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It seems like dishes… and just about anything else… gets done when it’s time for the proofreading stage.
Oh, there’s a chore that needs done? Dishes been piling up? The counters are clean now!
Laundry need washed? Everything’s now been washed and hung in the closet! (Or neatly stacked in a chair because the closet is cold and I’d rather put on warm clothes in the morning thank-you-very-much).
Plants need a little bit of pruning? Even those pesky scale bugs are about to face the gardener’s otherwise defeated wrath.
Or, for a little more fun… new stories need written? Old stories need revised? Let’s do this!
(Inner voice just scowls. “No new stories for you right now. Jot down a few notes and get back to proofreading! Finish what you’ve started!”)
*Sigh.*
There’s all these other new stories calling you to write them, but you’re stuck giving that manuscript you’ve looked over nearly a dozen times one more read to look for typos, and then after you’ve given it that maybe-final/maybe-not-final read you’ve got to actually input those notes into the manuscript.
*Cue second sigh.*
Proofreading might be my least favorite part of the process.
Still, proofreading is important, and helps me to correct little typos I don’t want you guys to suffer through. Missing “a”s and “the”s. The occasional word that just doesn’t make sense. Minor plot points I thought I removed during the read-aloud but accidentally remained in place. That sort of thing.
It’s all about polishing… even if, for me, it is the least interesting part of the process.
Funny thing is that in the 2018 newsletter email I’m adapting this post from, I was lamenting the proofreading process for Fractured Skies.
Now I’m lamenting the proofreading/editing process for The Dark Forest of Aneth. The reading part’s been done. I just need to add my editing notes to the manuscript. But… uh… there’s been an outline and draft written for Huntress 3 and a whole new 5,000-word short story drafted, polished, and sent to beta-readers since I finished that reading a few months ago. *Cough.*
So… yeah.
Do I need to write that draft I’ve been meaning to write for five years?
Looks like I just need to get myself some proofreading or editing notes!
In the meantime… here’s a throwback to when my Legion Spore plushie got to help out with the proofreading:
Isn’t it adorable? (Well, as adorable as living airships made from shapeshifters go). Isaac made it for me for Christmas a few years back.
Actually, I also made him a Legion Spore plushie (we both had the same idea), but let’s just say that the one he made better matched the first Legion Spore, and the one I made closer resembled the Manticore. We had a productive discussion after that regarding the differences between how we saw the living airship of The Glitch Saga.
Needless to say, the Legion Spores you see in the books have been refined a bit.
Or a lot.
And that’s another reason that proofreading… and read-alouds… and beta-reading… is important!
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Read a few polished books that I at some point had to proofread or edit…
The primary magic we see in The Wishing Blade series is ribbon magic. Today I thought I’d showcase the sinister maroon ribbons of magic’s lure.
Magic’s lure is a rare form of ribbon magic with the power to command people to do a mage’s bidding. Unlike the telepathy powers in the Distant Horizon universe, it doesn’t actually change the target’s mindset… it’s physical.
But some people are more aware than others that they’re being affected. It depends largely on how closely the command matches with what they already want, and what other external factors might distract them from recognizing what’s happening.
Few mortals have access to magic’s lure, and Daernan (one of the main characters in the Wishing Blade series) is one such mage. He keeps his power hidden, knowing most people equate magic’s lure to being a power of the Trickster, Isahna, a nefarious, ill-favored god. Worse, since Daernan has royal blue shapeshifting ribbons, which are also a favored magic of the Trickster, he’s occasionally accused of being one of the god’s pawns… though that couldn’t be farther from the truth.
Daernan would prefer to avoid using magic’s lure when he can. Still, it has its uses, and when time is of the essence, he’ll sometimes bend that rule.
Here’s a scene from The Shadow War in which Daernan and his friend, Siklana, are trying to get past a stubborn secretary to deliver an important message, but Siklana’s diplomatic attempts are failing miserably.
Siklana raised an eyebrow. “I am not going anywhere if this buffoon will not permit me speak with Marquis Eornayan. I’ve tried reasoning with him. I’ve tried listing my family credentials. I even tried giving him an exact time schedule of when the shadows are likely to arrive, and he still won’t listen. I don’t suppose you want to try your charms?”
“Not really,” Daernan admitted. But considering the glare the secretary gave Siklana, and the quill the secretary had snapped a moment ago in frustration, Siklana wasn’t getting in on her own.
