DnD Cleric
Children of the sun
Brightest of the holy ones
They stand tall
To heal those hurt
And help the strays
With rays of power
They erase the rot
Facing undead
That emerge from shadows
And feast upon the flock
As long as the sun sits high
Durag will hold court
And bless his children
With the warmth of his love
(Previously on Immortal Wars.)
Disclaimer: Immortal Wars was the book I came up with and wrote in high school. I hadn’t even hit college by the time I wrote the first two books. That means I hadn’t developed my style yet, wasn’t good at self-editing, and the story was fairly basic. So, you’ve been warned that this is the ultimate author throwback segment for my blog and will show my author origins. FYI- I put the first book (The Summoning) through a Print-on-Demand publisher and the second one (Light, Blood, & Tears) never saw the light of day. Enjoy!
“I am sorry for the intrusion. My name is Solix. And I am here to ask for your help in saving the universe,” says Solix as he sheathes his sword. Steve and Delila are at the other end of the room staring at the man who just appeared out of thin air.
“Whatever. I don’t know how you just did that magic trick, but get the hell out of my house! I don’t care if you’re President of Pluto. Get the hell out!” shouts Delila.
“There must be some mistake. I do not come bearing any harm toward either of you. I just need your help in saving the universe. There is a force of evil that has returned to this galaxy and I am too old to fight against it by myself. That is why I need the help of the new planet guardians. You are two of them.”
“That’s possibly one of the stupidest excuses for trespassing that I have ever heard. Now, take your Renaissance reject ass out of my house.”
“Hold on, Delila. He did just appear out of nowhere. I say that we should let him talk and then decide,” says Steve.
“This isn’t one of your comic books, Steve. I’m willing to bet that this guy is some escaped asylum patient. But you want to believe him then go ahead. I want you to prove that you’re not human, Solix. Let’s just see how powerful you are,” mentions Delila.
“Prove it? Fine,” replies Solix. He takes out his sword and slices his other hand off with a clean chop. Delila starts to scream at the top of her lungs while Steve turns away from the severed limb.
“As a planet guardian, I am immortal. Nothing is capable of killing me. Not even suicide can destroy me. Since you two are some of the new guardians, you are immortal as well and can also regenerate. Like so.” Delila and Steve watch as a new hand simply grows out of the stump and Solix wipes the dried blood off his arm.
“I don’t believe this. It’s so incredible, but you just grew a limb back and appeared out of nowhere. That’s just impossible unless you’re telling the truth. Can you explain anything else to us?” asks Delila as all color drains from her face. Steve is just staring at Solix’s new hand and mumbling several questions under his breath.
“I would like to explain everything when the other two new guardians have arrived. Just to make things easier. And before you ask, I do not have the slightest idea of your birthright powers. The birthright powers are different for every immortal. Some are very powerful warriors while others are great healers. The only common thing is that all immortals are physically more powerful than human beings and they live forever.”
Steve finally snaps out of his trance and says, “What are we the guardians of?”
“That I can tell you. There is a planet guardian for every planet in this solar system. Since this great evil has returned to destroy us, I need new guardians. Steve is the Earth guardian while Delila is the Neptune guardian. I am also waiting for the Mars guardian and the Venus guardian to arrive. I believe you two already know them. Their names are Edward Slane and Kelly Tavinowsky. I must say that the Venus guardian’s last name is a real long one,” explains Solix as he sits down on a nearby couch.
“Wait one second. We’re going to be spending eternity with Edward and Kelly? I’m beginning to hate this immortality thing already. Then again I still can’t believe any of this is happening. Especially the severed limb and regeneration thing,” complains Delila. Just then the doorbell rings and Steve goes to answer it. Ed and Kelly walk into the living room and stop dead in their tracks when they see the man in armor.
“Interesting. Did we come at a bad time?” asks Kelly. Solix stands up and suddenly teleports over to Ed and Kelly. This causes Ed to jump back a few feet and Kelly stares with big eyes at Solix. Finally she just stumbles to a nearby chair, sits down, and puts her head between her legs while breathing deeply.
