Dragon of the Moon...Drache Arm Luna

Happy Blog Day Everyone!

I wanted to be a bit indulgent this week, and talk about a long gestating fantasy story that I’ve been trying to get off the ground for the last twelve years or so, in some manner of speaking. As usual lets get onto the weekly briefs!

Weekly Briefs

Brennan and Riz: A Boy and a Rat Update

Chapters 12 and 13 are done! Chapter 14 is well on the way and this is a special chapter as it marks the first meeting of the duo with a certain Miss Valarie Turner...

Harvey Duckman Presents…Volume 2

Word on the street is that work is progressing well on the second volume in this might anthology series (yes, you can have a series with just two volumes so far… Don’t judge me.) This should be hitting in July at some point, so if you want to read an exclusive Brennan and Riz adventure, The Black Cat on the Prowl, then make sure to pick it up! As a fantastic bonus, you’ll get so many other great stories to boot!

Creator Chaos

Well, you might have noticed that last week, the first in our new interview series, All About Me, went live, featuring the talented Peter Hartog. Wondering who the next guest will be? Well I (foolishly) volunteered! Yes, I’ll be the subject of the next All About Me segment, so if you have any questions that you want me to answer, send them in to us, and I’ll aim to get through them all!

The next episode of the Creator Chaos Podcast itself is also live for you to listen to, and I do hope you enjoy the new format. Peter Hartog was the host for this week, and he did a terrific job!

A reminder of who the rest of Creator Chaos are:

Me – I don’t think I need to explain myself…

Kelvin Rodriguez – Fans and followers of the #vss365 tag will recognize this fellow and his creations, a master of the pun.

Zack Brooks – Author of the ‘Charlie the Cupid’ shorts and ‘The Trials of Amaford” novellas, the second of which is out now so please look for ‘How Not To Be A Scribe’ and give it a read (and if a review, assuming you get the chance!) ! A great guy and the defacto leader of our rabble.

Pete Hartog – Author of the novel Bloodlines, and currently working on its sequel. A great guy with a great taste in music and a fantastic name.
Click here to listen to all the podcasts so far and look out for us on Spotify and Apples Music Service!

Vector Unit Regen Orphan’s War

Still on hiatus, hoping to resume it soon!
To catch up on the series so far, click here!

Brief Mentions

Liking what you’re hearing about Brennan and Riz? Click here to look at the short story collection of their adventures so far!

Looking for their newer stuff? Click here for their Christmas encounter with a Yeti, or click here for the anthology containing the short ‘A Walk Through The Pleasure Gardens’, get this one and you also get a whole host of brilliant short stories as well from fantastic authors.
Click here to find me on Goodreads
And now…time for our main feature presentation…

Dragon of the Moon…Drache Arm Luna

Once upon a time, I wanted to write a fantasy story, fuelled by the high fantasy of Tolkien and by the exports of Japan in the guise of JRPGS (Japanese Role Playing Games). In fact one that always stuck with me was the Playstation One game, Legend of Dragoon. It was a largely forgotten game, released near the end of the console’s lifespan. It was what you would class as highly forgettable game…apart from one feature which endeared it to me and made it clear which country had made it. The characters could transform into winged armour forms. I loved this idea. I loved it so much that it snuck into my head, waiting for the right moment to strike…

This moment was in late 2007 when I was brainstorming ideas for things to draw, and it slowly morphed into a faux cover for my own RPG game. Drache Arm Luna. Drache is the German word for Dragon, or at least, that’s what Google translate told me at the time. Arm is short for armour, and Luna…Well at the inception, it sounded cool. An aside, I’ve always loved everything to do with the Moon. The way it hangs in the sky, watching the earth like the silent observer it is. It’s why I’ve always been drawn to the footage of the Apollo 11 missions and that fateful landing. In this context, it made sense for me to draw upon it, to give it staring role…of sorts.

You see, this is an example of getting a title before getting literally no other ideas. So…I started to work backwards. It became clear through various notes I made and explored, that with this idea, there was two stories I wanted to tell, bother revolving the Luna Clan, a group of people connected by their worship of the Moon Dragon. This sounds silly yes, but the world I envisioned was one where there was multiple clans spread across the world, dedicated to their own unique Dragon.