He sighed. Siklana knew far more about court manners than he did, but he knew enough that he could manage an upper class attitude when he needed to, and he did have magic that might get them inside. He hated using it, but they only had a short amount of time remaining before the shadows got here…
An uncomfortable lump formed in his throat, but he returned to Siklana’s side, put on a proper pose, and added just a bit to his height via his shapeshifting ribbons. He offered the secretary his hand. “I apologize for the behavior of my assistant, good sir. I am still familiarizing her in the way of the court.”
Siklana’s jaw dropped and her cheeks blushed a furious red.
Play along, he sent, and I should be able to get us in.
She shut her mouth, though her eyes remained as wide as horseshoes. He didn’t usually communicate telepathically with anyone other than Toranih.
“I am Mage Daernan Nivasha. Please let Marquis Eornayan know that I have urgent news regarding a threat to the sovereignty of this excellent city. While I am willing to wait until his earliest convenience, I should note that an attack by the same cursed trickster who stole the magic of Cirena may be imminent. It is of the utmost importance that we speak with him.”
The secretary parted his mouth in a soft “O” and a tiny, fluttering maroon ribbon finished working its charm. The secretary smiled apologetically. “Just a moment. I shall alert him.” He shuffled from his desk, discarded his broken quill into a wicker basket on the way out, and then slipped between the giant doors behind him.
“How… how…” Siklana stared at Daernan. The redness in her cheeks had been replaced with a white that resembled that patch in Daernan’s hair.
He lowered his eyes and scuffed his boot on the marble floor. “We’ve got a way in now.”
“When I said to work your charm, I didn’t mean… There is no way you did that with good looks alone,” she hissed. She lowered her voice. “You have magic’s lure?”
He cringed. “Let’s not go announcing that to everyone, shall we?”
“Certainly not,” she murmured. “Everyone else can figure that out for themselves.”
Daernan let out a breath. If anyone else found out, they’d say he really was a pawn of the Trickster. It had taken a long time for him to accept he had those ribbons. He kept them on a short leash. A cage, really. If people hated string mages, they hated magic’s lure equally. “Go on in if they ask for us. I’ll be back in a moment.”
Daernan’s usually a lot more down-to-earth (Down-to-Cirena? Down-to-the-mortal-realm? I should probably decide what their equivalent phrase would be) than the other nobles, but when it comes down to it, he knows how to play the part.
The question, of course, is whether or not that’s going to work in his favor in the long run. Daernan might prefer not to use magic’s lure more than necessary, but the gods have other plans in mind (as we see in Magebane).
Other instances where we see magic’s lure is The Wind Mage and Wolf, involving one of the city guards that the main character, Livena, does not see eye-to-eye with, and as the magic of one of the main characters in the novella I’m currently writing and releasing through the Wishing Blade Universe Newsletter. Both of those stories are set in the Legends of Cirena era, two hundred years prior to the Wishing Blade series, though the latter novella leans heavily into setting up the events that eventually lead to the Wishing Blade era.
Of course, the fun thing about the in-progress novella (currently just titled “the Ferta story” is that it’s also set at a time when Isahna, the Trickster in the Wishing Blade series, is still only a god’s champion. And yes… he still gets to play a role. 😉
Previously I’ve talked about how Distant Horizon got its start as a role-play game between me and Isaac. Many plot points changed, but many stayed the same. In today’s post, we talk about how, in Fractured Skies, Jenna and Lance met Anna…
Who had a few changes along the way.
I’m pretty sure Anna started as a way for Isaac to keep my character, Jenna, from getting herself hopelessly captured. Let’s set the stage, shall we?
In the game, Jenna and Lance have returned to their hometown in search of her parents, who she knows might be in danger. Security guards have started to notice Jenna looks really familiar (she’s the granddaughter of a rebel leader, so they’ve been given her profile), there are a set of conspicuous mercenaries on her tail… and she is very good about demanding information in a not-so-subtle way. Not a good combination.
So Anna, an old friend from her high school, shows up and manages to (unintentionally) whisk Jenna and Lance to safety.
This despite shouting “Jenna! Lance! It’s you guys!” across the same room with said guards and mercenaries.
Needless to say, I can only assume the guards failed their notice rolls or smarts rolls.
Anyway, Isaac and I realized that wasn’t going to be very believable in the actual novel, so we made a few changes.
One, we gave Anna powers.
Surely Jenna and Lance weren’t the only one who didn’t take their daily pills in a huge city, right?
Two, we decided Anna isn’t an old friend… at least not that Jenna remembers… and that Anna knows more than she first lets on… allowing her to get them away from the guards a little more naturally while still arousing their suspicion as to her real intentions.
