Tag Archives: world-building

July 11, 2026 · 9:30 am

Cover Process for The Wind Mage and the Wolf

Today I thought I’d give you a look into the messy sketches and scribbles of my cover design process for the The Wind Mage and the Wolf, the seventh story in the Legends of Cirena series.

I don’t always make sketches like these, but in this case, I had a few ideas I wanted to jot down so I wouldn’t forget.

Note: the scribbles are barely readable in person. Unforunately, that means they’re even less readable here.

As you can see, these are really rough sketches, meant to give me a general idea of where I might place key elements.

I’ve tried to make a note of possible titles, variant backgrounds, and things I’d need to take into consideration when I went to create the proof.

All of this was on one sheet of paper, and covered multiple stories, but I cut the page in Photoshop to make it easier to view in an email, where I originally sent out this preview in 2019.

Fast forward to the finished version of the cover, which I designed in Daz 3D Studio:

SBibb - The Wind Mage and the Wolf Cover

Here we have Livena and Nuaka (currently in an altered wolf form) as they head down the streets of Ashan. Though Livena’s magic wouldn’t normally be visible to the naked eye (she can’t see it, either), I was aiming to convey the magic/fantasy genre.

This was the first of the covers for the crossover portion of the Legends of Cirena series, each of which are novellas (or a novel, in the case of the upcoming The Dark Forest of Aneth) instead of short stories.

Eventually I decided on the title: The Wind Mage and the Wolf

(Notice in the sketch it’s “The Wolves of Maijev” which… didn’t really work for me)

My logic was that “The Wind Mage and the Wolf” crosses the title conventions of the two previous stories (“The Wind Mage of Maijev” and “The Gryphon and the Mountain Bear”), where Livena was the wind mage, and the cover art focuses on the style of her cover, whereas the title style is closer to Nuaka’s story (previously she was the mountain bear, and now she’s the wolf).

I was concerned it might sound too silly (or be too close to the first title), but ultimately, it stuck. 😄

* * *

A wind mage and a shapeshifting thief start with their own adventures… and then end up working together:

The Gryphon and the Mountain Bear - Cover

* * *

Happy reading and writing!

Play Phalanx in a browser!

Have you wanted to try out our tabletop games, but aren’t local?
Or maybe you don’t have a second person to play those games with?

Well, now you can try Phalanx in your favorite web browser!

Now, some quick housekeeping…

The browser edition is in beta. Why? Well, neither Isaac nor I are great HTML coders, so this edition was created using Claude AI, based on the game mechanics Isaac designed, with me doing the work of guiding Claude in bug fixes, game corrections, and making sure the design and mechanics still matched Isaac’s vision.

Which means that it’s still a little… clunky.

Therefore, “beta.”

But it is functional, and has let me scratch the itch of playing the game even when no one else is available to play it with me. 😁

Screenshot of the browser edition of Phalanx

Click here to play Phalanx!

I recommend going full-screen, but it’s available in both web browser and on mobile.

Now a caveat… I’ve only been able to test it on Windows 11 with a Chrome browser and on an Android phone.

But have a go, and please consider filling out the survey linked at the top of the game (click “Provide Feedback”). That’ll help us refine the game in the future. ☺️

Want to know more about how Phalanx came about?

Well…

Originally, Isaac and I had Distant Horizon.

And in Distant Horizon, the characters played a card game called Battle Decks (Originally called Beastie Wars, but that sounded too similar to another franchise).

At some point, Isaac decided it’d be really cool to figure out the mechanics of the game, so he did. He ended up making a few different faction sets, including a steampunk version based on the universe the Camaraderie members (antagonists in Distant Horizon) came from.

And because we can’t just leave a story referenced, we decided to write the story of that universe, The Multiverse Chronicles! (Back in revisions! Yay!)

But then Isaac wanted to come up with a game that made sense for those characters to play, something simple, that they might have at taverns or in small bags easy to tote along while traveling on foot.

And one day I came back from work to a fully-fledged game designed in pencil on a manila folder using pennies and nickels for game pieces and art drawn on cut-up index cards.