At this stage, I pictured each clan more or less acting like it’s own country or kingdom. There was to be six Dragons, Tidal, Storm, Gaia, Bone , Luna and then Acier (relying on Google Translate again, this is supposed to be the German word for Steel). I went with these names as they sounded better then just saying Water, Fire etc etc.

The premise of the story was that these Clans had access to special stones (never specified where these came from at that point) that allowed the users to transform into armoured forms to match their chosen dragon. To top it off, there would be legendary armour as well that could manifest to the chosen few. This is where the Luna came into.

To add to these six countries was a country called Kingdom (Again, don’t judge me) which was filled with citizens who were non-affiliated. This is where one of the big flaws with this world became apparent to me as there was only seven kingdoms, which was okay if the story was set on one continent, but not so much if the story spans the world…After all the real world is so much more then just seven countries. I pressed on regardless and created a document to aid in my endeavors. A world building document.

Up until this point, my planning skills were pretty much creating a document to hold all my chapter summaries and any other thoughts that were needed about the particular story. That wasn’t going to do much good with the kind of fantasy story that I was aiming for, I really needed to put the leg work in. So when creating the world design document, I tried to put all the information in that I thought I would need, like population, currency, feast days and a summary of their history. Here’s an example, talking about the Gaia Clan:
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Gaia Clan
 The next significant milestone in the Gaia history is fifty years before the advent of the Acier Clan. It was a time when Minda’s successor was nearing the end of his position as Gaia High Priest, so he decided to hold the crowning ceremony on the next festival, a time when Gaia would be entertaining guests and dignitaries from the other Clans. It was decided that his replacement would be a choice from two different people, Char Greyn and Kara Tirem. His final decision would be made during the ritual of never-ending Gaia otherwise known as ashes to ashes. Unbeknownst to the Gaia High Priest though Char was a student of one of the Gaia Clan’s most outspoken members, someone who was actively trying to get Gaia to change its policy to the other Clans, stating that they had the potential to rule the entire planet and make everyone else a part of their Clan.

He was likened to a member of the Bone Clan with some of his beliefs, but what people didn’t know was he was in possession of a dangerous item, a Black Phantom Stone. This fact didn’t come out till a week later when it was time for the festival. The even had come and guests from across Ga-Terra had arrived including several from the Lunar Clan, who at that point were Gaia’s closest allies next to Kingdom. Char’s mentor began to draw up plans to ensure that his student would become the next Gaia High Priest and at the same time to ensure his victory would be complete even if Kara was named as the successor.

The time of the ashes to ashes came and as soon as the ritual was complete, the Gaia High Priest stood and announced to the assembled mass who was to be the next leader of the Clan, his choice was Kara, something Char’s mentor had already guessed when he looked at the evidence. Knowing that his window of opportunity would be brief he rose to object the decision, given several well thought out reasons why Char would have been the better choice.

He was rebuffed though, but it didn’t matter, he reason for objecting like that in the first place was to ensure that those loyal to him were able to get into prime positions. On the command of a silent signal, his followers sprang into action, using hostages they had already attained; they made sure that none of their guests activated their Drache Arm forms. Char’s mentor, whose name was revealed to be Kalen strode up to the Gaia High Priest and activated his Drache Arm. Kalen was a level 3 Drache Arm user and if it came down to a fight between the two, the Gaia High Priest would mostly likely lose due to age and circumstance.

However this result wasn’t enough for Kalen and he activated the Black Phantom Stone that was given to him by an unknown source. It seemed like all the light had been sucked out the area when he activated it and within seconds it was over as Kalen stood proud showing off his new Black Gaia Drache Arm, it was similar in appearance to his old level 3 Drache Arm form, but now the colour was completely black and looked far more sinister. Using this new power he quickly overpowered the old Gaia High Priest and the Gaia Paladins, and much to the horror of the assembled people, he killed the leader of the Gaia Clan.

