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Author’s Note: The Knave of Nodderton, Episodes 4 & 5
On Wednesday, October 5, 2022 and Friday, October 7, 2022, I published the fourth and fifth episodes of The Knave of Nodderton on Kindle Vella.
The two episodes convey a single scene where Gammond encounters two young men who’ve captured a third and are torturing him for information.
In this scene, Gammond uses an ingested poison named Torpor. When I wrote the duration of its effect in the narrative, I actually did roll 4d6 to get the incapacitation duration. By this time, he’s figured out that few people refuse buttered bread and, if necessary, he can play that to his advantage with a poison like Torpor.
He also brandishes a fairy puppet to assist with his ruse.
Gammond was carrying these items around from his Nodderton visit that I mentioned in Episode 2. He visited the children’s fair and a number of apothecaries.
In this episode, I emphasize that Gammond is a halfling. He’s small, doesn’t even carry a weapon aside from a knife, and he survives of his wits and his ability to hide. Gammond can’t confront adversaries directly, and in this story, he has limited experience with thieving and no experience fighting. Gammond’s “weapons'“ are his cleverness and bold courage. I wanted to illustrate that point with this encounter.
To me, Gammond’s limitations are what’s fun about this character and writing his stories. In the fantasy genre in particular, it seems like we’re always given a protagonist who had an exemplary body, a range of combat experience, and armor and weapons. They’re combat machines and can’t lose, and I find little suspense in those stories. I like writing and reading about the underdogs, unlikely heroes, because their jeopardy is so much greater.
All the best - thanks for reading!
R
Author’s Note: The Knave of Nodderton, Episode 3
On Friday September 30, 2022, I published the third episode of The Knave of Nodderton on Amazon Vella, “Heavy is the Crown.”
This is the third and last “free” episode offered through Vella; starting with episode four, Vella imposes their token exchange to eke out fractions of pennies from readers.
Like just about everything I put on Vella, readership is practically zilch. I find that there’s a lot of noise on Vella and no real way to put titles in front of readers. If you write YA-vampire-werewolf-BDSM-slash-fic, or romance, it seems like your work bubbles into their featured carousels. Not so much when you’re writing about fun halflings. Yay for you. Not that I’m bitter.
Anyway, this is the third installment of Knave, and the POV shifts back to Danros. It explains the events following the Bird & Rye incident and the predicament that he’s gotten himself into, and can’t seem to find a way out of.
I revealed a couple of truths in the story.
One, it’s apparent from this story that the pearl Danros keeps on him is, in fact, a Palantir - a scrying orb. Unlike the wrathwizard stuff, Danros isn’t making that up. It is ridiculously small and he has trouble actually using it because the images are so tiny. The use of the Palantir has helped Danros acquire power and prestige, and boot Lord Rendaldo from power.
Two, it was also noted that Danros was intimately familiar with the jails and dungeons of Nodderton, and I throw in a couple of suggestions that he's a trim, fit, nimble rogue, who talks too much, and doesn’t do well sitting. He’s most definitely a criminal.
Three, I elude to a runner to Nodderton in this piece as a reference to Gammond’s discovery in Episode 2, and sets up the conflict in Episode 4.
Finally, four, it’s also revealed that Danros, as a character, isn’t necessarily a bad guy. Sure, he’s helping Auchenshuggle for a 10% cut but, for the most part, he hasn’t killed anybody (except for the events at the Bird & Rye).
I pretty much say that Danros is the “knave” of the story and introduce the central arc of the story. He’s a scam artist who got everything he wanted, but, is in over his head and wants out.
Thanks for reading!
R
Author’s Note: Piskie Sticks
On Friday September 30, 2022, I published Piskie Sticks, a short story on Wattpad.
The rankings line up under the #halfling and #halfling tags, as well as under #fairies.
This story was originally written as serialized fiction for the Aevalorn Tales anthology. It’s a Gammond Brandyford backstory that attempts to illustrate a number of things about the character before he leaves Aymes Parish for his wander.
He’s a menace; how he’s looked at by most within Pondaroak.
His overall carefree nature.
His problem with understanding right from wrong and his willingness to harm even harmless little fae to get what he’s after (sociopathy).
His character’s relationship with Lucien Shrillgrove and Elina Hogsbreath in this story does take place in Pondaroak.
The backstory on how Gammond came into possession of the endless bread basket and butter crock.
Primarily, what I wanted to drive at in this story is Gammond’s nature. I wrote in his character bio that he just doesn’t give a crap and he’s willing to do almost anything he needs to do to accomplish a goal. That means doing some very questionable things, like capturing and torturing a fairy, in this case, or looking for a Goblin warlord all on his own in Of Luck and Locksmiths. In D&D terms, his alignment is chaotic neutral and I try to write him that way.
What I also wanted to touch on his own Gammond came into possession of his light stone and the endless items. They feature prominently in his stories and I figured that they needed their own back story.
Originally, Piskie Sticks had two sections. In this edition, I cleaned up the work and inserted more content, and wrote another section describing Gammond’s wander with the fae in the forest to raid her treasure hoard. I also re-aligned the story to match a timeline with The Knave of Nodderton, and removed the references to Dumbria in the work. Piskie Sticks takes place about six or eight months before Knave, and Knave takes place four or five years before Of Luck and Locksmiths. I also took the time to re-align some elements of Elina Hogsbreath with my work this last month on A Thyme of Trouble.