We refined the game, then eventually created a boxed edition on The Game Crafter… but that site is really meant for prototypes, and ordering a single copy was expensive, and not quite how we wanted the game to look.

We also created a bag edition, in which Isaac ironed on the game board to cloth bags he sewed, and all the game pieces fit inside the bag. Looked cool, and we sold almost all of those, but they took a lot of extra time since we were hand-sewing the bags.

The other edition we made involved pairing up with a local wood-carver (actually, two, because our first round sold out), and had them create a really elegant wooden board edition.

Fancy! But definitely more expensive, so we were only able to stock a few at a time.

Looked great at festivals, though.

Eventually we had an idea for putting the board game on a mouse pad, but hadn’t found a feasible way to do that until more recently.

But that version is finally complete and debuted at the Flower Moon Spring Market back in May! Woot!

Even so, all those versions were limited to what we could do locally.

We kind of tinkered with the idea of a computer version using a program called Tabletop Simulator a while back, but didn’t get far with it. And then came Claude AI.

I’d been working with Claude for a bit on other projects, but if you know much about Claude, it’s known for coding. And at some point I asked, “If I gave you the rules and art and details for a game we made, could you make a computer version?”

Said yes, so I tabled that idea until I had a chance to gather the pieces.

Eventually I started up that chat, worked through a few details with Claude, and *mind blown.* Didn’t take much to get a working prototype of the browser game running.

After more tinkering and testing, we finally got the browser version to a point that I decided it was ready for its first reveal. I sent it off to the Distant Horizon Universe newsletter!

And now, finally, I’m doing the public reveal.

I expect there will still be bugs, though I’ve done what I can to smooth anything out that I’ve found. But I would love for you to have a look, give it a try, and let us know what you think!

Click here to try out Phalanx!

* * *

Happy reading, writing, and gaming!

A Render of Merto from Magebane

A couple weeks ago, I introduced you to Lord Cafrash Menchtoteale, the blacksmith who forged the Wishing Blade.

Today, I’d like you to meet Merto, one of Cafrash’s two sons. Unlike Camir, who makes a grandiose show of impressing those around him and makes favors with anyone he can work into his grasp, Merto tries to stay out of the public eye, careful not to draw to much attention to himself.

For now, Merto remains meek… though he knows and can do far more than he lets on.

Merto makes his first appearance in Magebane, and will continue to make appearances throughout the Wishing Blade series.

Excerpt from Merto’s first appearance (Magebane):

“What are you doing here?” Toranih demanded. The leather hilt felt slick under her clammy fingers.

The light stopped moving. “Father sent me.”

“Father?” She frowned, still not quite able to make out the figure’s features in the low light. “Show yourself.”

The young man opened his hand and a pale turquoise crystal dimly lit his tall frame. He looked about Toranih’s age—she couldn’t tell if he was older or younger—and he was a shadow like the others, his features clear since she was part of his realm. His dull, grayish hair was cut loosely around his ears. His eyes were pale and he had a petite, pointy nose and rounded jaw, both of which looked familiar.

The light weaved back and forth as the young man swayed, unstable on his feet. “My father… Cafrash.”

Though Merto has a fairly small role to play in Magebane, he has his own secrets, and Toranih quickly decides she isn’t sure if she should trust him.

But then, that could be said for everyone in Cafrash’s family, and Merto isn’t the only one with a hidden agenda.

(Huh. I realize now that I haven’t designed Camir’s character in Daz yet. Given his flare for fancier clothes and haughty attidude, I bet his render would be fun. What do you think? Should I take some time to make his render?)

Eventually I want to edit Merto’s backstory novella… which I do have written but needs edits to avoid breaking my plot. Fun times.

* * *

Both brothers have an agenda… but whose plans are more dangerous?

* * *

Happy reading and writing!

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Tagged as 3d character design, character art, fantasy, fantasy books, fantasy character design, fantasy characters, Infinitas Publishing, intricate world building, legends of cirena, Magebane, magic, SBibb, self-publishing, Stephanie Flint, The Wishing Blade Universe, Wishing Blade books, world-building, writing, writing fantasy

June 13, 2026 · 9:30 am

An early render of Lord Cafrash Menchtoteale

Since we’ve been looking at a lot of my early Daz renders, let’s now take a look at the renders I have of Lord Cafrash Menchtoteale, one of my characters from the Wishing Blade series. (He starts as an antagonist… then kind of ends up in as the questionable mentor… whether he wants to be a mentor or not).