The power of the Black Phantom Stone corrupting his mind totally. He then turned on Kara intent on stopping the lineage of the Gaia leadership in its tracks; however he failed to calculate that some of the guests would refuse to give up. That person was Treyon Killver, a high ranking member of the Lunar Clan, waiting for a chance he knocked out the guard next to him and seized his weapon.
 He quickly ran over and freed the hostages before Kalen even had a chance to see what was going on. With their hostages free, Kalen’s loyal men quickly lost their nerve and fled the scene. Several of the guests activated their Drache Arm forms and attempted to take down Kalen and his Black Gaia Drache Arm. They failed and several were killed, Treyon himself was injured. Kara, though had not fled the battle and stood her ground, reminding many of the Gaia Clan that was present of Faye, and despite her only having a level 1 Drache Arm form, she activated it anyway. Standing before Kalen, she told him to back down and that what he was doing was against the will of the Gaia Drache and that since she was now officially the new Gaia High Priestess she had the right to take away his pendant, effectively taking away his Drache Arm power.

Kalen laughed it off and advanced on her, but before he could lay a finger on her, an amazing thing happened. There was a shinning light and Kara’s Drache Arm was transformed and replaced with the legendary “Terra” Drache Arm. Kalen was stunned by this, giving enough time for Kara to move and within a second she had placed the end of her staff weapon on his now black pendant. From the ground erupted thousands of vines that wrapped themselves around Kalen and his Black Gaia Drache Arm so that he couldn’t move.

Kara calmly spoke to him, once more offering him a chance to deactivate his armour and to surrender, but even now Kalen stood his ground, doing his best to free himself, an unnatural rage had set in his mind. Kara closed her eyes and apologised for his actions and then destroyed Kalen’s pendant, severing his connection to the Gaia Clan and rendering his Drache Arm form useless.

The effects could be seen immediately as Kalen’s Drache Arm form shattered and broke down into pieces which dissolved on the floor. Kara released her power on the vines and Kalen dropped to the floor, clad only in his normal Gaia Clan uniform. The surviving Gaia Paladins finished his exile from the Clan by removing all traces of their emblem from his clothes, and then he was picked up and taken away. Kara deactivated her Drache Arm form and then apologised once more, this time to the guests. She gave thanks and praise to Treyon in particular which helped to strengthen the bond between the Lunar Clan and Gaia Clan.

A few days after the event, Kara was crowned officially by the surviving Gaia Paladins and assumed the mantle of Gaia High Priestess. It is not known what happened to Char since he played no active part in the short rebellion and assassination, but due to his disappearance after the event, it is believed that he ran lest he be suspected of helping Kalen. Truth is that he ran to Kingdom and tried to keep a low profile but he ended up being chased down by members of the Acier Clan who were seeking information about the Black Phantom Stones.
There is three religious holidays in Gaia, the first is known as Gaia Rebirth, and is normally held on the first day in spring and represents the life coming back into the world. Although this festival only lasts a day, the Clan celebrate it to the full and it has been known to be the most festive of the religious holidays. The day starts off with prayer giving thanks to the dawning of new life, then there is several activities that the Gaia Clan do, but it varies from village to village. During the evening there is feasts held at the main Gaia Halls in each village. Once the feasts are out of the way there is dancing and rejoicing. Also in Albion, a very special event is held on this day, an event where the Gaia Paladin accept new members into their group, allowing them to once again return to full strength, just like the planet does at spring time.

The second and third religious holidays are held towards the end of the year. The second is known as Gaia’s Twilight, and despite the name it actually has nothing to do with the Gaia Clan itself and is actually about the Drache Gotts (a translation could be “Dragon Gods” representing the fact that there are higher in power and position then the Drache’s). This is the only time when the Drache Gotts are mentioned without being referred to as a legend or a rumour and just the very fact that the Gaia Clan has a religious event dedicated to them has been enough in some cases for Clans to look into the Drache Gott’s existence. The day is spent quietly, till the transition between day and night starts that is when the festival starts. The Gaia Clan members send out prayers for the Drache Gott’s and thank them from bringing the night and the day and to the Twilight Drache Gott for his benevolent rule.