I always like writing Gammond stories - I feel like they’re my groove, you know? - and splitting this one out from the anthology is just an ongoing effort to capitalize on creating layers of searchable content within Wattpad.
Anyway, thanks for reading! Find more Gammond-goodness in Knave, my current project.
R
Author’s Note: The Knave of Nodderton, Episode 2
On Tuesday September 27, 2022, I posted the second episode of The Knave of Nodderton, “The Memory Box”.
Unlike Wattpad, there’s no real way to get useful stats and demographics out of readers on Vella, but the current readership for the story is modest. Probably six views rather than eight; two of ‘em are me :). That’s one of the reasons why I prefer Wattpad as a publishing platform. The stats are far more generous as an author.
Under Vella’s rules, the first three episodes are free. You don’t start earning tokens until the fourth episode. I also don’t think you show up in the scroll for “Recently Added Stories” until the 4th episode is posted.
This episode is an introduction to Gammond and where he’s been since leaving the Aevalorn Parishes in Piskie Sticks. I re-introduce the everlasting bread basket and butter crock, he makes a little money, and he acquires a magic item: a box that stores a memory and replays a memory.
I used these boxes in a recent D&D 2022 campaign and the old dwarf memory is an actual memory that I wrote out for the campaign. I truncated it in the narrative because it’s not relevant to Gammond’s story, but I wanted to convey to the reader what the box is and does. Otherwise, we’re moving Gammond down the road to a conflict that he’ll work through in the third episode.
And of course it’s a plot device :) … keep reading!
Aside from the box, I wanted to give the reader the impression of Gammond as a wanderer, and that he prefers to be on his own, unlike most halflings in the Parish. He’s an adventurous tyke to begin with, even before he gains his animated amulet Vongur - that’s later on in life - so there’s nobody for him to talk to yet, but that’ll change in the next episode.
Nodderton is a city-state that I reference in A Thyme of Trouble. The way I see it, the Free Cities of Gaelwyn compete for protectorates so they can earn taxes from these smaller hamlets like Aushenshuggle in this story, so I’ve briefly talked about “protectorates” in this work. If you looked at the map, Aushenshuggle is actually closer to the Free City of Mumling, but the way I saw it is that Mumling was separated from the hamlet by the Wych and couldn’t respond adequately to convince Lord Rendoldo of Aushenshuggle to sign-up with them. I also introduce Nodderton’s skills in building things and the Alberding Bridge over the Wych.
More’s coming up! There’s a little more action and adventure in the third episode, I promise :)
R
Author’s Note: The Knave of Nodderton, Episode 1
On Friday September 23, 2022, I posted the first episode of The Knave of Nodderton on Amazon Vella.
The Knave of Nodderton takes place in a hamlet named Auchenshuggle - and, gods, I love that name - which is a protectorate of the City State of Nodderton. I haven’t written about the coastal City States in Gaelwyn yet so I was looking forward to it.
This is a Gammond Brandyford story but when the episode launches, my full attention is paid to the antagonist, Danros Genolbo, and his misadventures at an inn named the Bird & Rye. Gammond will be brought into the story in episode two. I’m anticipating ten to twelve episodes in this story at about 2,000 words each.
This is also Gammond’s first stand-alone title. I’ve routed most of his stories under Aevalorn Tales on Wattpad.
When I write stories with Gammond, they’re playful and fun and the narrative in this piece reflects that, especially when Danros corrects the grammar of a Lord’s Guard during a confrontation. I’m also borrowing the Palantir trope from The Lord of the Rings, but I can assure you that it’s got my own spin.
If you’ve read the story, you can probably see that there’s something going on with Danros. He has some knowledge, enough for him to know what would happen when the Lord’s Guard drew his sword, and when to dive for cover. As he said, he knows things, but something about him doesn’t quite fit.
I’ve taken this story to Amazon Vella to play a little more with the platform.
It’ll be a fun romp, I think! Thanks for reading …
R
Author’s Note: The Grotesque of Silvanus
On Thursday September 22, 2022, I published The Grotesque of Silvanus, a short story on Wattpad.
Interestingly, the rankings are throwing this story more under Dungeons & Dragons, but I’ll take the #9 in Halflings ranking. Do I want to dominate the #halflings tag? Maybe I do (shrug); don’t judge me.
This is the first story where Jayleigh Warmhollow appears. I wrote the story to coincide with Halloween and the All Hallow Tide season, and within it, I wanted to explore the mythology of guardians.
When I first sketched out this character earlier in the year, I gave her “Warmhollow” as a surname, but throughout writing this story, I kept writing it as “Wormhollow” which, in retrospect, sounded cooler for a Druid character, and I considered changing it. The character, though, isn’t supposed to be repulsive and that’s kinda the image I get with “Worm” so the “Warm” stuck with her. When I was reading the story aloud, I kept saying “Jay-LAY” rather than “Jay-LEE”, which really annoyed my testers. Needless to say, it’s taken me a little while to get used to saying her name right. :)
This was my first story featuring Jayleigh. I picture this character as an avenue to explore nature lore and old secrets. Structurally, when I’m writing her stories, I’m looking to hone some skills as an author with poetry, song, rhythm, cadence, and voice. This story features a lot of colorful, dark descriptions, one song, one poem, and numerous places within the narrative that I played with rhyming.