So a long, long time ago when I was playing around with Daz, I rendered Cafrash, the creator of the Wishing Blade (the series’ namesake). I rendered this image a couple times, since I apparently designed it on my older laptop, whose graphics card that would have made rendering nice went caput before I found Daz. Then I rendered it again once I got my then-new laptop (which now mostly lays in rest because I used it a lot for rendering and that’s… very intensive on a laptop, unfortunately. Renders now happen on a desktop with much better fans and airflow.

That first render took 7 hours, and didn’t have nearly as good as the results of this 2-hour render.

Needless to say, I was quite happy with the capabilities of the then-new laptop. (And I suspect the new desktop would render this much faster… though we’re on a new version of Daz now so the lighting system would probably have to be readjusted).

Anyway, enough about laptop capabilities. Lord Menchtoteale was a blacksmith before getting involved with the trickster god. Long story short, he forges the Wishing Blade, the weapon used to steal magic from Cirena in Magic’s Stealing.

Here’s a render that Isaac put together from a later version of Cafrash’s character design, which I then polished:

A blacksmith hammers a sword with magical blue wisps above it.

But did Cafrash actually want to forge the sword?

Is he really the warlord everyone thinks he is?

Or is there more going on behind the Trickster’s plans than meets the eye?

Cafrash’s backstory is one part of the story I’m having a lot of fun working with, and first started showing up in The Shadow War, and has a much larger role in Magebane.

* * *

Meet Lord Menchtoteale in all his grumpy “I’m going to give you advice whether either of us want to deal with this,” in The Wishing Blade series…

* * *

Happy reading and writing!

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Tagged as 3D character art, 3d character design, antagonist turned mentor, Daz render, fantasy, fantasy books, fantasy character art, Infinitas Publishing, intricate world building, legends of cirena, mage, Magebane, magic, Magic's Stealing, magical blacksmith, SBibb, self-publishing, Stephanie Flint, Stone and String, The Shadow War, The Wishing Blade Universe, Wishing Blade books, world-building, writing, writing fantasy

May 30, 2026 · 8:20 am

An early render of Siklana

At some point in 2019, I took to learning how to use Daz Studio in my spare time. Daz is a 3D modeling program that lets you purchase assets (poses, characters, clothing, backgrounds, etc) for your own use and then position those assets to create scenes.

There is also the ability to “morph” the basic models so they match how you envision your own characters.

The first character I customized was Siklana Covonilayno, Toranih’s sister from The Wishing Blade series:

A young noblewoman with long brown hair in a navy blue dress and overcoat.

Her hair’s a bit too long here, but this was a quick render to test the outfit and general background.

Here’s a closer look at her facial structure (customized from the Victoria 4 base model — which I’m still impressed I succeeded with since shortly after, I started working primarily with Genesis 8 models).

(At some point I needed a Daz PA (Published Artist) profile image, and this was one of my early renders I was happy with, so I used that. Later on I realized that she looks a little like me when the image is in tiny thumbnail size. Not intentional.)

At some point I might make some adjustments to Siklana’s design, mostly in redoing the character on a later model to take into account some issues and limitations I didn’t know about when first starting.

I continued to work with learning the program, and eventually put together a full scene with her.

In this case, she’s with her horse, Esara.

A young woman standing on a vine-tangled staircase offers her hand to a curious horse at the foot of the stair.

(The horse’s coat and mane ended up a bit darker than I was initially picturing for Esara, so I may need to do some tweaking if I do further images with her).

The idea behind this image, though only mentioned in The Wishing Blade series rather than actually seen, is that Siklana used to go outside of Cirena City to practice her knife-throwing skills in peace.

