DargonZine is the publication vehicle of The Dargon Project, Inc., a collaborative group of aspiring fantasy writers on the Internet. We welcome new readers and writers interested in joining the project. Please address all correspondence to <dargon@dargonzine.org> or visit us on the World Wide Web at http://www.dargonzine.org/, or our FTP site at ftp://users.primushost.com/members/d/a/dargon/. Issues and public discussion are posted to newsgroup rec.mag.dargon.

DargonZine 18-7, ISSN 1080-9910, (C) Copyright November, 2005 by The Dargon Project, Inc.

Editor: Ornoth D.A. Liscomb <ornoth@rcn.com>, Assistant Editor: Liam Donahue <bdonahue@fuse.net>.

DargonZine is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs-NonCommercial License. This license allows you to make and distribute unaltered copies of DargonZine, complete with the original attributions of authorship, so long as it is not used for commercial purposes. Reproduction of issues or any portions thereof for profit is forbidden. To view a detailed copy of this license, please visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd-nc/1.0 or send a letter to Creative Commons, 559 Nathan Abbott Way, Stanford CA, 94305 USA.

Editorial 

by Ornoth D.A. Liscomb
<ornoth@rcn.com>

Welcome to another new issue of DargonZine! As you know, we've spent this entire year printing stories from our Black Idol story arc, and that'll continue for some time to come. I'll talk more about the future of the arc in our next issue, but right now it's important that we look back and celebrate how far we've come already, because this issue brings us to one of the biggest milestones of the entire undertaking: the halfway point.

The Black Idol arc began back in April 2003, when we plotted it out and began writing. Our writers worked on it diligently for the next two years before the first Black Idol story appeared in print last January in DargonZine 18-1.

During the first half of this year, we printed the first of its three major sections: seven stories that were all set in the village of Northern Hope.

In the second half of 2005, we have printed another seven stories. The Black Idol and its companions have travelled from Northern Hope, across the Darst Range to the town of Kenna, then down the river Coldwell toward Dargon. At the end of this issue, the Black Idol arrives in Dargon, bringing the second major section of the arc to a close.

We have now printed fourteen Black Idol stories out of our expected total of twenty-seven. Similarly, we've printed 86,000 words out of an expected 175,000, so we're exactly halfway through the arc. The Black Idol has been our writers' focus for the past two and half years, and we are very proud and delighted to have come so far in sharing this immense storyline with you.

This month's issue contains three more Black Idol stories. It begins with the second chapters in Dafydd's "Darningfly Caper" and Rena's "Journey's End" stories, and closes with Jim Owens' brief but delightful contribution to the arc: the surreal "Eggs for Breakfast".

Our next issue, which hopefully will be out before the end of the year, will begin the climactic third section of the arc, which will be as big as the first two sections of the arc combined. And trust me: with the Black Idol's arrival in the city of Dargon, things are going to get more and more exciting in our coming issues!