Terry Neil

Terry Neil has spent an unreasonable number of years rolling dice, arguing about whether a gnome could realistically intimidate a dragon, and taking notes. Roll for Disaster is the result of all three.

The series follows the worst adventuring party in fantasy history as they accidentally save the world — one catastrophic misunderstanding at a time. There’s a gnome who fights like a battering ram with feelings, a bard whose singing voice could be classified as a war crime, and a wizard whose spells technically work in the same way a house fire technically produces light.

If you’ve ever watched a plan fall apart and somehow produce a better outcome than the plan ever would have, this one’s for you.

About Terry

Terry Neil lives in Northern Wisconsin, where winter lasts six months and is survived by one simple strategy: cut enough wood in summer. It is the only plan in his life that has never gone sideways, which makes him uniquely qualified to write about people whose plans always do.

Before turning to fiction, Terry was an editor at a small publisher, a career that died slowly, like a torch in a drafty dungeon, thanks to ProWritingAid and the collapse of publishing houses everywhere. He has made peace with the software. It still can’t explain why a gnome with a letter opener is funnier than a gnome with a sword, and Terry considers that job security.

Four nights a week, Terry rolls dice for Dungeons & Dragons and Pathfinder. He has seen every party wipe, fumbled spell, and heroic plan undone by one bad roll, and he considers it all research, some of it expensive in snacks. His hero is Wil Wheaton, a fact he will work into the conversation whether or not anyone asked.

Terry shares his home with a German shepherd named Leinenkugel, who has answered to “Coog” for six years. Nobody remembers when the change happened, least of all Coog, who serves as first reader, lead critic, and guardian of the woodpile, and has never once complained about a plot hole.

Roll for Disaster is Terry’s first fantasy comedy, and he is quite sure it will not go well.