Here’s an excerpt from Fractured Skies:
One of the guards looked toward us—the one who had examined our IDs earlier, but before he could question us again, a young woman our age plopped into a seat across from me. She had shoulder length brown hair pulled into one of the few “stylized” cuts the Community allowed, and she wore a pale blue shirt and pale gray pants, nothing that stood out.
I blinked. “Uh… hello?”
“I can’t believe you’re back! Chris… Kate…” She propped her chin on her knuckles. “So good to see you again.”
I stared at her, dumbstruck. How did she know what our fake IDs said? Was she a Special Forces agent in disguise? A telepath?
Lance chuckled nervously. “I’m sorry. Do we know you?”
“Of course!” She laughed. “It’s me, Anna. Don’t you remember? We shared chemistry in high school.”
I tried picturing my classmates from chemistry, but honestly, I couldn’t remember more than a few of their faces. I certainly didn’t remember this “Anna.”
Lance and I exchanged glances. Quin seemed to be fast-talking the guards toward the exit, both groups too busy to worry about us. Was Anna a merc? If so, she fit in way better than the others.
She gave us a mischievous grin. “Now that you’re back, there’s a question everyone wants to know—are you two dating?”
I blinked. Why would anyone care about that?
Lance shrugged. “Sort of.”
I froze. What was he doing?
Anna’s eyes popped open. “Seriously? Oooo… just wait until I tell everyone! I told them it was bound to happen.”
“Yeah…” I shuffled uneasily in my seat, suddenly wishing we were dealing with the mercs. At least it was clear what they wanted.
“That’s so exciting!” Anna clapped her hands together and glanced over our shoulders. She quickly diverted her eyes back to us. “You should totally see my room here. It’s great. I’ve been living on my own ever since I moved from my parents’ house.”
“I’m not sure—”
“Sounds cool,” Lance said smoothly. “Why don’t we go check it out?”
I glared at him. What if this is a trap?
Lance flinched. “It’ll be fun,” he murmured, his voice forced.
Dear Community—
This flower charm was obnoxious. Technically, it was a telepathy artifact—artifacts were objects enchanted to mimic certain powers—and I’d accidently used it to project my thoughts. At least I had directed the thought rather than broadcasted it across the room. That would have been terrible. What if everyone thought they had theophrenia? I shoved the charm between my shirt and my coat, where I wouldn’t have to worry about accidently using it.
“Come on!” Anna grabbed us both by the wrists and yanked us from our chairs. Since I didn’t want to cause a scene and attract more guards, I didn’t resist. She dragged us through the hall and into an apartment room a bit bigger than our old dorm rooms combined. Her walls were covered in pictures of similar people with similar hairstyles—all smiling like cheerful leaders on cheesy self-help brochures, except these were beauticians’ posters.
If I took off my hat, it would be painfully clear I did not fit in.
Anna’s come a long ways from the original campaign.
Right now she only shows up in Fractured Skies, but she’s an example of some of the changes we made along the way. 😊
If you enjoy the fairy tale retelling aspect of the Huntress universe, you might enjoy these books!
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If you’ve read any of the Stone and String stories or later Wishing Blade books, you know I very much enjoy creating fictional languages. The Cantingen language for word magic is fairly fleshed out with grammatical rules and a good-sized list of words, though it still has a ways to go before being fully functional.
That being said, it isn’t the only language present in the world of The Wishing Blade.
We also hear reference of the the Cirenan language, Ancient Cirenan (mentioned in Magic’s Stealing), the Maijevan language, and the immortals’ languages.
The fun part is that Cirenan is supposed to be kind of like English… a mixture of several different languages. The problem?
I needed to figure out at least a portion of Ancient Cirenan for use in one of the later Stone and String stories.
Since Ancient Cirenan is supposed to be a mix of Cantingen, the immortals’ language, and an as-of-yet-undetermined language (Anethian?), I realized I needed to start delving into creating the other languages of influence… at least the basics.
So, I made notes on the immortals’ languages. So far I’ve got a basic idea of sentence structure, interrogatives, how verbs work, and the phonetics.
There would be too much to cover in one post (though if you want to see my notes on creating the sounds of the language, click here to check out my blog post from 2018), so I wanted to focus on one specific aspect… what the immortals call themselves.
The thing is, the Immortal Realm is fluid… a misty, fog-filled place with different regions inside it that don’t have any concrete position on a map. You could leave the edge of one region, travel through the mist, and arrive at a different region each time, despite traveling the same “direction.”