The event ends with the Gaia High Priest/Priestess arranging the four different elemental Phantom Stones (Blaze, Ice, Lightning and Rock) so that they form a cross. These Phantom Stones are never used as Drache Arm enhancements. Instead they are used in the final Gaia religious holiday, Never-ending Gaia or better known as the Ashes to ashes festival. The Never-ending Gaia festival is held on the first day of winter, and is held through events over two days.
The first event is a meeting and prayer just after the breaking of Dawn on the first day of winter, the second is held on the night of the first and is a solemn event, the Gaia Clan members clad in robes each light a candle then give a single prayer before blowing it out, representing the way life seems to fade over the winter months. The next and final event is on the night of the second day. Most Gaia Clan members will make the journey up to Albion for the event. The event starts by the Gaia High Priest/ Priestess thanking those that have arrived for the event then leads the assembled masses in a prayer of thanks while the Gaia High Priest/ Priestess takes the Phantom Stones that were organised into a cross and proceeds to place them into a bowl where they then crush them, causing a small light show similar to an aura to take place.

Once they have finished crushing the stones, the Gaia High Priest/ Priestess takes the fine powder that has now formed and mixes it with ashes from a burnt piece of wood. The mixture of ashes and powder is then scattered on the tree from which the main Gaia Chapel chamber is built around. A recent addition to the event happens after this, the assembled masses give a prayer for the spirit of Lancer Krios, the Gaia High Priest who was killed by the treacherous Kalen in one of the Gaia Clans darker moments in history. It has been this event where in the past the current Gaia High Priest/ Priestess have chosen their successor. All the religious days in Gaia are open to guests, be it from Kingdom or the other Clans, a frequent guest at these occasions has been the Lunar Clan, and the occasional visit by the Storm Clan.
Customs in Gaia vary from a gift of a sapling when someone is moving into a new home to the adoptions of certain tree leaves as good luck charms. There is a custom that is upheld every time a Gaia Clan member dies (as long as their body and pendant is recovered). The custom is known as the flame purification, and is preformed after the body has been disposed of (either by proper burial or cremation) the a Gaia Druid (the second rank a level 2 Gaia Drache Arm user can obtain) takes the dead Clan members pendant and then dunks in to a small fire, allowing the pendant to heat up till it glowed. Then the pendant is taken out and placed in a small bowl of water, rapidly cooling it. This process is done to “wipe clean” the pendant, readying it for a new owner.

They believe that this must be done to ensure that the previous owner’s spirit can pass on and that there spirit will no longer taint the pendant giving its new owner a new page to write down. Another custom is one that the Gaia Clan has to do quite often, and that custom is the rite of hunting. The rite is done an hour before the hunt is to take place and involves war paint being applied and a prayer being given to bless the hunt and to appease the Gaia Drache. If the hunt is being done for a Core though then the prayer is changed as a Core isn’t a natural part of the world in the Gaia Clan’s eyes, and instead the prayer is more to ensure the utter destruction of the Core. Each village in Gaia carry their own customs but they are too varied to be described here.
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The one that I really had fun with though, was the Bone Clan, people who settled in the arid regions to give praise to their skeletal deity, who they were convinced was just dormant, likening it to a volcano then a living being.

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Bone Clan

History: As with all the first five Clans it is unknown which came first, but when one looks at the Bone Clan they can’t help but get a feeling that they are the oldest. The Drache that they took their name from was a legendary stalker and hunter, its children mimicking its abilities to the deadliest of effects. The Drache has the same structure as its brethren except that it was covered in bony growths that made it look larger then what it was and made it look like it was a living dead version of the other Draches.
 The first mention of the Bone Clan in official history books was when the Lunar Clan was exploring their boundaries and they came across a Bone Clan raiding party. A fight broke out and it was then that the Bone Clan revealed their Drache Arm forms to outsiders for the first time. Their Drache Arm form gave the Lunar Clan a lasting impression of their Bone neighbours, a sight of death which was backed up by the Bone Clans fierce fighting ability. After this, members of the Bone Clan started to appear across the globe. Their goal at this early stage was to pillage and return to Bone wealthy. The other Clans fought back of course and were able to drive the raiders out. The only country that was helpless was Kingdom which was still growing slowly, though it was being supported by Gaia.

