Stout Stoat
@stoutstoat
International awards winning gamesbook publisher.
In the annual tradition, I'm putting on a sale for my birthday! Get 31% off of EVERYTHING in my store with the code "BIRTHDAY2026", running from today through to July 3rd :) www.stoutstoat.co.uk/discount/BIR...
I'm at @cymerafestival.co.uk in Edinburgh at the Pleasance till 5pm! Come say hi!
These copies of Border Riding are also include signed bookplates from the author, Jo Reid:
Border Riding is a GM-less collaborative map drawing game. Create two communities, Us and Them, and follow how both evolve, change, chafe, and grow together as generations come and go, and leadership pulls in new directions with every round. UK / EU / INTL - www.stoutstoat.co.uk/products/bor...
Spring Clearance Mini-Stock Sale! I'm clearing out my stock cupboards and using up spare bits, so there's a limited number of One Breath Left and Border Riding available at stoutstoat.co.uk 📚
It’s official - Carved in Stone is finally available in the USA, through the one and only @ipr.bsky.social ! You can order your copy directly from them (alongside a host of other beautiful books and games!) www.indiepressrevolution.com/xcart/Carved...
Heads up! Final orders at stoutstoat.co.uk need to be placed before 12pm GMT this Sunday (14th December). After then the store will be going into hibernation till January.
I'm at Dragonmeet this weekend! L22. I'm bringing Carved in Stone and that's it, so buckle in for the longest Pictish rambles you've ever heard yet.
I was gushing about how good the panelling and negative space was here with some comics friends the other day, it's just such a lovely step-by-step process, broad enough to capture all the important bits of casting a brooch, but with such care and attention to the small things too!
You can also pick it up on @itch.io ! stoutstoatpress.itch.io/carved-in-st... You can read the first part and a selection of topics right now for free!
You can buy the book from my web store! www.stoutstoat.co.uk/products/car... You'll get the PDF immediately and physical fulfilment will go out towards the end of November 📦
Carved in Stone is officially out! In this comprehensive setting guide you'll be able to see, touch, taste, hear and smell your way through everything that modern-day scholars currently know of the enigmatic culture of the Picts, from the perspective of someone living in the late 7th Century.
OH YEAH did I mention that pre-orders have a 20% discount until the 5th of November?? Probably the best price you could grab this actually physically massive tome for. This book is 300mmx260mm. It's bigger than the D&D PHB. It's encyclopaedia sized!!
Thanks Jonah! You were stellar to work with, and I love how your pieces in the book came out (especially this little boar tattoo 🐗 💕)
Good question - distribution is a bit complicated with BackerKit, because you don't actually pay until I lock orders and charge cards. Folks will be able to buy the PDF directly via itch.io soon after the 6th of October - I just want to square up fulfilment for the KS / first round of preorders.
(4) Shameless self promotion. www.carved-instone.backerkit.com/hosted-preor...
This charming boar is also a personal hero, because despite not looking the same as its peers, it was (and remains) worthy of a place of pride, to be displayed where everyone can marvel at how wonderful it is.
There's lots we don't know. Why it was drawn, who made it, if they were amateur or professional, making art for fun or for work, or even if this style was accidental or intentional. We do know that by being part of the hearth, it would have been seen every single day by that building's occupants.
Now, compare these boars from the Knocknagael, Old Scatness, and Drosten stones. The wandering swirls along its body, the attempt at a realistic leg that was abandoned for sticks instead, the comically flat ridge of hair along its back; I think the artist of Old Scatness 3 was trying make a Symbol.
This brings us full circle back to Old Scatness 3. Originally found in 1998, it was carved on a kerbstone as part of a hearth inside a multicellular Pictish building (5). For context, hearths were HUGELY important to Pictish homes, both on a practical and symbolic level. They were always in use.
There are, of course, Boar symbols. They tend to feature a strong figure with a rounded back capped with a bristling mane, and flanks bearing dramatic swirls that follow the natural contours from their legs up, over and across their body.
There's lots of different symbols, and sometimes they get combined (like the snake & Z-rod). These are some of them, skilfully drawn by the extremely talented @elemei.bsky.social for my book, Carved in Stone, available for pre-order now 👀👀. (4)
SHOW US SYMBOLS, you cry with rapturous fervour. Image 1 is part of the Drosten Stone; these are regular figures, not Symbols; that's a carving of a deer, a bear, a boar, and so on. Images 2-4 are Bull symbols. There's small differences, but they are clearly the Bull, not just any bovine.
Pictish Symbols are specific shapes, patterns or characters that are replicated across stones. There's no current consensus for what purpose or meaning they held, but some comparisons could be made to other iconographies, like heraldic crests, hieroglyphics or modern day brand logos.
There were Picts that lived on Scatness (2) and did all the usual things that the Picts did, including building houses and carving stones. Though Pictish stone carving traditions are very broad, they can be categorised. One such group are Symbols.
Old Scatness is an archaeological site on Shetland, which is an island that's quite hard to get to (for the Picts). The North Sea is extremely rough, and it will sink boats. Even so, Old Scatness was regularly seeing activity, from the Iron Age through to the early medieval period, and even later.
Distraction from Today's News. Let me infodump about my favourite Pictish stone carving, called "Old Scatness 3" after where it was found. He is one of my favourite drawings, and he has a very important lesson to teach us. I tear up just thinking him because he's so wonderful. (1)