Jayleigh is a wise and aware character and I write her with a voice that exceeds her 22 years. That wisdom came at a price, however, and I explore a little bit of her origin story in this piece, explaining how she set fire to her house and accidentally killed her parents, and, how she attempted suicide at 14. She’s young, but she has a lot of miles, so she uses a lot of high-falutin words. I also eluded to another character that’s intertwined with Jayleigh, Kindle Muckwalker, who is a Ranger of the Aevalorn Wilds and helped train Jayleigh to survive in the Wilds after she ran away from home. This character has a lot of backstory and pain to be resolved, and the story ends on those notes.
Because it’s a Halloween story, I, of course, had to make one of the guardians Jack of the Lantern who I pictured as a duplicitous spirit. One side of that coin is maniacal laughing crazy jackolantern, and the other was a goofy cross-eyed kind of persona. The scarecrow was the first guardian that I thought of for the story, and the Green Man was the guardian that I chose to make grumpy, bad, and bitter for somewhat obvious reasons. Guardians like these are all around us in the modern world and many young people aren’t exposed to the mythology. In this story, I wanted to make a tour of the lore surrounding each of these guardians and explain the “why” they’re here in the first place. Maybe, just maybe, readers will have a keener eye when they walk the streets or visit a family member, finding an old man’s head in the garden, or seeing a scarecrow, and think of their connection to myth. I meet many young people these days that just walk by these things and never notice them, and that’s a shame :)
I also needed to introduce Garwig, Jayleigh’s sidekick. Yes! It’s fully my intention to bring Garwig away from the sanctuary at times to go on new adventures with Jayleigh. I bet you didn’t see that coming?
I chose Silvanus because it’s an old name and has two references. The first is to the Roman deity of nature and the second is to D&D where a Silvanus God there is pretty much an echo of the Romain version. It’s a nature deity so the use of a Green Man and the need for a holy sanctuary/garden seemed even more relevant. The Free City of Mumling also appears in my current long form work in A Goblet of Bone.
Just work with Jayleigh is coming but I’ve got a busy Q4 ahead of me. I’m kicking off another short story on Amazon Vella; I’m writing Bartram’s Goblet of Bone book; I’m going to be editing and cleaning up the Ballad of Skyer Dannon for Wattpad; and I’ll be turning that into my first fantasy fiction book sold through Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Kobo by the end of the year. So I hope I’m able to find some time for her. :)
All the best - thanks for reading!
R
Author’s Note: A Thyme of Trouble
On Monday September 19, 2022, I published A Thyme of Trouble, Episode 1 on Wattpad. This is a short story and will only have one episode. It’s currently ranked #582 in Food but #12 in Halflings, so I’ll take the Halflings score :)
I wrote this story in response to a contest keying off of the prompt “Trouble”. It features Elina Hogsbreath as the principal character.
Elina appeared in Gammond Brandyford in Piskie Sticks Part 1, but this was the first story that I’d written for Elina. I was excited to write it.
I was particularly fond of the kitchen scenes because so much of this character is entangled with her kitchen.
Her kitchen is the source of generational magic, and Elina is an untrained Hedge Witch who uses magic while cleaning and cooking food. Yes, magic! How else did you think she runs an inn all by herself? :)
I wrote that the clay oven in her kitchen was 3’ deep and recessed into her wall. That’s because I picture it as a floor heater under Elina’s private residence in the tavern. If you’re a halfling and preparing six to eight meals a day, that oven must constantly be running, so why not use some of the heat?
Her oven also features a Halfling hero, Elucian, fighting a hydra with a pike. I picture Elina with an oven peel, driving it deep into the hot oven … I just liked the imagry. The hero depicted on her oven door is Elucian, who was referred to in Elucian’s Song, Episode 19, in Skyer Dannon’s story. I didn’t mention Elucian by name in Elina’s story, but that’s what I thought of when I wrote the piece.
The central conflict in this story arises from how our troubles suppress our enjoyment of food. It introduces a Celtic fae called a joint-eater, or an alp-luachra. I really liked playing with this idea of a fae that would eat when you ate and potentially starve you, and it was a natural fit for Elina. In my story, the fae sucks away all joy from food and eating, and it has a radius effect so that everyone in the tavern was impacted when Ian Denbow walked into the room.
There were a number of fae-related superstitions that I incorporated into the writing and didn’t feel the need to really explain them. I thought my audience could live with that and were probably exposed to these mechanics in my previous stories. The souring milk (milk sours when introduced to a fae), wearing your jacket backward (a cloak in this case), salt as a barrier, and using iron to repel them (Elina’s use of the skillet to get the fae out of Denbow). As Elina’s primary antagonists are fae, it allows me to delve into these myths and talk about them in ways that might make more sense to contemporary audiences.
Elina as a character is a lot of fun because she’s “trapped” in the Swindle & Swine; she really can’t go anywhere without shutting down the inn. So her stories revolve around other characters who come and go as foot traffic. That offers a lot of opportunities for kitschy, homey, cozy, foody writing that just makes me feel good. I hope to revisit the character soon.
Thanks for reading!
R
Who is Elina Hogsbreath?