For Bone the citizens of Kingdom were a goldmine, that was until the other Clan’s decided to band together to make sure that there destructive powers never matched that of the Drache’s themselves, to this end they created a council where the leaders of the Clans met and all conflict was ended. Their first act was to impose a ban on the Bone Clan on their raiding activities. Faced with the prospect of the Clan’s joining forces against them, there was much talking within Necro till eventually Bone decided to agree to the terms with great reluctance.

 This didn’t stop them doing raids though, as incidents were still reported of Bone Drache Arm users attacking isolated villages in countries across the world. When asked about these incidents the Bone Overlord at the time Mor Kyne, claimed to know nothing about these and promised to punish the attackers with he method of execution reserved for traitors and those who try and access Necro’s inner sanctum. To this date only a handful of these executions have been carried out for this cause, though it is widely believed that the only reason they were killed was because they left evidence of their raid. It was about this time that they stared advertising themselves as mercenaries, selling their services to outlaws and even to people in Kingdom.

The council quickly learned of this and tried to make them stop but the number of raids had decreased since they started this so they learned to put up with it for the time being. Things continued like this for a long while; over twenty generations of families grew up in Bone and a lot of them became mercenaries and travelled the world in search of wealth. The current leader of the Bone Clan, Akaine Nari, inherited the position from his father, though as is customary he had to personally beat each and every one of the “Skeletal Visage” the elite bodyguard to the Bone Overlord.

The reasoning behind this is two fold, first is to make sure that the leader is strong enough to lead the Bone Clan, the second is to test the bodyguards, if any fall to easily then they are replaced with someone stronger to ensure that the leader has the best protection available. Akaine is a descendent of Mor Kyne and he has inherited more then just the title of Bone Overlord, he has inherited his ancestors special unique attack that only his bloodline mastered: Bone Possession.

This skill is similar in execution to Acier’s Metal Control and it is rumoured that Akaine divulged information about his ability to Noize for a large sum of money. Bone Possession allows the user to gain some control over any skeletal structure, living or dead. Then the user can either use the now-alive being to attack or defend or if they are no longer living can absorb the bones in order to gain extra armour for their Drache Arm form and in moments of crisis will allow them to use the second level of Bone Possession: Mortification, a blast that can strip flesh off a living thing in a matter of seconds.

The overall goal for the Bone Clan, at least from outsider views anyway is that they wish to accumulate a vast amount of wealth. This comment does contain some truth but the question that was being asked was what were they doing with the money? It was fairly obvious that they weren’t upgrading the buildings in Necro to match the other capital cites and they weren’t getting any better weaponry, so the question remained where was the money going.

The truth could be found in a secret chamber underneath Necro and directly below the great fire that stays lit in the Bone Overlord’s chamber. In this secret chamber the Bone Clan housed one of the last great relics of the forgotten age; the remains of the great and powerful Bone Drache. They had found the remains not long after the Clan had been formed; they dug it out of the sand and returned to their base where it was covered with sand once more in order to disguise it from any one who came looking to claim it.

At this point the Bone Clan started raiding the other towns nearby and started getting money in which they used to construct the secret chamber and a huge throne for the Bone Drache to sit upon. It was now that members of the Clan started to ponder if it was possible to return the Bone Drache to life since none of its structure had broken down, all that was missing was a life source.

They tried many concoctions and mythical remedies in an attempt to revive it. Nothing worked so they tried something new, they tried restoring the liquid that flowed through like blood flows through a human. There were numerous attempts to replicate the liquid, till they at last found one that seemed to cause a reaction with the structure of the Drache, a mixture of molten bronze and granite. The only way they found to create this mixture was being melting down the money they had stolen which became their sole cause in their quest to reawaken their patron.

There are two main religious holidays in Bone, and both of them last three days each, the first holiday is that of the Day of Bone and it falls on the first three days of the new Ga-Terra calendar and is similar in theme to the other Clan’s New Year celebrations. To celebrate the Bone Clan hold several feasts and hold two tournaments the fist is an open challenge where even guests are encouraged to join in. The second one however is only open to the Bone Clan’s level 2+ Drache Arm users. Losing in this tournament will mean death, as all the fights are to the death a custom introduced by Mor himself.

