The Blood-Witch: Chapter One (preview)

The Blood Witch
Chapter One: Ruana’s Vengeance

wordcount: 2,020 words

A woman’s scream pierced the eerily silent night. Hanna came alert at the sound. Her attention went out to locating from where it had come. Her awareness stretched out like a fog drifting through the streets. She felt the woman’s distress as her awareness came in contact with it.

“Please,” the woman plead. “I’ll pay. I promise.”

“You’re already a month behind,” a man growled. “Now stop struggling. You have this coming.”

“Please don’t. I…”

World Builder’s Journey #2: Novels

Review of Zamil Akhtar’s Novels

So let me start by saying that I can’t wait for the next instalment of this series. I would normally break up a series by reading something else in between each novel, but after reading “Gunmetal Gods” I immediately purchased “Conqueror’s blood” and began reading it.

The setting is based on the middle-east but with Lovecraftian deities. The first book draws inspiration from the Crusades but the knights have guns.

I wasn’t initially a fan of the multiple first person POVs. Even by the second book its a little confusing and results in the characters blurring into each other. While they are distinct characters, their voices weren’t quite distinct enough, especially in the second book. Personally I would’ve preferred third person limited, but that’s just personal preference.

The stories are incredible. Detailed and vivid. Even when you think you know what’s going on, the “gods” have their own plans and motivations that always remain just outside the POVs frame of reference. Some people might not like to end a book with questions, but I love the mystery, and the implications that the plot is so much larger than mere human beings could possibly comprehend.

Despite the fact that Akhtar out does himself in the second book, creating nuanced and intricate plot threads, I preferred the more straightforward plot in Gunmetal Gods. It took about a third of the second book to grasp what was actually going on and who was who. However, by the end of the second book I was hooked. Especially with the epic Lovecraftian shenanigans going on. HOLY!

I highly recommend this series and give it an easy FIVE STARS

Short Story: The Long Night by Robert von Garrett

Aranna sat at the window eagerly awaiting the arrival of her father. She had not seen him it what felt to her like forever. He was a prince, the son and heir of King Hrak. As such, he had many duties that he had to attend to. He rarely had time for his daughter But he had promised her that today he would spend the afternoon with her.

“Aranna,” her mother called. “Come away from the window.”

“But momma,” she complained. “I don’t want to miss daddy’s arrival.”

“You won’t. He’ll be here before you know it. Now come here.”

Aranna looked out the window one last time, arching her neck in the hope that she might catch a glimpse of the prince riding towards her.

World Builder’s Journey #1: the struggle

This article follows a new format. It’s not so much an article as a journal entry about my journey as a world builder.

I’ve been world building for a very long time now. The earliest incarnations of my world began to take form in the early 2000s, and my journey began with DM/GMing in the mid 90s. And yet, despite all that time, and effort, I have very little to show for it. Certainly I have a very well developed world, filled with stories and characters inside my head, but I’ve yet to publish anything, and I’ve shared very little of my work with anyone. I have novels planned and partially written, but nothing ready to send to alpha readers, let alone an editor or publisher.

It’s frustrating to think I’ve devoted so much of my time and creativity to something that barely exists at all. All it would take is a few corrupted or deleted files, a little fire, and most of my work would be lost forever! I could begin again from what I remember, but then if I was to die, that wouldn’t be possible. Even if my files survived, but I didn’t: What would remain but extensive histories and a few skeletons of novels. No Christopher Tolkien make anything particularly publishable from the wreckage.

That, my friends, is a deeply depressing thought. I call my world ‘Ikigai’ because to me, it is my life work. My magnum opus. And yet, what have I to show for it, apart from a wiki (that only I can access), novel outlines, the odd short story or chapter, and this blog…

It would be easy to give in to despair and allow it to cripple my progress. But it is not in my nature to give up so easily on something I know will bring joy to others. I write and create for myself, and so, for me the value of the ‘product’ has already been derived from the process of creating it. But I also want to be able to share, and ultimately derive a living from it. I have no doubt that once it is published, it will find it’s audience.

