Nikko is a twenty-something man with good friends, a passion for birdwatching, and self-destructive tendencies. When he falls back into a relationship with Stevie—his seductive, aggressive environmental activist ex-girlfriend he first encountered on a suicide website—his stable existence takes a turn towards chaos once again.
An aspiring Gordie journalist drops his inhibitions to research the UK's North East outdoor sex scene. He meets a certain girl in a car park, and the totally unexpected happens.
Rough Magik is about The Night Scholars, a clandestine organization setup to monitor the ancient cult of Cthulhu. After decades of compiling an enormous database of arcane information, they have come to a single, incontrovertible conclusion: the Sleeping God is waking.
Stevie "Smudger" Smith and his wife Marie are both addicted to drugs; he's also a dealer. The day he 'deals with' another dealer, she gives birth to a baby. The baby appears to be addicted too and Marie decides to give up the habit. Because Stevie doesn't want to give up using and dealing drugs, they take Marie and the baby away from him. The new, tough, social worker Liam Kane tries to get Stevie in his group sessions, by using his violent approach and by telling him it's the only way he'll ever see Marie and the baby back. So there seems to be hope to get Stevie clean, if only he wants to himself. That things aren't that easy is shown by the drugs addicted hooker Gail, who's satisfied with the life she leads.