The winner of this tournament is honoured as a brave fighter and if their skill was good enough they may even earn the right to challenge a member of Skeletal Visage for a right to join the group, as long as they can kill the person they have challenged. The second holiday is situated towards the end of the Ga-Terra calendar; this holiday is a sombre affair as the Bone Clan are ever to experience. There is only one tournament held on this day and the rules are the normal fighting rules. The difference is the prayers that are held between each fight, also during this fight, no Drache Arms are allowed to be used.

Instead the participants use ceremonial armour and weapons. The reasons behind doing it this way aren’t generally known but it is said that its because there was a time when Drache Arms simply didn’t exist, so the Bone Clan wanted to experience the thrill of the fight without their Drache Arms.
It is customary when entering Necro for guests to place a small amount of money into the twin Bone Drache statues that stand guard over the entrance into the city. This is said to bring good luck to that person’s stay in Necro. The over custom is to draw the symbol of the Bone Clan in the sand whenever a resident accepts a foreigner into their house for the first time. This is also said to bring luck but it’s also said to help make financial deals easier to complete. Another superstition is that if the bones in the desert were to suddenly change colour then a big event is about to happen.
 The hierarchy in the Bone Clan is simple; at the head of the Clan is Akaine, in his position as Bone Overlord. Underneath him is an advisor whose name is unknown due to the fact that there is normally a new advisor appointed every few weeks, reasons for this is apparently because they displeased Akaine in some way. Underneath the advisor are three generals who co-ordinate all the mercenary teams actions, these generals are normally level 3 Drache Arm users though there has been circumstances where level 2 users have been granted a position. The generals are known collectively as the Bone Command. The leaders of the mercenary groups, Bone Lords, report directly to the Bone Command.

There are two lesser types underneath the Bone Lord, Bone Berserkers and Bone Warriors. New recruits into the Clan start as Bone Warriors. Recruits are only upgraded to Bone Berserkers if their thirst for battle becomes stronger then their will can contain and if the stress of their Drache Arm transformations become too much for their mind. Bone Berserkers rarely last more then a couple of raids due to their lack of concern. The final type is Bone Sentinel, this is the rank given to those that stay behind and guard the country borders and it is their job to execute any of the raiding parties that have ended up bringing unfriendly visitors hot on their heels. To raise a Drache Arm level in the Bone Clan isn’t as simple as raising to a new rank.

Instead you have to have won so many fights in the tournament and to have at least killed thirty people. To increase to the third fight you have had to led at least five successful raids, killed fifty people and be ranked number 1 in the Mor fighting league for five straight weeks (the Mor league is the main fighting league in Bone and there is six fights every week the be ranked number 1 you must fight in at least three of those fights and win every time, this can be done with or without killing your opponent). With these criteria you would think there would be a lot of third level Bone Drache Arm users running around but it isn’t the case. There is only a few of them because it is getting harder and harder for Bone Drache Arm users to get away safely on raids and the leagues are getting deadlier with one mistake costing the fighters their lives.

Judging from evidence recovered from ruins from the forgotten time. It appears that the Bone Drache was a very formidable opponent and often caused trouble to those that came into its realm. It isn’t known is the Bone Drache was ever a flesh and blood creature or if it was just a normal Drache that was reanimated through sinister means. What was most interesting was the fact that despite being a living bone structure, the Bone Drache still had was commonly known as Drache Children. Drache Children are the offspring of the Drache and it is believed that there bodies were turned into the pendants that all Clan members (with the exception being Acier). In any case the Drache Children share the same abilities as their parent, but were much smaller.
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To add to this, I also included a part about the strange nature in this world, notably the monstrous creatures called Core’s and the elemental Phantom Stones.

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Nature:
 The nature of the planet Ga-Terra isn’t that much different then that of Earth. It is possible to find all manner of woodland creatures in Ga-Terra’s forests, and if you were to venture into the oceans of Ga-Terra you would find all kinds of fish, from the non-deadly (cod, plaice) to the deadly (Great White Sharks). Insect life is the same, as if plants but there are two unique anomalies that exist on Ga-Terra: Phantom Stones and the beasts that protect them, the hideous Cores.
 Phantom stones occur natural and take the appearance of coloured crystals. The colour of the crystal depends on the location it’s found in. It gets its name from the ghostly radiance they give off in the dark or after the sun has fallen. These stones have a strange effect when they are placed near a Drache Arm; the stone will be absorbed by the Drache Arm bestowing upon it an elemental effect for a short period of time. The effect depends on which stone is used and there are seven documented types: Blaze, Ice, Lightning, Rock, Light, Dark and finally Black. The Black Phantom Stones however should not be confused with the Dark type since the Black ones have a much longer lasting effect and seem to produce an even greater power.