So on that note, I’m going to go and do some work on a short story I’ve been working on for well over and year and still haven’t finished. Maybe I’ll come back in a bit and upload a sample.

World Building: Where to Begin?

So you want to create a fantasy world for you novels, rpg campaign, or just for fun, but you have no idea where to begin. Hopefully this article will help get you started, and before long you’ll find yourself compulsively fleshing out a world in full awareness of how little of that material will be appreciated by anyone else.

There are three questions you need to ask yourself right at the beginning of the process:

1/ What is the purpose for your world building?

*a good question to keep asking yourself throughout the process of world building in order to keep your efforts focused

2/ What genre are you creating for?

*Throughout this article (and all my articles) I’m going to assume a fantasy genre, but the insights should be applicable to other genres.

3/ What kind/s of stories do you want to tell?

Fantasy Religion: What is a god?

Jupiter and Thetis by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres

What is a god? This may seem like an obvious question on the surface, but bear with me. We can define a god as a powerful supernatural being who has the means to bestow both divine reward and punishment. While this is a useful definition to consider when designing fantasy divinities, I challenge you to go deeper in your definition. Perhaps a better way of asking the question is: What does a god mean to the people that worship that deity?

Certain religious authorities will assert that their deity is the supreme in power in the universe and thus worthy, even demanding, of human worship. A divine and domineering father who demands fear and respect even while he fails to inspire love from his devotees. This reveals something of the nature of human gods. That while they may embody natural phenomena, they reflect the people who believe in them. The bible asserts that Man was made in the image of God, but I would argue rather that gods are made in the image of their human creators.

A god is an embodiment of the religious community’s highest social and spiritual values. God and Man are reflections of each other. The separation between the two is an artificial construct. They are one and the same.

Fantasy Religion: Introduction

Welcome to Fantasy World Forge. Here I collect my thoughts and articles of the art of fantasy world building, as well as the occasional book review, my short stories and excerpts from my novels.

In this series of articles (begun over three years ago now) I want to explore a process for thinking about and designing religions for fantasy settings. However, while fantasy is my preferred genre, these same insights could be applied to any setting, and I do regularly use modern examples in my articles.

Teysa Kasrlov by Magali Villeneuve

So why am I writing these articles? And also, who am I to write these articles?

Fantasy Religion: Truth vs. Myth

As a world builder designing fantasy religions you’ll need to consider whether (in the context of your world) the beliefs underpinning your religions are true or not. Likely the answer will lie somewhere on a spectrum between literal truth and objectively false.

Dark Supplicant by Mark Zug

My Return to the Blogosphere

It’s been over four years since I updated this blog. I have not been idle but nor have I published anything yet, and it’s unlikely that I’ll be publishing anything in the near future (at least not under this name). Mostly I’ve been focused on other aspects of my life: relationships, moving between cities, study, my career in the fitness industry, travel, and, of course, the Covid-19 pandemic. And yet, despite all that, I’ve managed to find time to write and world build. In fact, in the last year and a half my world building has gone into over drive (especially in the months prior to Covid as I sort escapism from my failing PT business).

In particular, I’ve gone into a lot of detail with my histories of most of my main cultures that make up my world. I’ve drawn a lot of inspiration from George RR Martin’s ‘A World of Ice and Fire,’ as well as ancient human history. This encouraged me to consider what my world was like before written history and how many of my world’s cultures have come inhabit the parts of the world now do. I’ve also put a lot of time into plotting my novels and series as a whole.

I’ve found Trello to be the perfect tool for plotting. World Anvil provides the platform for my world bible. And I’ve been using Wonderdraft for my maps.

I would like to reboot this blog but not at the expense of my other projects. I originally stopped blogging because it was taking up too much time, that I felt would have better been used writing.

I would like to write more articles on my processes, especially updated articles, on things I do differently now. I still want to write a fairly extensive guide to World building Religions. I would also like to write more book reviews, and guides to some of the tools I’m using. Maybe I’ll even use it as a platform to publish more short stories and excerpts.

I have so much material to share, it’s just a matter of finding engaging ways to share it with others.