“You’re timing could not have been any better. My name is Solix. And I need your help in stopping an evil force,” mentions Solix
“Nice armor, but you really have to work on that pick up line. An evil force could be anything from nuclear war to my mom’s cooking. Is he an escaped mental patient?” whispers Ed into Steve’s ear.
“Just sit down. You’re in for a very interesting story,” mentions Steve. For the next half-hour, Solix basically does the same routine in order to get them to believe that he is telling the truth. Only this time he teleports around the room instead of severing a limb because Delila complained about having to clean the rug. He manages to get all of their attention and interest by making it sound like a simple adventure.
“Now that you believe me. What questions do you have?” asks Solix. Everybody is quietly looking around at each other.
Edward suddenly says, “What happened to the old guardians? Why do you need new ones if the older ones should still be alive?” As soon as the question finishes Solix’s face turns very pale.
I love hour-long lunch breaks, they allow me a moment for things like this. The WiFi came back on yesterday, so last night I spent some time on Amazon and uploaded Grinders. This morning they notified me that it is a book. Here is a little bit about it:
Jimi Cabot made one mistake as a starving college student. When she went to work for the San Francisco Police Department, it nearly cost her the job. The union stepped in and they had to reinstate her. They did so by assigning her to the duty nobody wants, Grinder Squad.
Grinders are people who use back room surgeries to enhance their bodies with computer chips, and various kinds of hardware. Jimi is sure that if she can just bust one grind shop, it will be her ticket back.
Paired with veteran cop, she soon learns that Grinder Squad is a cash-cow…
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D&D Dwarven Cleric
For War of Nytefall: Eradication, I needed to create a villain from outside of the vampire world. Well, I didn’t really ‘need’ to since I could have had a vampire wield the Fist of Durag. Just made more sense since I didn’t want to bother with the question of why he or she was immune to the depowering light. To be fair, I hadn’t named the weapon yet, so it wasn’t connected to the Sun God. That came about once I decided that the old enemies from book one should return. Sort of since I called it orb for 3 chapters before realizing it needed a name. Is this confusing? Well, there’s a reason for that and it’s called Leo Kandrel.
This guy was a packet of notes for a while that didn’t have any direction. I think I had him as a minor hunter in the original version then he vanished for a while. Another villain adopted him as an expendable pawn, but he was used as a shield by chapter two . . . of the outline. Seems to be a trend with some of these characters that they go through a missing stage and a pathetic stage. It wasn’t until I really buckled down and focused on the series progression that I found a home for Leo. It clicked when I made him a dwarf since I hadn’t done much with them, especially making one a villain. He was tough, conniving, and dedicated to wiping all vampires off the face of Windemere. At least that was the plan because then I began writing.
The oddest thing with Leo Kandrel is that he isn’t very consistent in his behavior. I thought it was because I wrote this book so soon after the divorce started, so the problem was with me. Then I edited the book several times in the hopes of locking him down, but it continued bouncing around. Took me a while to realize that he was supposed to be a character who would be brave in one instant and then cowardly. He can be noble and decisive when in the presence of some characters, but confused and bumbling around others. I integrated this into his secret and Clyde picks up on the inconsistency at one point. Maybe that feeds his fear and worry since he can’t predict an enemy that won’t stick to one mindset.
I can’t go into great detail about Leo’s past because it possesses spoilers. He is a Duragian whose sect uses a Demon-Winged Sun as their symbol. They are splitting from the main temple because Leo wants to destroy the Dawn Fangs. The main force is waiting to see if they pose a real threat thanks to the Garians sharing their information. Some even think the Dawn Fangs are blessed by Durag, which angered Leo to the point where he started on his own crusade. That’s where the Fist of Durag comes in since it is the orb that Clyde tried to steal in the prologue of Loyalty. Nobody gave that artifact much thought even though it was buried along with Clyde and the Durag Temple. Here it is with the power to hurt or kill him and it’s in the hands of a wandering zealot. So, Leo is definitely a character whose existence revolves around that weapon.
Is there more to him? Yes. I can’t really get into it though because he has a lot of juicy secrets that come out in the story. Feel free to buy War of Nytefall: Eradication and enjoy the reveals.
