A Novel · Folk Horror
A bedside promise to a dying father. A journey no one should make. A voice in the dark, older than the mountain.
Winter and darkness plague the land. A 12-year-old boy swears a promise to his dying father: He will protect them. All of them. Tomek sets out into a frozen hellscape, searching for the only cure to save his people, with only his father’s knife, his mother’s flute, and a stubborn girl by his side he was never meant to protect. At the top of their road, high above a dead city, behind a whispering door, something darker than shadow waits. Patiently.
Join the Montavera Press list and the Prologue + Chapter One teaser (42 pages, the book’s own print design) arrives in your inbox — and when The Songs Beneath goes on sale, you’ll hear it first.
On sale soon — this button goes live at publication.
Healing is listening. Every song has a price.
Tabletop Roleplaying · The Setting Books
A roleplaying game of bureaucratic cosmic horror.
On sale soon — join the list and be told the day they launch, on Amazon or wherever the Index is sold.
The Office Is Open · Window 2
The free character generator for The Black Index. A clerk will take your filing, station by station — no rulebook needed. Walk up with nothing; walk away with a citizen, ready to play.
Begin Your FilingThe Books, Front and Back
The game itself, and the city it is played in — everything a Storyteller needs to run Montavera tonight: who you can be, the Music by which true names are sung, sixteen districts with their laws and dangers, and the paperwork of play itself, from Form TN-1, the True Name Worksheet, to the Daily Deeds and the Raven Delivery Slip. Book One of the Black Index. 309 pages, filed in full.
The people of the city, and the record kept beneath it — the factions and citizens the campaign runs on, the gods, the bread, and the law, and the Deep Record itself: what the Index knows that it does not say, the mysteries it plants and never resolves, and the five campaign arcs that braid them together. Book Two of the Black Index. 353 pages, filed in full.
A companion to the Black Index — the complete sung language of Montavera in one volume: 324 words with their histories, a grammar in which tone is fact, the harmony engine, the Forbidden Leaf, and Form SL-1, by which your own coined words may pass the test and stand. A real person can learn to speak this language. The Index accepts new filings.
The set's calendar, kept as a book: one full year of the city as it files itself — 392 days, twelve months, fifty-six weeks — every day with its note, its horoscope, a preferred word of Sélanar, its coupons and its mandates, and every month explained at the back, where the explanations live. Year 5 of the 56th Age. Form CAL-1, the Headmaster's personal copy.
Inside the Book
Greetings, Storyteller.
You have been selected to receive this book. Please do not ask by whom.
Montavera is a city that should not exist. It is held together by paperwork. Rent is paid in Teeth, and their value depends on who they belonged to. A robotic raven watches every citizen for ninety-five percent of their steps. The remaining five percent are not discussed. Nine unicorns govern the city, plus Mr. Black. They speak in contradictions and encourage anarchy, and this is official policy.
Magic here is not a list of spells. It is a song: your true name, sung correctly. Every note costs a little of who you are.
You will not level up. You will become more filed. Six ranks, from PENDING to BOUND, are etched into you as runes, and the runes glow whenever a unicorn comes near. Sooner or later someone will ask what you are. You will say, “I’m a three-rune petitioner,” and they will understand perfectly.
Your character begins with a gap in the Book of Chaos shaped exactly like them, and a deal they do not remember making. The city remembers. The city files in duplicate.
This book is for people who wanted fantasy to be stranger, and for people who left the dungeon and never found where they were supposed to go next.
You were expected.
It’s the Montaveran way.
Yours in disservice,
—The Headmaster
The City, in Its Own Words
“Montavera is a city that should not exist. It has filed the appropriate objections.”
“You will not level up. You will become more filed.”
“Rent is due in Teeth. Their value depends on the former owner. Choose your ancestors carefully.”
“A raven watches you for ninety-five percent of your steps. Make the other five count.”
“Power here is a song. Sing it, and you get what you asked for. You also become slightly less of the person who asked.”
“The unicorns make the rules. The unicorns would like you to break them. Both statements are binding.”
“The darkness is not evil. It is weather. Dress accordingly.”
“Draw two cards. The city files in duplicate.”
“Welcome to Montavera. Your file is already open.”
“A game that happens is more useful than a perfect game that remains hypothetical.”
“People ask why nine unicorns keep a seat for a man. I tell them someone has to do the recruiting. They ask, ‘Recruiting for what?’ I tell them that’s the part you learn by being recruited. You’d be good at it. You already have the look of someone the city’s been expecting.”
Mr. Black · the Council’s plus-one
“You want to know why people come here? In Montavera, everything you owe is written down. Somewhere. By someone. In a drawer you will never find. Isn’t that a comfort? Next window, please. Breathe normally. Vale is counting. I disclaim all knowledge of what happens if you don’t.”
Roda · teller at the Bone Bank
“The Beast will test your true nature. Everyone fails a little. That is what the bake sale is for. Come for the testing and stay for the lemon bars. They have been blessed, and they have not yet decided what to become.”
The Ageless Goat · Vicar of the Church of the Eversworn Beast
“Obey no one. That is an order. Montavera has no laws, and this is strictly enforced. Come and be free. Your runes will glow when I look at you. That is how I will know you are free.”
A Unicorn · of the Council
“I sell to everyone, at every rank, in every currency. Teeth, feathers, minutes, and other things. You came all this way to ask what Montavera costs. That’s the wrong question, friend. Ask what it pays. And no, don’t look at the price. In this city, the price is the interesting part, and it’s rude to read the ending first.”
The Shrouded Merchant · of Yonder
Asked whether Montavera is worth it, Mote lands on the left eyebrow.
Mote · bonus testimony
Not yet on sale — the list hears first when the files open.
The Card Game
Coming Soon
Join the Launch ListHow my books are written — my statement, and the receipts →
The Headmaster is the author of the Montavera books — the novels and the Black Index — which he writes in English and Spanish and files from his office in the city itself. The Montavera Chronicle records his decrees, his teachings, and his seal. He publishes under his own roof: Montavera Games, with the books issued by Montavera Press.
Join the launch list and be first to know when The Songs Beneath goes on sale — in English and in Spanish — and when the Black Index opens its files.
One address is all it takes. Be first to know when it goes on sale.
Your mail app will open with the note ready — send it, and you’re on the list.
Launch news for the Montavera books, in English and Spanish. Nothing else.
Coming Soon: Factions — Expandable Card Game