She would ride out to the forested region behind the city walls to a small, abandoned ruin. (This region was once Aneth, home to those who would eventually spread throughout Cirena. At the time, they faced attacks by the immortals, and many of their buildings ended up in ruin once they fled). This particular building would likely have been fairly recent in their history, though still abandoned. But now this side of the forest is relatively safe. The perfect place to go when someone wants time to themselves to study and throw knives.

Are there any characters from the Wishing Blade universe (any of the stories) that you would be interested in seeing?

* * *

Though Siklana starts as a side character, by Magebane she has a major character arc…

* * *

Happy reading and writing!

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Tagged as 3D character art, character design, Daz 3D, Daz Character art, Daz Studio, fantasy, fantasy books, fantasy character design, Infinitas Publishing, intricate world building, legends of cirena, Magic's Stealing, SBibb, self-publishing, Stephanie Flint, Stone and String, The Wishing Blade Universe, Wishing Blade books, world-building, writing, writing fantasy

May 16, 2026 · 7:17 am

An early render of Meshon

Today I thought I’d do a behind-the-scenes snippet for one of the Cirenan-Cantingen goddesses: Meshon.

Meshon is one of the older goddesses, and she has a strong presence in both Cirenan and Cantingen pantheons.

Though not considered a primary goddess in the Cantingen pantheon (who only recognize a small handful of deities in addition to Madia), Meshon is revered as Madia’s trusted messenger.

Meshon is often referred to as the Oracle, capable of seeing visions of the future and walking between realms–though her ability to cross realms means it’s not always clear which world her visions refer to, and that issue has landed many of her followers into trouble for trying to interpret her dreams.

Shevanlagiy/Ralendacin has held a grudge with the goddess for this very reason, and that grudge is clear in Magebane.

Meshon currently has a role in both The Wishing Blade series and Stone and String, and even plays small roles in some of the Legends of Cirena short stories, such as The Scars of Her Past… though she plays a much larger role in the upcoming Legends of Cirena novel, The Dark Forest of Aneth. (Yes, novel. It was supposed to be a novella but it has well surpassed that word count at this point).

Below is one of the test images I created for Meshon using Daz 3D Studio. Her design is still in progress, but this is fairly close to how I see her. 🙂

The goddess Meshon spreads her arms to do magic. She has dark skin, wears a sheer head scarf, and has beads in her braided hair.

Meshon’s prophecies will eventually have a strong role in the next Stone and String story, and it’s her prophecy that references the coming of Ralendacin, the “Destroyer of Worlds” (Shevanlagiy in The Wishing Blade series).

* * *

Meshon plays a role in many stories…

* * *

Happy reading and writing!

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Tagged as 3D rendering, character art, character design, Daz 3D, fantasy, fantasy books, fantasy character design, fantasy prophecy, Infinitas Publishing, intricate world building, legends of cirena, magic, Magic's Stealing, prophecies in fantasy, prophecy, SBibb, self-publishing, Stephanie Flint, Stone and String, The Wishing Blade Universe, Wishing Blade books, world-building, writing, writing fantasy

May 2, 2026 · 7:54 am

Rough Drafts and Conlangs

The process of writing a rough draft can be… well… a bit rocky. Surprisingly, at the time I originally wrote this post to send to newsletter subscribers, the draft for a novella I’d been working on (and later shelved) had been going surprisingly smoothly.

Well… sort of.

Originally, I planned on it being a short story. (If you’ve been following me long at all, you probably have an idea of where this is going.

At the time I wrote newsletter email, the story was sitting firmly in the “novella” category at 28,000 words.

And it wasn’t done yet.

The story finalized at finalized at 37,000 words. For comparison, Magic’s Stealing is a novella of 34,000 words, and Wind and Words clocks in at 22,000 words.

The good news was that I only had two or three scenes left before the story is complete. Then came the challenge of editing to create a tight plot (because extraneous scenes like to make their way into the rough draft while I’m still figuring out the details).

Then I got to go back and add in the translations for the various spells and sections in different languages.

Which is what I wanted to talk about today. Because seriously, I had sections in the rough draft that looked something like this:

He came out of the storeroom with a shallow bowl and a pitcher of water. “Be la mireyan naébiéeth so nocho Farris NAME chono li mirra da nac so wusna miduhan la be.” (CHECK PHRASE… add (not to exceed my focus))

In this case, I snagged the scrying spell from The Shadow War, inserted the correct name (and realized I didn’t have the targetted character’s last name), and made a note to myself to recheck the phrase and add in an extra qualifying statement.