Image courtesy of bigstock.com
Hello SErs. Harmony here. As promised earlier, here is the fifth installment in the post series dedicated to taking a step-by-step look at how to get your finished manuscript from your computer and on sale on Amazon in both ebook and paperback.
If you’d like to take a look back at the previous posts in this series, please click on the links below:
Outline: https://wp.me/p7OGru-29c
Part 1 (Software for Writing) : https://wp.me/p7OGru-29t
Part 2 (General Formatting Necessities) : https://wp.me/p7OGru-29J
Part 3 (Ebook Conversion) : https://wp.me/p7OGru-2ah
Part 4 (Paperback Formatting) : https://wp.me/p7OGru-2eS
To make it easy to browse back and forth, I’ve set all links to open in new tabs. As this series progresses, I will update the links for you so that each post includes links to all past posts in the series.
So, here’s Part Five: Software for Making Book Covers, and Image Resources
One…
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Soulmender from Magic the Gathering
In the pages of Legends of Windemere, the priests of Durag are heroic and help our heroes in their quest against evil. You have Aedyn Karwyn who is noble and loyal to the very end. It is clear why the sun god has such a widespread system of followers and is involved in so many battles for Windemere. The temples are home to healers who will jump into action immediately when the heroes are in need.
Within the pages of War of Nytefall, the priests of Durag are a zealous force of mortals armed with holy magic. They are a constant threat to the vampires, especially during the 50 years that Clyde was buried. It was a devastating war that the Duragians nearly won before the Dawn Fangs emerged. Even after that war, they continue to be a danger and Eradication brings them back into the spotlight. With the Fist of Durag on the battlefield, they are poised to wipe out the vampires who are the heroes of this story.
Interesting how the Duragians can work as hero and villain depending on who they are facing. Some may say that they are still heroes since they are facing ‘monsters’, but the Dawn Fangs aren’t really threatening anyone. They tend to stay in hiding and give the Duragians no reason to be hunted, but they have to defend themselves. It is getting really nasty now since the Fist of Durag can depower and kill them. A reader may be hard pressed to defend the assault and murder of people who aren’t doing anything wrong. It is only that they are seen as evil, which is totally biased and hateful when it comes to the Dawn Fang. That doesn’t work in the Duragian’s favor.
Strangest thing is that I didn’t find it difficult to make them the bad guys after spending 5 years with them on the hero side of a story. Part of it is because this is in the past and the Duragians haven’t really figured out that Dawn Fangs aren’t threats. You’ll see in Eradication that there is mention of them starting to question the existence of such vampires, which is causing a schism. One group even believes that Clyde and his people are favored by the Sun God. This wasn’t hard to write either because we’re looking at religion here. I’ve found that people take such things in different degrees, so why wouldn’t there be the same thing in Windemere? You have your zealots that refuse to see things beyond ‘vampires evil’, those in the middle, and those who think there is something different about the Dawn Fangs.
You can say that this book will be a big evolution for the Duragian order. This is when they reclaim the infamy that they had in Loyalty even if it isn’t across the board. Leo Kandrel is . . . Well, I’m going to need to give him Wednesday’s post.
Image courtesy of bigstock.com
Hello SErs. Harmony here. As promised earlier, here is the fourth installment in the post series dedicated to taking a step-by-step look at how to get your finished manuscript from your computer and on sale on Amazon in both ebook and paperback.
If you’d like to take a look back at the previous posts in this series, please click on the links below:
Outline: https://wp.me/p7OGru-29c
Part 1 (Software) : https://wp.me/p7OGru-29t
Part 2 (General Formatting Necessities) : https://wp.me/p7OGru-29J
Part 3 (Ebook Conversion) : https://wp.me/p7OGru-2ah
To make it easy to browse back and forth, I’ve set all links to open in new tabs. As this series progresses, I will update the links for you so that each post includes links to all past posts in the series.
