ADVENTURES IN AN OTHER-WORLDLY NEW-AGE VENICE it’s the 12 months 1537. The fantastic winged Lion stares more than a Venice where magic thrives. The rich Venetian Republic is certainly a bastion of independence and tolerance. Perhaps because of this, it is also corrupt, and rotten with intrigue. But for the youthful brothers Marco and Benito Valdosta, vagabond and thief, Venice is usually simply-home. They have no idea that they stand at the center of the city’s coming struggle for its extremely life. They understand nothing from the about The Shadow from the Lion powerful forces relocating the background. They have hardly heard about Chernobog, demonlord of the North, who’s shifting his pawns to assault Venice in order to cut in to the underbelly of the Holy Roman Empire. All Marco and Benito understand is that they are starving and in harmful company: Katerina the smuggler, Caesare the sell-sword, Montagnard assassins, church inquisitors, militant Knights from the Holy Trinity, Dottore Marina the Strega mage . and Maria. Maria might be an honest canaler, but she got the latest temper a boy could find. However among the dark waters of the canals lurk far worse dangers than a hot-tempered female. Chernobog has set a monster loose to wreak havoc on the town. Magic, murder and bad are all at work to pull Venice down. Fanatical monks look for to root out accurate witchcraft with fire and sword. Steel-clad Teutonic knights, wealth traders, chapel dignitaries and great Princes fight and plot for control of the jewel from the Mediterranean. And somehow many of these, from thieves to mages to princes, must collect around Marco and his brother Benito, beneath the shadow of the great winged lion of Venice.