Character Description
Elina Hogsbreath, a Halfling of the Aevalorn Parishes and the Proprietor of the Swindle & Swine, comes from a long line of kitchen witches: those whose spellcasting incorporates the magic of food.
Elina is middle-aged, in her early forties. She is a lightfoot halfling. She has brown curly hair.
The Swindle & Swine has been passed down through her family for generations. It’s located in the hamlet of Pondaroak in Aymes Parish.
Elina’s character is connected to her kitchen, and I spend a great deal of time exploring elements of her kitchen and her magical practices. Her kitchen is as much a character in her stories as she is.
“Come wolves, worgs, or worms, I’ll serve you right.”
Stories
Elina is a hedge witch. She is a solo practitioner of magic derived from divinity, herbalism, and alchemy. She isn’t formally trained, rather, she has learned what she knows from her family; generations of passed-down lore. She is extremely well-versed in all things related to fae. I believe Elina’s stories will have layers. One layer is about food, drink, magic, fae, and halfling traditions; another is about psychology and certain human truths; another is Celtic lore. I also believe that most if not all of her stories will take place in the Swindle, only because halfling appetites couldn’t tolerate her being away from the kitchen for very long.
Elina made her first appearance in Gammond Brandyford’s Piskie Sticks. The rest of her stories follow chronologically in the sequence below.
Who is Jayleigh Warmhollow?
Character Description
Jayleigh (Jay-LEE), a Halfling of the Parishes, has a talent.
She can hear the songs sung by the land and plants; feel their tenors and vibrations; she communicates with nature through song.
Jayleigh is a young lightfoot Halfling, just twenty-two years old. She was orphaned at an early age due to a fire that took her parents.
She’s a Druid and, following her parent’s death, spent a great deal of time in the Aevalorn Wilds with another halfling character, a ranger named Kindle Muckwalker. Kindle taught her the ways of the Wilds and how to survive.
Stories
Jayleigh’s themes concern nature, religion, and superstition. Besides Kindle, I’ve plans to write a story that includes a collaboration between Jayleigh and Skyer Dannon.
When you’re coached on writing, people will tell you to read what you write aloud to hear its cadence. This character is my answer to that problem. Jayleigh’s adventures are about poetry, rhyme, rhythm, and the sounds of nature. When I write these stories, I’m really trying to put my creative descriptions into overdrive; I try to write poems and songs to go along with the narrative.
She first appeared in the short story The Grotesque of Silvanus.
Who is Skyer Dannon?
Character Description
Skyer Dannon was a halfling, born more than four hundred years ago in Tatterfield Parish.
He lived a good life. He had friends. He had a family. He was adored by his kin. Ask around: Skyer Dannon lived.
Skyer Dannon died. He did die.
Although he died, Skyer Dannon was never buried; his body did not decompose; his consciousness never left him.
In death, so many years ago, he walked Aevalorn immortal, and Skyer Dannon continues to do so to this very day.
”Perfect as Pears.”
Stories
Skyer Dannon is a complex character that bends several ideas on its head, starting with the idea of “hobbits”. In the Ballad of Skyer Dannon, I wanted to create a story where the Shire gets a vampire. He represents everything a halfling isn’t. He’s an anti-villain of sorts, a good guy and a bad guy. His stories are dark, sinister, and horror; he’s all about graphic violence, vampire lore, and demons.
Skyer is immortal and can appear in many settings, but he will have adventures with Maedrey Puck, Jayleigh Warmhollow, and Kindle Muckwalker. The Ballad will be the first long-form book that I’ll publish.
Who is Gammond Brandyford?
Character Description
Gammond Brandyford is a lightfoot halfling male in his mid-twenties. I like to say that he’s about as much a halfling as a halfling can be.
Born and raised in Pondaroak in Aymes Parish, he left when he was around seventeen to explore the world.
Gammond is a rogue, a pick-pocket, and he’s severely fearless and foolish. Gammond doesn’t give a crap; he’s a smallfoot sociopath. And maybe a tad divergent?
He’s an adventurer and a journalist; he sends his journals back home where they’re published as volumes of popular stories. He has curly ruddy hair and green eyes, or blue? Depends on the light.
He carries a leather satchel with inkwells and parchment and journals. His satchel plays a big part in nearly every one of his stories.
He has a deep scar on his right arm that was earned from bargaining with goblins.
Gammond has a pal, an animated amulet named Vongur.
“What’s the easiest way to get what I need?”
Stories
Gammond Brandyford was a halfling hero in a D&D campaign that I ran between 2013-2018. His stories figured prominently in the campaign and he’s the whole inspiration for Aevalorn Tales. When I write his stories, I’m usually taking a playful voice as a narrator and will occasionally break the 4th wall where I’m speaking directly to the reader. Often I feel like I get into a Douglas Adams headspace with this character. His stories are silly and fun.
Who is Bartram Humblefoot?
Character Description
A stout halfling male in his late sixties, Bartram Humblefoot is at the far end of middle-aged.
He has wispy gray and walnut blonde hair. Light brown, hazel eyes. He’s pale, taller than most of his peers, and is usually armed with a cheery disposition.
Born and raised in Applegrove Parish and raised with a noble upbringing, Bartram is a Paladin, a Faithful Warrior-Servant of Rillifane Rallathil, the Leaflord. He has taken the Oath of the Ancients.
