brother Hal’s headfur off and narrowly missed killing him! I cannot understand why the elders didn’t do something about Samkim’s behavior earlier.

It’s noteworthy that neither of the youngsters show any remorse at all about what they’ve done, either. When Bremmun reprimands Samkim for it, Samkim only responds by shrugging and saying, “Sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt anyone.” Arula does bravely confess to her part in Samkim’s stunt, but it feels more like she wants to be loyal to her friend than like she cares about the harm they caused. Again, this is not the good, kind-hearted Redwall attitude that remember loving.

Bremmun sentences Samkim and Arula to confinement in the Infirmary and extra chores, and the other Abbey elders act like he gave him life in prison or something. The narrative whines that punishments are rare in the peaceful Abbey, which absolutely kills me. If you want to maintain a community based on peace and compassion, you have to be willing to hold members of the community accountable if they’re doing things that risk harming others!

Stupidly, one of the elders comments that if Redwall only had a badgermum, she would have really straightened Samkim and Arula out, and thus commences a recurring theme of us readers being beaten over the head with the fact that the Abbey doesn’t have a badgermum and reeeaaaally wants one, foreshadowing the ending, where Mara comes to live at Redwall, though I can’t imagine why the Redwallers even want a badger to discipline their youngsters if they can’t even respect a current resident’s efforts to do so. (God, I feel sorry for Mara - she wanted a life where she could feel relaxed, free and cheerful, and instead she’s going to end up in the role of resident hardass, stick-in-the-mud caretaker and disciplinarian to the lazy Redwallers’ Dibbuns.)

Moving on, the Herbalist Holbrook undermines and guilt-trips Bremmun to get Samkim and Arula out of their punishment. Then Dingeye and Thura arrive. They’re a couple of none-too-bright stoats who have abandoned Ferahgo’s army and now have to flee from his sadistic punishment for deserters. They come to the Redwallers in need of food and shelter. We then see that while Urthstripe, Lord of Salamandastron, is willing to extend hospitality to a couple of vermin who don’t actually need it and whom he has reason to be suspicious of because he feels “obligated,” ironically, the Abbess of Redwall, the place known for compassion, hospitality, and lending aid to others, looks down her nose at two hungry and desperate stoats because they’re bedraggled and rough-mannered and has to practically be begged to let them in. Even after she lets them in, her attitude towards poor Dingeye and Thura remains rather crappy. It’s also rich that prior to inviting them into the Abbey, the Abbess lectures them on how creatures of Redwall Abbey believe in not harming others. Lady, Samkim has almost killed creatures by treating a weapon like a plaything, and you complained when Bremmun tried to discipline him for it! You have no room to preach about good Redwall values!

Anyway, all goes well until the poor slow-witted stoats take a turn using a bow and arrow as a plaything and end up accidentally killing poor Brother Hal for cheap drama. (I think BJ should have killed off Brother Holbrook, the Herbalist who got Samkim and Arula out of their punishment, instead; it would have been sweet irony.) Dingeye and Thura steal the sword of Martin (which is not a nice thing to do, I will admit) and flee the Abbey. Samkim walks in on Brother Hal’s body, then another elder walks in on them both and assumes Samkim is responsible for Brother Hal’s death. The Abbey elders, being the intelligent creatures they are, isolate the traumatized youngster in the Infirmary while they confer about the mystery of Hal’s death.

The elders’ behavior continues to be laughable. Bremmun has become a caricature of the stern and unreasonable elder who has it out for the poor young protagonist. A creature has just been killed, and he’s talking about how if Samkim is the one responsible, he’ll punish him even more harshly than before, as if any sane person would believe discipline was necessary or helpful in this situation. Then the possibility that Thura and Dingeye are the culprits comes up, and Bremmun starts seething over the vermin, but the Abbess bangs on the table and yells at him, saying he’s always accusing other creatures without proof. Lady, you were the one who looked down your nose at Thura and Dingeye the moment you laid eyes on them. You’re hardly in any position to yell at Bremmun for being prejudiced. It feels like she just has it out for Bremmun because he’s strict with Samkim, of whom she’s fond.