As a result, there are several different tribes and clans of immortals… beings which often resemble humanoid wolves, giant bears, equines, and other animals, although you also get the occasional griffin, dragon, minotaur… etc. Each group has their own dialect and variant of religion and culture, which results in occasional clashes.
I chose to focus on the primary language of the wolves, the one which has the most influence on Cirena. (Though, admittedly, I’ll sometimes use the same version of the language for the bears, and go with the idea of borrowed phrases or similar development of words).
One of the first things I wanted to figure out is what the immortals call themselves. While a lot of this is still in flux and may change, here’s what I’m currently looking at:
Since the immortals believe themselves to have come from the mist/fog of their realm (the word for “Mist” being “nirrin,” I decided that they would call themselves Mist Children. They live long lives (they don’t typically die unless they are outright killed or if disease takes them), and they have immortal ribbon magic, which is considerably stronger than regular ribbon magic.
The word for child is “cira’ma.” Plural, it becomes “gercira’ma.”
When creating names or special places that have a possessive tendency or description, the two words simply go together, primary noun first, and then the descriptor.
Thus, “Children of Mist” / “Mist Children” becomes:
gercira’ma’nirrin
(I’ll note that the apostrophes simply mean that the vowel sound before it does not merge with the next consonant. Thus, this words sounds something like “gair-cir-ah-ma-near-in.”)
I’ve got a lot more planned for this language, including what they call “created” beings who are still “immortal” but aren’t Children of Mist… but I’ll save that for another day.
While plotting, I often enjoy listening to music. Sometimes it helps me invoke a particular mood for a scene, come up with new ideas, or simply picture scenes better in my head.
For example, I often listened to Rush’s “Subdivisions” while working on Distant Horizon, especially on scenes involving the Community (It seemed to fit the Community quite nicely).
Then, for a while, I enjoyed listening to DragonForce’s “Through Fire and Flames” while working on the end of Fractured Skies and Spirits of a Glitch. Isaac introduced me to that song and which scenes he thought it fit best. Epic battle scenes… determined character montages in my head… that sort of thing.
(Also makes for a great… and difficult… custom Beatsaber level).
Other times, music helps inspire titles. For example, there’s a line from Styx’s “Brave New World” which inspired the title for Distant Horizon. (I don’t like coming up with titles for books. Seriously… they’re illusive little critters that like to hide away and have to be dragged out from their cozy caves for me to find them).
I’ll admit my tastes in music are eclectic. I’ve listened to a lot of Gordon Lightfoot songs. My favorites are “The House You Live In” and “Race Among the Ruins”, though these tend to inspire me more with the Wishing Blade Universe. I’ve also listened to a little bit of Tarja Turunen (“I Walk Alone”) which almost always makes me think of Ivy Man’s character from Fractured Skies (as does the song “Darkness” by Blackmore’s Night). Both are quite useful when writing any scenes that involve that character.
And sometimes songs might not… really fit, but they still work great for me to plot to. I like “Anti-hero” by Taylor Swift for the character of Sanjorez, even if it doesn’t exactly fit. And… even if I put together an animatic in my head of him dealing with the rest of the Camaraderie whenever I listen to that song.
Once I find a song that works for me, I tend to listen to it on repeat, as I did with Nightwish’s “Escapist” as performed by Alina Lesnik & Guitarrista de Atena (Great for plotting with Shevanlagiy’s character in the Wishing Blade Universe), as well listening to as Joan Baez’s “Rejoice in the Sun” and “Silent Running” (on repeat. Several times. Because when I like a song, it usually ends up looped).
I think I like music I can picture a story to, even if the song might not normally be paired with a particular character or genre. And even if I don’t hear the lyrics right and that spins off a whole ‘nother idea.
There was that one time I listened to Skye Boat Song and misheard “Over the sea to Skye” as “Over the sea to die” and BOOM… new character! (Who, ironically, hasn’t yet shown up. Maybe eventually. That particular story arc took a major turn from the original plan).
And sometimes music gives me ideas for magic systems. Really. The concept of Magic’s Lure and the Wishing Blade spawned from singing “Rainbow Connection” during voice lessons. And the idea of shadows got their first inklings from listening to the song “Shadows” by Gordon Lightfoot.
There are so many more songs I could list as inspiration… But I’ve got to wrap up this post sometime.