However the Black Phantom Stones don’t seem to occur naturally within nature and only a few individuals actually have access to them, and those who have come near them have felt an evil presence emanating from them. The Phantom Stones occur nearby the element they contain, for example near some of the dormant volcanos on the Oceanus Procellarum continent; there you can find dozens of Blaze Phantom Stones.

There is some harder to find Stones of course like Lightning Stones which are only found after a fierce storm. The Light and Dark Stones are especially rare and seem to occur in places where legend said the Drache’s fought. Only one Phantom Stone can be activated at one time with the exception of the Black Phantom Stone which can be used in combination with Blaze, Ice, Lightning and Rock. Phantom Stones are seen as ethical issue for the Clans to discuss, while none of them can doubt its effectiveness, there at those who wonder about potential side effects and the ominous Black Phantom Stone.
 The second mysterious anomaly is the Cores, a name given to the creatures that guard the Phantom Stone sites. The creatures are an abomination on the planet. Their appearance is that of different animals wielded together by some strange power, yet their form has cracks in it and through the cracks is a shining light. Most cases have shown that the light eventually becomes too strong and will devour the Core destroying it. While the Core is alive it lashes out against anything and not even the most senior members of the Gaia Clan and clam their rage. The arrival of the Core is foreshadowed by a mist that comes from nowhere and causes the air to become electrified, the next thing that is seen is the light emitting from the centre of the beast. Then the mist solidifies into the Core, creating a shell around the light, then the Core begins its attack and doesn’t stop till either its light consumes it or it is killed.

A killed Core shell shatters a few seconds after it is killed then the light burns bright till it dulls and it can no longer be seen. The Cores only tend to turn up around Phantom Stone sites though there have been cases where they have appeared wherever Phantom Stones are, even if they have been harvested, this has led to situations where Cores have turned up in Clan villages and towns. What is more alarming though is that it is possible for a Core to absorb a Phantom Stone, becoming a elemental Phantom Core. The Acier Clan have shown considerable interest in examining Cores and have managed to capture some.
 The Phantom Stones also cause another strange effect on their surroundings that of the mutated plant life. In these cases the normal floras that grow around the sites of the Phantom Stones grow larger and more grotesque and even if the plant did not have vines, vines grow and wrap around their source of power. If the Phantom Stone is removed the mutant plant will immediately die release a noise that some have considered the plant’s death scream. If no Core was fought trying to get to the Phantom Stone then the sound of the plant dieing will have increased the chances of one appearing.

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Just as fast as the passion to do the story started though, it quickly died off, and I moved on to other projects. Why? It’s hard to say, though I think I burned myself out just on the research whereas I prefer getting stuck in to the story and crafting the details as they appear to me. I think this is evident in my work with Brennan and Riz!
This wasn’t to be the end of the idea though, as some ideas are too good to die, and there was plenty of improvements to be made…

That’s all this weeks folks, join me next week where I continue the discussion with the future of Drache Arm Luna. Till then, may your dreams guide you into the right words…

The Music of Writing

Happy Blog Day Everyone!

Today’s topic is based around music and writing, but as usual lets get onto the weekly briefs!

Weekly Briefs

Harvey Duckman Presents…The Return.

So are you a fan of the first Harvey Duckman Presents? Then you’ll be pleased to know that volume 2 will be soon making an appearance, and with it…Another brand new Brennan and Riz story! Yes, the pair will be making their return in a story called “Black Cat on the Prowl”.

Creator Chaos

Looking for the interview with Peter Hartog? Well keep checking your favorite places to get podcasts as it will be going live May 23rd!

We had a great recording session this past Sunday and the episode will be uploaded soon. We took a great deal of criticism onboard and hopefully we have upped our game. Keep an eye out for the podcast reaching your airwaves soon!

