Matthew Colville, Priest and Thief

No, I'm not writing about some defrocked Catholic father. Perusing Youtube the other day brought me to an unexpected goldmine: Matthew Colville.

I was looking for gaming videos to listen to while I was driving about and came across his helpful vidcasts of gaming tips. Ostensibly he makes videos to, in his words, make people want to run D&D and to realize how easy and fun it is. What I found was his fast-talking, knowledgeable and insightful commentary for gamers of all ages of experience with the game. I personally have found his videos helpful for my DMing, and the guy can tell a good story! I do recommend checking him out. He is currently playing 5e, but he has played all editions and brings that sensibility and tone to all his commentary and advice. Though I am not a twitterite, he can also be found on Twitter @mattcolville, and he has a Twitch channel as well.

He puts his stuff out for free, and asks only if you find his stuff interesting or entertaining to check out his books at Amazon. That's where my excitement really blossoms, because not only is Matt an author, he is a darn fine one at that! He has two books out now:

And yes, that's obviously where the Priest and Thief come in. These two books are the first two in a series that Matt once briefly described as a story of adventurers, called Rathcatchers in his books, getting together. An admirable summary, to be sure, but so underestimates the storytelling woven into the first book so far. I am about two thirds of the way through Priest and have become enthralled with the story of a middle aged Cleric struggling with the PTSD of his adventuring days, reluctantly accepting the task of traveling back into a powerfully menacing place called The Wode to save the reputation and existence of a band of powerful and enchanted knights called The Green. No spoilers here, but I just passed a passage in which he may have met the subject of the second book, but I' not sure. A kind of sinister and dangerous halfling/gnome type. A powerful character that I would love and hate to have in my adventuring party if given the opportunity.

At any rate, I am up to about a strong four stars so far with the first book, and Matt has not bored me once during the tale thus far. If it lives up to a strong ending it will deserve a solid five star rating from me on Amazon. So, while Matt's videos are great, you owe it to yourself to pick up these books. Good books about D&D flavored adventuring by non-TSR/WoTC authors are rare and these are amazing gems. The only ting I' really worried about is that by the time I buy and finish Thief, Matt may not be out with the third!