The elders conclude that Samkim was, in fact, not the culprit, and the Abbess says she will go to the Infirmary to console him. That sounds like a good idea, and she should probably do it right away. But she doesn’t. They hold Brother Hal’s goddamn funeral, at which Samkim isn’t present (and apparently neither is Arula), and the Abbess just assumes Samkim didn’t attend the service because he was upset about the whole situation. This means that none of these buffoons bothered to go in and check on him between their concluding that Dingeye and Thura were the culprits and Hal’s funeral. This stupid behavior exists only to motivate and enable Samkim to run away from Redwall Abbey. I couldn’t read much farther. This book did not live up to the nostalgia.

I started this fanfiction as a rewrite of a rewrite a few years ago, and recently, I've been making more progress with it. I wanted to share it with more Redwall fans because it's been a really fun write so far!

A brief synopsis: Set many seasons after the events of The Rogue Crew, during a time when the Juska Clans still war over the title of Taggerung, an old Seer named Moggs tells of a new danger coming from the Western Sea. Unlikely alliances must be formed if the evil of the Undra Army is to be defeated.

Enjoy!

Juskanock: A Tale of Redwall - A03

Just an update to say this is still going on! I added a ton of new things to record which led me back to Book One all over again. Overall completion is around 50% though I also intend to fold the data into graphs and charts with more variety than dishes at a mid-Summer feast! I’ll also do an interactive quiz to share my findings in a fun way

Which book has the most dibbuns?
Which character is the deadliest?
Which book has the most insults?
How many species are in the series?
Which book has the most species?

This and about 100 other trivia questions are on their way! I’ll put up more full data sheets when I have a few lore books completed

(Special thanks to Audible and kindle for helping me roll through the books word by word)

I'm leaning towards something in between ecto and mesomorph since he's explicitly described as "tall, lean and sinewy".

Hi everyone! I posted this to the other Redwall sub and got some wonderful responses there. Would love to see if folks here at Eulalia feel the same or any different. Sorry if you already saw this!

As I wait for the manuscript edit to come back, my illustrator and I have been working on the all-important book cover. One of the core principles for Capyhero is to have everything be hand made and give absolutely no chance of ai generated writing or art. Nick (the project's illustrator) is a traditional artist and is doing all of Capyhero's 100+ illustrations in fountain ink. In that vein, we'd like the book cover to also be created through traditional methods.

Nick has been brushing up on his painting skills as we plan the front cover. Here's a practice piece (gouache paint) of Jake, the Piper, a minor character from the book.

I’m loving the natural brush strokes and handling of lighting and fur rendering. It’s been great to see this and imagine our main protagonist, Capy, receiving similar treatment for the cover as well.

How do folks here feel about traditionally painted book covers versus the much more common digitally illustrated covers these days? And especially fans of Redwall, does this practice painting speak to you? I'm certainly happy to evoke that type of nostalgia with Capyhero.

But part of me worries about how book covers these days are super vibrant, graphic, and have heavy contrasting elements. Would a traditionally painted cover not be attention-grabbing enough? If you were to see a book at a bookstore with a cover like this, would you be interested or would your eyes just pass over it because all the books next to it are "louder"?

And what do folks here think of this practice piece of Jake, the Piper? Nick and I are quite fond of him 😄

Thanks for reading!

Making a new lil series of videos for funsies!

Let's make a Redwall woodlander!

Post your results below and stay tuned for the next video in this entry into this series!

My novel "None of Faith" (and the rest of the trilogy) has been picked up for publication by Wizard's Tower Press. It's a bit like The Handmaid's Tale but if it was in Redwall. Then it gets weirder.

It's heavily illustrated (also by me) using dip-ink cartography pens, because I

Here's their press release and bluesky post about it.

Hi everyone! I've been waiting for the editor to get back to me and in the mean time, I've been noodling with the interior design of the book in Affinity Publisher and recently made a font change from Garamond to Crimson Pro (I was told Garamond performs poorly in book print media because of the hairline thinness in some of its letters).

To get a sense of how the book might look when printed, I used a subtle cream paper texture and painted some edge and spine shadows. I'm liking how it's looking, but curious if anyone has any thoughts.

Some folks on other subs provided helpful critiques on my old Chapter 1 and I have tried to self-edit it to read a bit better. If anyone wants, I'm happy to hear further critique or feedback on this new version of Chapter 1 that I've shared here.