As the Aevalorn Parishes have no standing army of their own, Bartram has served the Free City of Mumling in Gaelwyn for over fifty years.
Bartram’s gear is humble. He wears a silver oak tree around his neck; he must bear the weight of his family’s signet ring. He wears a simple ringmail shirt - tailored for the human men in the army of Mumling - a thick brown leather belt, gloves, and carries a round steel shield emblazoned with a matte silver oak tree. In battle, he wields a leaf-bladed short sword.
Bartram struggles with the hypocrisy of faith. He is also bothered by the way Man treats the poor. Bartram loves to travel and dislikes the proposition of settling down or retiring. He strives to find the biggest multiplier effect when helping people.
“Is right … always right?”
Stories
When I write about Bartram, I’m usually trying to explore a number of concepts: growing old, ageism, sexism, what is holy and devout, and wealth inequality. His stories are usually more serious and I try writing in a more neutral voice. I really enjoy detailing his spirituality, spellcasting, and connection to nature. As I continue to write the character, I’ll actually be traveling back in time and visiting him when he was younger.
Bartram made his first appearance in Aevalorn Tales, and I’m currently writing a long-form story for him titled The Goblet of Bone.
Author’s Note: Goblet of Bone, Episode 3
A discussion about the third episode of A Goblet of Bone, published on Wattpad.
On Friday August 26, I published the second episode of A Goblet of Bone in two parts to Wattpad. It’s still 43 in FantasyCreatures…
This episode diverges from Bartram’s point of view to another character, Renata of House Latenta. There’s a couple of things that I wanted to illustrate here.
The upside-down garden reflects Brigantia’s differences from contemporary fantasy settings, as I mentioned in my last post.
It’s also Renata’s life upended and turned upside down.
I wanted to introduce the character, her baby, and her friend, and kick off their arc in the story.
I wanted to tie in Creighton of House Brix and her relationship to him.
Renata is the sister to the Archon, now first in line to Ascend, and her newborn daughter is the center of a coming political change.
I wanted to play with a dreamscape in the 3.1 episode and try to turn the prose into a disjointed dream. I’m not entirely sure that I’ve succeeded; I ended up re-writing it three times. I’m still not sure I’m happy with it but I wanted to illustrate the character’s relationship with her mother without actually talking about it. I wanted to kind of describe it through the dream.
I also wanted to introduce the character’s central conflict which is how motherhood arrested her life’s plan; the dream sequence ends with an image of the baby in iron tongs. Seeing your baby in dreams … I think one could interpret that as change, or her subconscious unable to reconcile the change the baby’s introducing. Either way, I wanted to say all of this in a different way than just narrative and dialogue.
This episode also introduces another character, a mystery creature hanging out in the upside-down garden. Those who play D&D might recognize the critter as a Kenku.
Who is this mystery character? Why is he in the upside-down garden and watching Renata? Or the baby? Or both Renata and the baby? Well, you’ll just have to keep reading to find out!
Thanks for reading!
R
Author’s Note: Goblet of Bone, Episode 2
A discussion about the second episode/chapter two, of A Goblet of Bone and why Brigantia is structured the way it is for telling the story.
Over the course of Sunday August 21 and Friday August 26, I published the second episode of A Goblet of Bone in three parts to Wattpad.
It’s currently #42 in FantasyCreatures … yay!!
Please indulge me - I find joy in small things :)
This chapter is a walkabout to describe the setting and define terms.
My goals for this chapter were to lay down a couple of complex ideas once so I don’t necessarily need to repeat them in the future.
The general geography of the region.
Brigantia’s geography and layout (Lowtown, Midtown, Hightown).
The Houses and their political factions.
As my stories about Bartram are about broader themes concerning human suffering, I tried to illustrate at least two layers of suffering that are the target of this book.
Poverty and homelessness.
The suffering of women under patriarchy by contrasting with Brigantia’s matriarchial rule.
I needed to relate the setting and explain why Brigantia’s a different place, a “Jewel of Gaelwyn” I call it in the prose. I think most readers would recognize Brigantia as a classic wedding cake. It has three tiers: a small rich top, a delicious mid-sized middle, and a common round lower section for “common” people to enjoy. I’ll be adding more substrates to the cake as we go on and giving more depth to these layers, but Brigantia gives me a way to talk about classism, poverty, and power.
Conceptually, Brigantia is supposed to flip contemporary ideas about fantasy settings on their head, and I elude to this in chapter 3 with dead upside-down trees in a garden. Brigantia is an inverted comparison to what we normally read in fantasy.
This isn’t a “kingdom” and there’s no “king”; there’s no absolute ruler, but there is a monarch, and it’s a woman who is mostly a figurehead;
Men don’t have rights, women retain all rights to property and wealth, and men are side-lined; the only serfs are disenfranchised men (reminding me of women in the real world who’ve been divorced, “single mom’d”, or cast away at a spouse’s leisure), most everyone else lives comfortably and can pursue their goals (particularly women);
Brigantia doesn’t have a unilateral dictator. It has a politically-charged group of 12 families jockeying for power;
Women aren’t just pretty supporting characters for my male lead. I feel that Bartram is more of a spectator in that sense and must work around and within such powerful people;
That even though Brigantia is run by women and “different”, it still suffers from human qualities like greed, selfishness, power, and hate - there are upsides but it’s no utopia.