Lately I haven’t really listened to music a lot when writing or revising, unless it’s background coffeeshop music, but I still like listening to music while plotting, or if I’m trying to get in the mood to write a certain scene. Or if I’m trying to plot out a stuck spot.
So there you have it. A few songs that I’ve enjoyed listening to while working on these books.
How about you? Do you ever have a soundtrack that reminds you of your favorite books? Do you associate a certain song with a certain character?
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These two series both got a lot of inspiration from listening to music:
There are several types of magic in The Wishing Blade universe (because I like making magic systems). Some are closely related, and others aren’t. Here’s a look at the different types:
Ribbon Magic: One of the most common forms of magic in Cirena (until the Stealing) is ribbon magic. These invisible ribbons float through a person and can be commanded to do various tasks, depending on the type of ribbon. Some mages can see ribbons (Magic’s Sight), and those who can note that different ribbons have different colors.
A non-exhaustive list of some of the known colors of ribbons and what they do:
Pink – Telepathy
Gold – Healing
Yellow – Fire
Lime Green – Telekinesis
Royal Blue – Shapeshifting
Navy – Teleportation
Violet – Portals
Turquoise – Light
Ribbon magic can also be tied to various objects to enchant the object and allow non-mages to use their magic. The most common usage is the light crystal, in which light ribbons are attached to a piece of quartz, or a similar material.
Note: Ribbon magic is mostly seen in the Wishing Blade series and Legends of Cirena series.
Immortal Magic: Closely related to ribbon magic, immortal magic appears as ribbons except that it is much, much stronger. These ribbons tend to be black and silver, though the hue of their primary ability may still show through. Those with immortal magic tend to age slower, if at all, but are still susceptible to being killed by weapon or disease (though they tend to heal faster and be more resilient to diseases).
Note: Immortal magic is mostly seen in the Wishing Blade series and certain Legends of Cirena stories.
String Magic: Everything is made of tiny, invisible strings, which few mages can manipulate. It is possible to indirectly manipulate strings by using word magic, but the ability to see and touch strings directly is limited. Often, even these abilities are restricted, with string mages able to feel/sense strings or see strings, but not both. They might not be able to manipulate them, even with these abilities.
Even the gods and goddesses are limited in terms of how well they can manipulate string magic, so mortals born with this ability tend to be closely watched, feared, or respected.
Note: String magic is primarily seen in the Wishing Blade series, but also in a couple Legends of Cirena stories.
Shadow Magic: A consuming, unstable magic. Shadow magic tends to infect the mortal world, rendering objects and people invisible to those who aren’t shadow. If wounded by a shadow weapon, a mortal will become shadow. Shadows do not like fire or glass-stone (both can kill them), and shadow weapons can also wound them. A non-shadow weapon, while it might hurt temporarily, will quickly heal. Most unstable shadows can’t see color, and feel cold.
That said… what we see of shadow magic in the Wishing Blade universe is primarily unstable… but stable shadow magic acts a bit differently. While still cold when in the mortal realm, stable shadows don’t infect, and being touched by magical ribbons will cause them to temporarily become visible before vanishing again.
Note: Unstable shadow magic plays a huge role in the Wishing Blade series. We’ll get to see stable shadow magic in Legends of Cirena #9: The Dark Forest of Aneth!
Word Magic: Technically, the Cantingen language doubles as word magic. While it’s used for everyday purposes, spells are activated by phrasing things between “Be la” and “la be.” This works independently of other magic types, though it can be used to control and manipulate string magic.
An example of word magic: Be la russéan micasi la be. (“Release my spell.” — This phrase is used to cancel a previously cast spell).
This magic is relatively straightforward, but dangerous because of the necessity of using an exact phrase. Intention plays a role, but only those with extremely strong willpower are able to speak a vague spell and have it do what they intend versus an exact rendering of what they say.
Note: Word magic doesn’t yet exist in the Legends of Cirena era, but we do see it in the Wishing Blade series and in the Stone and String series.
Charlago / Magebane: This isn’t technically magic, but its anti-magic properties mean that it interacts with magic and thus is included as part of the magic systems I try to keep track of. Magebane is a material (technically uranium, radium, or pitchblende, with special properties in the Wishing Blade Universe) which explodes when brought in in direct contact with immortal magic, and may explode depending on the concentration of ribbon magic. Ribbon magic may fray rather than explode, causing it to behave erratically, and sometimes with more… personality… than normal. When brought in contact with shadow magic, magebane loses its destructive tendencies and stabilizes the shadow.
Note: Magebane plays a huge role in later books of the Wishing Blade series, and in certain Legends of Cirena stories.
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Explore the different magic systems in these three series starters…
If you enjoy the worldbuilding and magic/power system of the Distant Horizon universe, you might enjoy these books!
(Note: The giveaways above are hosted through BookFunnel. Authors will usually ask for your email address, and in many cases, the author will collect these addresses for their newsletters.)
Recently, I was thinking back to some of our early role-play campaigns… including the one for Distant Horizon.
See, the game started as me and Isaac wanting to plan a one-shot campaign that was something of a cross between The Giver meets X-Men.
Actually, that’s not entirely accurate.
The very first campaign set in this universe was a group campaign that followed the terrible exploits of superheroes from the Super Bureau who did more damage than the villains. It was great fun, and ended up providing a bit of lore you occasionally see in the Distant Horizon series.
There’s even an easter egg regarding the Super Bureau campaign in the Glitch saga (Ghost of a Memory), when Tim is researching previous encounters with spirits:
After reviewing an article about a spirit that possessed a brain-dead child, I find several related articles from the time shortly before EYEnet was founded. One is about a man listed as Agent Knight. According to the text, he took an unruly team from the Super Bureau to remove a cult leader who tied the spirits of his followers to metal photographs—some superstition about photographs stealing a person’s soul. But the methods weren’t magical. The cult leader used life-spirit powers to bind his followers to a separate object, where he could better control them.
Long story short, though the actual events have been tweaked to better fit the story (as a great many of the campaign events have), and we don’t actually see all of the members of the ill-fated Super Bureau, some of the basic concepts of that campaign remain.
There is still a possessed, brain-dead child (at the time, she simply had a ridiculous level of power, rather than being possessed) who has a large role in the backstory of this universe (a back-burnered work-in-progress titled Little One). I have Isaac’s notes on the current version of the manuscript, and eventually I’ll need to work on those revisions. There, the investigation of the cult leader who stole souls continues… though he’s already dead (more-or-less) by the time Little One begins.
That said, we do get more Easter eggs regarding Little One’s story in Starless Night… and it’s a plot point that has some weighty significance for Jenna in dealing with the brain seed she’s trying to thwart.
There’s plenty of other little references as well. Jim mentions a few of them in the Distant Horizon series. The character of Benjamin had his start in that early campaign, though his character has gone through several iterations before you see him as he is now.
Distant Horizon was conceived as a campaign about a year or two after that one, but just between me and Isaac, and it started with Jenna in the Community, trying to figure out what was going on with the Health Scan. (Another key idea for this was that the superheroes had failed and the villains now ruled the world… but those in the Community didn’t know).
Of course, it’s not uncommon for our “one-shot” campaigns to run much longer… and it was about halfway through the campaign I decided I wanted to try writing it as a novel (I started taking notes about the spot where Fractured Skies ends). Though events have changed, the basic concept has stayed pretty much on point. One of the biggest changes being how big of a role “memory seeds” play in the story, since telepathic attacks existed, but the detailed workings of memory seeds came about later.
Tim’s story in the Glitch saga, on the other hand, wasn’t actually one of our campaigns. Portions did get played out between Isaac and me (primarily conversations between the Legion Spores and Tim… with Isaac voicing the living airships and me voicing Tim), but a lot of details were notes that Isaac had regarding what happened behind the scenes in the campaign for Distant Horizon.
Now, those aren’t the only Distant Horizon Universe campaigns we’ve done. Of note, we also had one we called “Exiles,” of which much of the story arc has been dismantled due to changes made in the published Distant Horizon series. I may revisit a version of it later, but, for now, you can see hints of it in the Deceived series. A team of young power-users have to escape a beast facility and then go on adventurers to change their world for the better… one of those characters being over-powered enough that the Camaraderie isn’t terribly happy about them…
Another campaign was the Athena arc, which is something of a techno thriller that takes place after Exiles. Again, a lot got changed based on changes to Distant Horizon. However… other aspects might eventually get reworked into later books if we ever explore the world beyond the Distant Horizon series once that’s complete. (And I have been dropping certain foreshadowing hints into the current series in case we do lean into that route).
And then there’s another campaign I ran much farther into the story’s future, but it would need major, major edits to be even remotely feasible, though there are some plot details which may work themselves into other books… especially Little One.
In any case, role-playing has been a fun way for us to develop the story and delve deeper into the individual characters and the world. 🙂
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Sneak around with Jenna in the Distant Horizon series!
Stephanie Flint - Author and Artist 