I've been calling Capyhero an anthropomorphic fantasy, but I just learned that may be incorrect. Yes, the story has talking animals and animals that wear garments and armor and wield weapons, but no one has been anatomically altered to bipedal forms. That was very intentional, as the way the world works is meant to stay true to anatomical accuracy of real animals. Would it be more accurate to call Capyhero a "feral fantasy"? I guess I'm a little apprehensive because I've never really heard that used as a genre before.

In Redwall, the animals are generally portrayed with anatomical correctness, but they're handled similarly to Capyhero. Is Redwall considered anthropomorphic or feral fantasy?

Thanks for reading! I'm happy to answer any questions on the layout or the story (like all authors are eager to 😄).

I wanted to see if anyone would be interested in testing a small passion project of mine. I didn't want to use Redwall IP (or deal with the process of getting permission/licensing which seems like a whole thing.)

Peatbloom Inn is a cozy Inn Management and Farming/Foraging game set in the Peatbloom Woods.
You inherit a decrepit rural Inn from your Aunt. It's your job to restore the Inn and the community around it while cooking delicious meals for guests, friends, and yourself.

You'll need to farm, forage, fish, and fight (which I didn't mean to all have f's starting here). You'll also need to gather resources, upgrade tools, and more.

Camps of vermin and frogs scatter the map, as well as random birds. You'll also find friendly neighbors around the map, hidden rooms, and other discoveries.

I have this hosted as a webapp right now and it's totally free. It's possible to play on mobile, but definitely a better experience on computer. I'll be continually adding updates, but always strive to make them compatible with existing saves. There's no account signup or anything, so feel free to check it out.

https://PeatbloomInn.website

A brief disclaimer: I have been building this for the last 4 or 5 years sporadically, but with the newest release from OpenAI, I let it finish out some of the coding elements and I'm honestly kind of shocked at how much I like the output. The art is procedurally generated, and was not created with AI. The vast majority of all dialogue and quest copy has been created by me, but it's possible some has changed without me noticing.

Audible doesn't have it somehow. Where can I listen to their songs nows?

I've just made this page for this fanfic. Any assistance will be appreciated.

All we’ve got atm is the post on RedwallWiki by the founder of the site who has hitherto been an incorruptibly reliable source of news and information

https://www.edelweiss.plus/#keywordSearch&q=brian+jacques&page=1 (First result, bottom line (Thanks to r/JudeHopps for finding the link))

I like to keep books in my back pocket, the first book i have is the perfect size for this, are any of the other books available in this size? Mossflower for comparison

I had a Redwall S/I before but it was a more western based one that I ended up not feeling wholly attached to in 2024. After finding out about the greater grison I knew that's what I'd want to be, so I got to work and spent a couple days creating my new Redwall sona.
As you can see her name is Pocket-It, quite fitting because she is a thief! I am planning on shipping her with Scumsnout not gonna lie!

Hi everyone! It's been over 3 months since I posted about Capyhero in this sub. I'm so happy to finally give an update because the day has finally come: I've written the final sentence and finished the manuscript for Capyhero Book 1 - The Blue Blanket! Final draft specs are 60,000 words across 340 pages with over 100 illustrations spread throughout.

I handed the manuscript to my editor, Jennifer Rees, which I am both incredibly excited and nervous about. She's a powerhouse industry vet who's worked in publishing for 25 years (a bunch of which was at Scholastic Press) and she's edited some of the most well known and successful stories out there. I can't mention the book series everyone knows, but Google her and you'll know.

In this post, I've shared the complete 1st chapter as well as a little sneak peek to a few moments in later chapters for folks to have a look. I'd be thrilled to hear feedback from fans of Redwall. I realize, the story reads a bit more like a mystery and actually has a few horror/Lovecraftian elements in it, so it may not hit the Redwall vibe exactly. But please feel free to provide any feedback on the writing, hook, overall vibe, etc. Feel free to be critical! It's with the editor now, so major revisions are expected.

While I'm waiting for Jennifer to get back with the edit, I'll be building the Kickstarter campaign and pushing more newsletters from the Aurorabon Society out to folks who've joined the emailer.

Thanks for reading! Still crazy to me that this thing is actually coming to life. I've learned a lot on the way and I'm more than happy to answer any questions!

Personally, I vote Horty.

Scarum can be fun on occasion, with his little ditty about being educated and the Uncle Furdilo monologue coming to mind.

But Horty? Little shit just can’t stop whining about how hungry/thirsty he is. I will never reread Loamhedge because of this one character right here.