Further, I deliberately try to insert women who are in power that are old. Another theme about Bartram is aging and retirement, the roles we assume when we age, and I deliberately wanted to show dangerous, beautiful, powerful women as vibrant political and military animals, rather than spindly old crones with black cowls trying to get you to eat an apple. The young, the future, greatly want power, and this story talks about that transition where the young take power, or are gifted power, from the preceding generation.
It was a conscious choice to include women of different races, shapes, and sizes. One of my leads is what I’d call “classicly voluptuous” - curvy, maybe “obese” by today’s standards - and another woman with sagging, wrinkling skin. They are “imperfect” but strive for idealism, just as men do. They’re not permanently an appendage (or property) to men.
I also think fantasy readers would expect me to explain why so many different races and genetic characteristics are present in a limited breeding pool like Gaelwyn’s aristocracy, but I’m not going to :). I don’t care. There are many people of different racial backgrounds and it doesn’t matter.
There’s a little bit of foreshadowing in the work where I talk about goliath tigerfish, falconry, Dwarves, and Goblins. Keep your eyes peeled! There’s a lot more of that to come, not only in this work but in future works that I’ve planned.
Talk to you soon and thanks for reading …
R
Author’s Note: Goblet of Bone - Episode 1
On Saturday August 20, I published the first episode of A Goblet of Bone to Wattpad.
I’ve never been entirely certain about how Wattpad’s algorithm works but it’s apparently number 75 in Fantasy Creatures this week. That’s fun, huh?
It was nice to get started on a new project! Writing Skyer Dannon and submitting the story to the Watty’s was fun, but I am so looking forward to writing without the gloomy-doomy-ness.
The Goblet of Bone continues Bartram’s part of the story in Aevalorn Tales. Bartram has traveled to Brigantia for Captain Sumner’s tribunal.
Chapter one opens with Bartram appearing in the Sage and Rose. This inn appeared frequently in my D&D campaigns - along with the Portly Porpoise from Skyer Dannon’s story.
The name of the innkeeper in my story is Henry Bailey; for those who might recognize a variant of the name, Harry Bailly, that was the name of the Tabard Inn’s host in the Canterbury Tales.
Inspiration for the cat in this episode comes from two cats. The first is a black Maine Coon named Midnight that belongs to my partner, April. Its behaviors, though, are actually from another cat, Rowan, who belongs to my partner Camille. Rowan likes sitting on my head when I sleep. The cat in this story is orange which is my own thing.
Moffins are actually a joke! There’s a breakfast place in Ashland, Oregon called the Morning Glory that makes these huge muffins. There was a typo on their menu, calling them ‘moffins’, and they were huge and I loved the name!
Anyway, it’s fun for me to revisit Bartram and bring some aspects of his character to the surface. Chapter One will be describing the setting and major elements of the story, and reacquaint the reader with various characters. I’ll have more to contribute to chapter one over the next week; I’m looking forward to doing 2,000-word stints again under no deadlines.
Onward!
R
Author’s Note: Skyer Dannon, Episode 7
On July 15, 2022, I published the 7th episode of Skyer Dannon - A Vampire Story.
Yay! And still #1 in #Halflings!
Sure, it’s probably completely irrelevant, but it makes me feel happy, okay?
This chapter is named “Sway” and it focuses on an aspect of vampire lore that’s always intrigued me.
Stemming from Stoker’s Dracula, most representations of vampire in literature grant them supernatural controls over animals, and specifically critters that humans have long had a sordid relationship with like wolves and bats. Controlling wolves and bats suggest a taming of evil where wild, unpredictable creatures fall under the vampire’s subjugation. This ability fed many medieval fears, myths, and legends, and Stoker went so far as to imply some kind of parental relationship to wolves.
Such representations are symbolic of the vampire’s will to achieve their ends. In the story, I see Skyer coming around more fully into his mental faculty and experimenting with the gifts of vampirism, learning how to control (or sway) such animals. I started with bats and wolves because they are a traditional archetype, but as I get further into the story, I really want to push that envelope.
Halflings / Hobbits have a connection to nature that goes further than fearing creatures. I think they’re closer to nature than that. So my plan is to have Skyer learn that he can sway most woodland creatures, more like a druid ability rather than a vampire ability. I also wanted to extend the idea of feeding more into the emotional realm and that life forces don’t necessarily need to be defined as bodily fluids.
In this story, I toyed with the idea of extending Skyer’s sway over the the halfling militia that he encounters in the streets. I decided against it because the prose sounded too “Jedi Mind Trick” where Skyer offered suggestions and the halflings just responded in-kind, and I didn’t like the flavor of that. Instead, I think I’ve decided that his sway doesn’t directly charm or overtly control another halfling, and that flies in the face of most vampire representations that have them hypnotize their prey. I really don’t want Skyer peering into someone’s eyes and controlling them. Instead, as Skyer’s vulnerabilities are more associated with nature, I liked the idea of limiting his sway to the natural realm. I think I like the idea that the will of a living, sentient being is too formidable to sway.
This chapter is designed to also set a stage on tone and I deliberately used words like “subjugation'“, “dominance”, “submission”, and “mercy”. Skyer is vampire, after all, and - if you’re reading the story - you’re seeing Skyer becoming progressively more possessive of the halflings in Amberglen. I don’t think you can introduce a vampire without them feeling their proverbial oats (as they’re far superior creatures to mortals) and subjugating those around them.