Err… it looks a lot more coherent when it’s done.

The extra fun part of this was that I knew I’d probably have to do additional grammar work due to including the then-fledgeling conlang in the story.

He went back to the storeroom and came out with a shallow bowl and a pitcher of water. “Be la fayquelvi miruen, mireyan naébiéeth so nocho Farris chono li mirra da nac so wusna miduhan la be.”

Magic, not to exceed my focus, reveal the location of Farris in the form of an image in the bowl of water before me.

And as you might notice… I decided to omit the last name. Ideally, the caster would use the full name. But this character is supposed to be exceedingly strong at wielding intent versus precision (which is also extremely dangerous), so it’s fine. And words got added.

But that’s a little look into my rough draft process where conlangs are involved.

Originally I planned to release this story after Magebane, with the idea that it was going to be a bridge between The Wishing Blade series and the Stone and String series.

But Isaac pointed out some world-breaking holes in the current version of the story, so it’s been hanging out on the back shelf of one of my hard-drives while I tackle other books.

That said, I’d like to return to this one eventually…

* * *

Read the two series that this novella was intended to bridge…

* * *

Happy reading and writing!

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Tagged as conlangs, constructed language, fantasy, fantasy books, fantasy languages, fictional languages, Infinitas Publishing, intricate world building, legends of cirena, SBibb, self-publishing, Stephanie Flint, Stone and String, The Wishing Blade Universe, Wishing Blade books, world-building, writing, writing a rough draft, writing fantasy

April 18, 2026 · 7:36 am

Using charts to write The Wind Mage of Maijev

Today, I thought I’d take a look at one of the methods I used in writing The Wind Mage of Maijev, the first in the Legends of Cirena series.

This series started with me writing a “segment a week” based on voting from members of the Legends of Cirena Facebook group (now on a semi-permanent hiatus).

My writing partner, Isaac, did quite a bit of world development for the Legends era, especially in regards to the different districts and the shops. While this was meant for a personal tabletop roleplay version of Cirena, it’s also been really helpful for world development. (And I’ve still occasional yanked out the charts he made for reference in later stories that are currently in development).

In this case, Isaac took what I had already developed of Maijev (the general concept for the city, the larger world map, etc.), divided the city-as-a-country into districts (such as the Northern and Southern Quarters, of which the Southern Quarter is the primary area where The Wind Mage of Maijev takes place), and figured out who would likely frequent the region, the kind of prices those stores would have, and even which factions characters might run into.

Here’s a glimpse at the document he created:

Enen’s Study and Zora’s Market are the primary characters and locations I pulled for The Wind Mage of Maijev, though Cross Bones does get a brief reference.

Overall, having these charts has been really helpful in developing the Legends stories, since I can easily look to them to figure out what might be in the area and what sort of encounters a character might have.

For example, Livena, the protagonist of The Wind Mage of Maijev, has mixed feelings about Zora’s Market… especially since they sell a few items that probably shouldn’t be in Maijev. 😉

* * *

See how those charts turned into a story in The Wind Mage of Maijev, (and you can get the ebook edition for FREE from online retailers!)

* * *

Happy reading and writing! 📖

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Tagged as fantasy, fantasy books, fantasy marketplace, fantasy short story, Infinitas Publishing, intricate world building, legends of cirena, magic, SBibb, self-publishing, Stephanie Flint, The Wind Mage of Maijev, The Wishing Blade Universe, Wishing Blade books, world-building, writing, writing a fantasy short story, writing fantasy

April 4, 2026 · 7:16 am

Designing the Cover for The Cursed Halls of Kalecen

I recently shared my process for designing the cover of The Restless Sands of Neel, and today I thought I might take a look into the steps I took for the next book in the series, The Cursed Halls of Kalecen.

This ended up being the final cover:

The Cursed Halls of Kalecen - Book Cover

I had a lot of fun with this story, since it deals with an immortal creature known in Cirena as a chesnathé.

