The Tales of Ka-Ess

A rare first edition of the Tales of Ka-Ess

"None had been so handsome,

nor greater in prowess

nor ever had been better dressed

than the lizard Ka-Ess."

— Ka-Ess, The Tales of Ka-Ess

Preface

The Tales of Ka-Ess, containing the complete works of Ka-Ess Lizardkin, remained unpublished until long after the author's unsettling demise. Criticized by poetic authorities as grandiloquent, longwinded, grandiose, and delusional, Ka-Ess' excruciatingly detailed accounts of his own minutiae nevertheless have afforded historians insight into daily life in the Skaugan Main during the rule of the Council of High Captains.

This annotated and illustrated edition of the Tales represents the most comprehensive effort to date to create a complete history of Ka-Ess and his companions' lives and adventures from the material available in the original codex and other relevant sources.

Index

Part the First: The great Achievements and Exploits of Ka-Ess the Rakish and his merry Fishwives, the Foes they outwitted and slew, where they travelled and what they found there, and their great Fortune thus attained.

Part the Second: The continuing Adventures of the Fishwives, their voyages into the Unknown, and the world's mysteries yet unexplained.

Appendix A: The Skaugan Main and its Surroundings, with emphasis on the exotic and forbidden Locales with which our Tale is concerned.

Appendix B: A compleat Accounting of the Characters of our Tale, both great and small, and the divers Fashions in which their lives and those of our Heroes intertwined.

Appendix C: The Kingdoms, Societies, Races and Cultures of the many Folk of the Skaugan Main in the time of Ka-Ess, and their many Rites and Traditions both mundane and arcane.

Appendix D: The Fraternities, Sects, Orders and other such Bodies to be found in the tales herein, and the Manner in which to the Fishwives they were disposed.