I’m foreshadowing, of course, and running a conflict around the character that’ll eventually need to be resolved. First, there’s a characteristically-vampire impulse to control, and second, an uncharacteristic impulse to help the people of Amberglen. Goodness, it’s not all about him! Even in death, he’s an instinct to help the community and its suffering.
So I’m having a lot of fun with this and I hope you are, too! Keep reading!
Thanks again for reading. If you like what I do, please sign-up for my mailing list for follow me on Twitter at @blackanvilbooks.
R
Author’s Note: Skyer Dannon, Episode 3
On June 20, 2022, I published The Ballad of Skyer Dannon - Episode 3 - Hunger to Wattpad.
Tip-top!
Ranked #2 this week under #Halflings on Wattpad!
Totally obscure, and possibly irrelevant, but we gotta start somewhere.
This episode is about Skyer’s transformation into being a vampire.
When we read vampire-fic today, I think we gloss over the inhumanity of the experience. It’s like, in most modern interpretations of being turned, there’s a bite, maybe a little bit of sleep, and boom! You’re a vampire. You wake up and you’ve all of the same cognitive faculties, your mind and sanity are still intact, your emotional state is still as it was except maybe you’re a little more angsty … I mean, throw in some glitter and you’re got a Young Adult (YA) story.
I think the transformation to something other - like a vampire - must be truly horrifying, like stripping away rational consciousness and changing into an animal, one that’s perpetually hungry with killer instincts, can’t be easy. The physiological changes would be, of course, madness, but the mental transformation would probably be something the mind would retreat from, like what we see with people who encounter extreme trauma.
That’s kind of where I’ve headed with Skyer. Throughout the period he spends in the Wilds and before he goes to Amberglen, he’s in this transformative, traumatic state where mind has switched off. Readers will find his consciousness slowly returning in pieces as we work through episodes 4 - 7, but I want to believe that Skyer won’t be fully-realized as a new “person” for maybe a decade after his transformation. Hey, he’s immortal: I can take all the time I want, right?
Another thing. In my vampire story, I wanted to set the stage that Skyer consumed life in the form of living blood, that is, blood that is coursing through the veins of a living creature. So in current lit, authors tend to want to deal with what happens to a vampire if they consume something other than blood? What They Do in The Shadows makes a big deal out of this, for example, when the Baron consumes pizza and his body is thrown into the sky due to projectile vomiting and so on. I wanted to skip all of that. Vampires are undead. They don’t have a working digestive track, as their organs are shut down, so there isn’t any vomit. How does the blood get absorbed into Skyer’s body, as there’s no working stomach? Who knows?! What happens to the matter that isn’t absorbed? Who cares? I just didn’t want to deal with it. So in this story, we see Skyer eat crawdads, fish, and wood. I didn’t write about him puking it all up because it’s just so droll and, really, unnecessary. I think the reader accepts that Skyer’s a vampire and feeds on blood, that’s it, and that’s all I need to explain.
But I don’t know - what do you think? Do you think I should be explaining how that works? Let me know in the poll below.
And if you follow my Aevalorn Tales stories on Amazon Vella, look! I got a crowney-thing today, a top-faved story, so that’s kind of cool. Hopefully more people will see it…
Thanks again for reading. If you like what I do, please sign-up for my mailing list for follow me on Twitter at @blackanvilbooks.
R
Author’s Note: Skyer Dannon, Episode 2
In episode 2, I have to introduce the halfling character, build a rapport with the reader so that they’d care about him, and then gruesomely murder him so that he becomes a vampire.
On June 20, 2022, I published The Ballad of Skyer Dannon - Episode 2 - “Kibbler’s Bridge” to Wattpad.
Hey! I’m #3 in the #halflings tag today! What fun!
In this episode, I needed to pull away from the Pickles’n’Pork and go straight for the jugular. And not just proverbially-speaking. I needed to introduce Skyer, get the reader to develop a small sense of who he is, build some rapport with the reader, then brutally murder him, in under 2,500 words.
It was hard killing this character. I didn’t want to, not really, but I had to. I needed him to die.
And that’s pretty awful to think about.
When I read this episode aloud to my partner, she was taken aback by it. “It was sad,” she said, and that’s not usually how my stories about halflings go. I usually write about more fluffy and fun halflings like Gammond Brandyford.
This one, though, needs to be intentionally dark, and I have to write more from voice of horror and tragedy and less from a voice of lightheartedness and comedy.
Not only did I need to kill Skyer. I needed to do it in a way that was both true to vampire lore, but also in a fictional hamlet setting of hobbits. Can you imagine Count Dracula suddenly appearing in the Shire? Yeah, neither can I, but that was my problem. I needed to avoid cliche and write a terrible death scene that would take place near or around halfling burrows. And all of that seemed pretty antithetical to me.
Taking Skyer out of town - away from the burrows - and across Kibbler’s Bridge seemed like an easier way to deal with the problem. I also figured the pond scene was unusual enough to keep the reader’s interest, and to set the stage for a more unusual vampire story. The Bridge becomes an interesting touchstone for me later in the story, especially when revisiting the lore about vampires needing to tote around soil from their vampiric birthplaces.