Long story short, they’re this world’s version of a unicorn… except they’re a mix of the European unicorn and the Asian qilin, so chesnathéme are known for either judging their victims as guilty and killing them by spearing the guilty party’s heart with their horn, or determining they’re innocent and, (if “pure of heart”), granting them immortality.

Thing is, one of the Cirenan gods, Kalecen, has a broken horn and his sense of justice is… skewed. Technically a god of justice, he’s more a god of revenge.

So when the student of a protective duelist, Hahven,foils a revenge plot and incurs the wrath of Kalecen, it’s up to Hahven to shield her from the god’s harsh judgement.

For the cover, I wanted to depict Hahven facing off with Kalecen, but the first few images I rendered seemed far too static, so I ultimately ended up adding the god’s blood-thirsty champion to the picture… and I liked the result a lot better.

Here’s a few of the in-progress pictures:

I used Daz Studio to model the images, and it took several tries before I was finally happy with how it looked. (And a few days of running renders at night to give it enough time to render at a large size without being grainy). The images above are the raw renders, before I took them into Photoshop.

A: The first version. I used atmospheric lighting, which I liked, but it was too dark and Hahven’s pose seemed too static. Not exciting enough.

B. Different lighting method (no atmosphere), and I tweaked the pose so that he would be facing Kalecen better, but it was still missing something. Too static.

C. Added in Kalecen’s champion. Now he’s facing off with her… and he is supposed to be level headed, but… (can you guess what I’m going to say here?) Still too static.

(Noticing the trend?)

D. Brightened the scene a bit more and changed Hahven’s pose. Much more dynamic… but forgot to use DForce on the clothes to get them to lay naturally. Not a fan of the lighting. Also, accidentally angled the camera wrong and ended up with the purple blotch where the floor ended.

E. DForced Hahven’s clothes and now they lay properly. Also added the atmospheric lighting back (but with higher brightness levels). After changing the angle, I was much happier with the result. He’s benefitting from one of the roof’s lights, and it’s also much more dynamic. Plus… shiny reflection, even if you don’t get to see much of it on the actual cover do to the typography.

Ultimately I decided to zoom in so he’d be closer on the cover, but version E was the one I ended up Photoshopping. 🙂

* * *

Read The Cursed Halls of Kalecen and root for a duelist fighting an unhinged god of justice…

* * *

Happy reading and writing! 📚

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Tagged as book cover, book cover design, cover art, cover design, cover design process, Daz Studio 3D, designing a fantasy cover, fantasy, fantasy books, Infinitas Publishing, legends of cirena, SBibb, self-publishing, Stephanie Flint, The Wishing Blade Universe, Wishing Blade books, world-building, writing, writing fantasy

March 21, 2026 · 2:00 pm

Designing the cover for The Restless Sands of Neel

Like many of my cover designs, especially my designs using Daz renders, the design for The Restless Sands of Neel had a major shift from the first iteration to the final.

Sometimes the title changes, too! Originally I was going to call the novella, The Dragon in the Desert.

But, after feedback from newsletter subscribers, I was worried it might disappoint readers looking for a more typical dragon.

Ro’nor, the protagonist, might have descended from dragons, but he doesn’t have wings or any of their special powers, and he can’t shift into their form. The biggest creature we see in the story is a monstrous pit worm.

So… after a bunch of brainstorming, deliberating, and tweaking words to see what else might work, I finally settled on:

The Restless Sands of Neel

Anyhow, here’s a look at the first proof I made for the cover:

There were some changes I already planned to make: a different set of robes/shirt, maybe a different hair once I double-checked what was stated in the story, possibly a different coat pattern for the horse to make sure it’s consistent with the story, and the final touch-ups to make it look like a polished cover.

I sent this out, along with the tentative title, to the newsletter, and several readers chimed in with their thoughts and suggestions. (Much appreciated!)

As a result, I ended up making some major changes, two based on making it more accurate to the novella (the horse’s coat color and the main character’s hair style), and I did a bit of work to make it more dynamic and personal (a common problem of mine, for some reason).

And so I ended up with this for the final version of the cover: