About Me

The ShadowMyths system is a way to be true to yourself but come up with new and unique ideas. Yes. The images on the cards are sometimes scary to some. But, if you think about it, it's about what you bring to the table that makes them scary. Your ideas. Your thoughts. Your beliefs. In my world, these creatures have jobs. They have kids. They are trying to figure out soccer practice and dinner. They are just like you and me but look differently. Using the ShadowMyths decks as idea generators, you open yourself to a whole new way of thinking.

For about 10 years, I was a gallery landscape painter. When we moved to North Carolina, I was talking to my wife about how I loved landscapes but couldn’t figure a way to get into the local gallery scene. She said…. “No… you don’t love landscapes. You LIKE them. You LOVE monsters. After two or three paintings were done for a gallery, you would do a fun painting (monster) for yourself. That’s what you should be doing.” So, I stopped doing the traditional work and started creating my fantasy paintings.

The ShadowMyths idea was borne out of me trying to write a book but now knowing what the book was about. As an artist, I loved writing the meanings of my paintings but that wasn't enough.

I realized that, if I laid out my paintings in random order, a story appeared. They were the same as Story Prompts that you learned in your creative writing classes. After I wrote my first book, I realized that everybody else had the same problem. So, I created the ShadowMyths decks.

Over time, gamers were using the decks in their role-playing games to come up with new campaigns or stories. I also found out that people were using them as Oracle cards. the most surprising was that therapists were using them as talking points with patients. The fact that people could use the cards to help others is my favorite part.