So, here’s Part Four: How to Format for Paperback
Today’s post covers the nuts and bolts of getting your finished manuscript…
View original post 1,328 more words
Next Sunday, I will release the fourth volume of the War of Nytefall series:
I’ll be sending the promo posts to all volunteers on Saturday, but you can still offer to lend a hand at any moment. This is going to be the same post I put up on my blog on Sunday. You can already put it on your ‘To Read’ list on Goodreads. For now, enjoy the big reveal:
Cover Art by Alison Hunt
Today is the first full day of my Winter Break and it feels like things aren’t going to be calm in any way. First, I want to say that there is A BIG ANNOUNCEMENT coming tomorrow that I’m surprised I’m not blurting out now. Okay, let’s get to the rest because this has been a really busy week.
My son is with his mom for the first half of the break, so you would think I can dive right into War of Nytefall: Ravenous. I’m hoping to get some done, but I won’t have as much time as I thought. This is frustrating because I started 2020 with a clear plan of when I could write and how I could complete and publish 3 works before the end of the year. I didn’t have any writing time the last 3 weekends and weekdays are a bust, so I needed this period of time. Could have gotten 3 of the remaining chapters done and then snuck in a 4th when my son was back during his sleeping time. This is factoring in hanging out with friends at times, so what went wrong?
That would be the flooring. Everything in mine and my son’s rooms has been moved to the garage, basement, living room, or dining room. Things are moving along, but there’s going to be another spontaneous project done up there. This means, I won’t be able to start moving things up there until the day my son comes home. I’ll have to use the rest of the week to piece everything back together instead of spending time with my son. This is going to suck because I’ll have a 6 week run of full work weeks after this break, which means I need to gather some strength. There’s a constant ignorance of what I’m doing or need. Currently, I’m sleeping on a pull out couch that leaves my neck and shoulders stiff in the morning. My laptop is at the dining room table with my hat rack on one side and a pile of drawers on the other. I feel exposed, so I don’t expect to get much done. Just really want my space back.
A plus side is that I can rearrange furniture to make more space and replace my old exercise bike. That heavy one is in the garage and I don’t like the idea of lugging it back up to plop it in the middle of my room’s walkway. I’ve been looking at foldable exercise bikes, which I can keep in the closet. This is becoming a slight debate because I’m trying to explain it to certain people with strong opinions. Doesn’t help that these bikes aren’t in stores and I have to order them online. Figure this is something I can splurge on because I really need to create a sustainable exercise schedule. Having a bike that I’m not tripping over will certainly help.
What else is going on? I ordered a large box of oak tag to use as backings for my puzzles, so I’ll start setting that up once I get my room back. Won’t be tackling another puzzle until I finish studying a book I got for the GRE. This is a test one takes when one wants to go for a Masters degree. I took it in 2003 and I hated it, but the score doesn’t count anymore. I need to try again and my plan is to study this giant math book and then one for English before taking the test in late March. Once this is done, I can get the rest of what I need to get into a program in the Fall. Geez, I’m really busy these days.
Finally got back into my Instagram and I still don’t know what I’m doing. Going to gradually put up each of my book covers along with the opener for the blurb and the Amazon link. Still not sure how the whole thing works and I’m not a big fan of it only being done through the phone instead of the laptop. Check it out HERE!
Next week is break, so I don’t have anything really planned. Can’t until the upstairs is finished and refurnished. I’m afraid that’s going to take the entire winter break, which feels like a waste. Sucks when you want to get things done fast to enjoy the rest of a week, but the people you’re working with aren’t in a rush. After tomorrow, I won’t even be able to go upstairs until Monday. Yeah, I’m really not thrilled with this mess. Swear, I’m going to scream if Spring Break has something like this too. As it stands, I can no longer predict how my writing and publishing will go this year. I know people keep saying ‘every step is a success’, but there’s a limit. I spent nearly all of 2019 barely writing while the divorce was in high gear. It’s 2020 and everything seems to be rearing up to prevent me from even getting back to half strength as an author. Seriously, the last time I touched War of Nytefall: Ravenous was JANUARY! This is getting ridiculous. I’m not getting any younger and my 30+ ideas aren’t getting any duller. The idea of junking them because certain people routinely throw up path destroying obstacles doesn’t sit well with me. At times, it genuinely feels like this is being arranged at times that specifically stop me from pursuing writing again.
Goals of the week:
Legends of Windemere 