As a halfling vampire, the Skyer Dannon character tries to take the vampire concept and twist it into something else. If you get a sec, please complete this story's survey below. I'd really like to know your thoughts!
Thanks again for reading. If you like what I do, please sign-up for my mailing list for follow me on Twitter at @blackanvilbooks.
R
Author’s Note: Skyer Dannon, Episode 1
On June 20, 2022, I published The Ballad of Skyer Dannon - Episode 1 - “A Good Evening Spoiled” to Wattpad.
So this was my first attempt at self-publishing on Wattpad.
I’d never tried it before. I’m more used to publishing on Amazon and Kindle.
I gotta say that I really enjoyed the author experience more so than Amazon Vella.
The ability to generate tags, the stats and metrics available to authors … the process what a heck of a lot easier than Vella. Wattpad also seems more comprehensive, and there are more tools to engage with the audience. So hey, that’s kind of cool.
This episode came in around 2,000 words and that’s what I’m shooting for in this project. Something easy to read, consumed in about 15-20 minutes, updated once a week, targeting the 25+ fantasy reader, maybe someone who’s got a background in role-playing games like D&D and Pathfinder.
I kinda feel like I have to tell this story as viewed through the lens of other halflings so I created Joliver Barleywood for that purpose. I think I can do a better job talking about Skyer that way. I can interject as a Joliver to provide context, and, gloss over particulars and move the story along. That’s why I went with “The Ballad Of” in the title of the story because it’s a story as related by Joliver.
In order to do that, I figured that I’d have to spend the first episode building out the Pickles’n’Pork setting and introduce Joliver as a narrator.
Okay so why this story?
One, I wanted to shamelessly tap into the whole vampire zeitgeist. Vampires, werewolves - these things seem all the rage with the readers on Amazon and Wattpad so I wanted to create something relevant.
Two, as I write about halflings, I wanted to talk about the unique perspective of this character as it relates to them. Skyer is a very antithetical representation of a halfling. Halflings are pleasant, polite, rotund, full of joy, optimism, interconnectedness, and life; charming 18th century naturalists. Vampires though are really about scarcity, need, hunger, loneliness, sorrow and regret. For me, writing this story is really about trying to create that contrast in the context of halflings, and not about creating a typical vampire story about supernatural power, immortality, and supremacy.
Three, it cross-promotes Aevalorn Tales on Amazon Vella where I can push readers from one platform to another, maybe even get them to sign-up for my mailing list.
Finally, I titled the work “A Good Evening Spoiled” as a play off of the idiom “a good walk spoiled” in reference to golf. I also wanted to convey that Skyer’s story a reluctantly-told story. It’s like, the reader wants vampires and werewolves, at least based on the content that’s viewed on these platforms and, okay, I can do that, but this vampire story isn’t going to be about a murderous teen demigod, or, kinky BDSM soft-porn in the disguise of paranormal fiction. This is going to be a tragedy because losing a halfling to vampirism is something of an awful, tragic rebuke against nature.
Anyhow, thanks for reading! If you’ve got any ideas or suggestions or comments, please write them up in the Wattpad story. I’d love to receive feedback and interact with readers.
Thanks!
R
Why I Write Stories About Halflings
Like most everyone, I was first exposed to Hobbits reading Tolkien’s work.
The Lord of the Rings movies produced by Wingnut Films didn’t come out until I was in my thirties, so my earliest impressions were from actually reading the books, and, the Rankin Bass‘ productions of The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings.
When I started playing role-playing games in my teens, D&D helped to inform more about halflings, particularly images drawn by Jeff Dee.
At the root of it, what I love about halflings is their appreciation of hearth and home. Tolkien’s adaptation of the word to develop an 18th century culture of charming portly naturalists - who value connection, family, friends, and food ahead of monetary gain - gives us (as readers and authors) an opportunity to reconnect with those values.
At the same time, I like writing about Halflings that do the unexpected. I like writing about characters who went beyond the stereotype and expand on Tolkien’s concepts.
Jeff Dee’s images of svelte, muscular halfling adventurers took those original Tolkien concepts portrayed (lovingly and accurately) by Rankin Bass into something different. It took the original pallet and expanded on it, and I really loved that idea.
As a gamer, I often played halflings because they had that interesting dichotomy of wholesomeness and home blended with luck, curiosity, a bent for exploring, and an intense desire to go back home; Weis and Hickman’s Kender in their Dragonlance saga only pushed that envelope farther. I loved playing those kinds of characters and expanding on what Tolkien originally gave us.
In writing about halflings, I enjoy the fact that they’re a literary shortcut that builds off of all of these other ideas about them. It’s shorthand: a way of describing something the reader already knows, and it allows me to cut back on writing lengthy descriptions of characters, scenes, or motivations. Shortcuts are really necessary in writing serialized fiction because you don’t have the time to elaborate on details.
Finally, I like writing about halflings because they’re often depicted as sidekicks to protagonists. They’re more likely to facilitate an outcome, or be comedy relief, than a central hero. I think that’s what really motivates me to write about them because, like Bilbo and Frodo, halflings do represent the hero. They portray the idealistic who doesn’t want to fight but must to protect heart and home, or, the undaunted, child-like exploration of the world.
Either way, halflings offer a quick way to jump into these ideas in Aevalorn Tales.
R