A reminder of who the rest of Creator Chaos are:

Me – I don’t think I need to explain myself…

Kelvin Rodriguez – Fans and followers of the #vss365 tag will recognize this fellow and his creations, a master of the pun.

Zack Brooks – Author of the ‘Charlie the Cupid’ shorts and ‘The Trials of Amaford” novellas, the second of which is out now so please look for ‘How Not To Be A Scribe’ and give it a read (and if a review, assuming you get the chance!) ! A great guy and the defacto leader of our rabble.

Pete Hartog – Author of the novel Bloodlines, and currently working on its sequel. A great guy with a great taste in music and a fantastic name.

Click here to listen to all the podcasts so far and look out for us on Spotify and Apples Music Service!

Vector Unit Regen Orphan’s War

Still on hiatus, hoping to resume it soon!
To catch up on the series so far, click here!

Brief Mentions

Liking what you’re hearing about Brennan and Riz? Click here to look at the short story collection of their adventures so far!

Looking for their newer stuff? Click here for their Christmas encounter with a Yeti, or click here for the anthology containing the short ‘A Walk Through The Pleasure Gardens’, get this one and you also get a whole host of brilliant short stories as well from fantastic authors.

Click here to find me on Goodreads

And now…time for our main feature presentation…

The Music of Writing

Music and writing go together hand and hand, in a manner of speaking. Some writers write with music providing the background, while others still devote their time to writing music, others still infuse their writing with music. During my early days writing, my friend shown me a piece he was working on that incorporated music during key scenes, effectively giving characters their own theme songs as it were.

I was blown away as I had never thought of using music like that, I didn’t think it was possible (Turns out it’s not, unless you have the money to pay for licensing fees of course, using copyrighted songs is not cheap and can derail your progress). I experimented with including songs in the story I worked on after this (The first draft of Daemon Soul Awakening…I’ll talk about that soon enough I swear!), and it helped the scenes come alive, though they ultimately proved very self indulgent.

Ultimately I took them out, partly because of the legality, and mostly because they just seemed out of place when going through it. This isn’t to say that this was the only part music had to play.
Outside of the story, music was helping me to be inspired, as I imagined the story taking the form of animation, and the music, giving it the soundtrack. Doing things this way helped me to describe better what I wanted to get across during the important scenes.

 I often use this approach with all my writings, where applicable. Take for instance, the piece I shared a few weeks ago, about Aldo the Ghost. In my head, that short uses Foo Fighters, The Pretender, as it’s backing track, and it is visible in the way the story is paced and some of the dialogue choices. Without that song, that short piece would be very different. The trick of using a song to inspire pacing isn’t new by any stretch, but I came across it through my other hobby: Drawing.

In one of the many, many, and I mean, many, books about drawing, one of them offers the advice of drawing while listening to music. The intent was that the beat would influence how you would draw the frames of the page (when drawing comics) matching the music to the scene you wanted was paramount. I had encouraging successes while drawing, doing a few test strips, that I wanted to try it with writing. I had an idea of what scene I wanted, and it was coincidence that Foo Fighter’s song happened to be a fantastic fit when I listened to it again and again. I will let you, the reader, be the judge in how much I succeeded with it.

But what if you really want a song in your story but can’t afford to get the songs you hear on the radio? Well, at this point, you do it yourself. This is what the friend who introduced me to this concept ended up doing. It has it’s obvious advantages (no fees, can tailor it to your story if you want) but it has a disadvantage, being that making a song is a lot harder then you would ever know. This is because writing a song is more then just lyrics, you have to think about the melody that will go along with the words. You can write all the fancy lyrics you want but if the tune doesn’t work, then the story will grind to a halt as everyone runs from the dodgy music.

Admittedly, this is the trap my friend fell in. He believed that the music he had wrote was fantastic, the truth was that it was well below sub-par. He also staggeringly, believed that it was easy to write songs, not taking anything into account.

It was for these reasons that I decided to leave the song writing to song writers, having gained a respect for what they were doing.

It’s a short blog this week, and the idea of music in writing is one I’m sure to return to, till then, may you never fall down a plot hole, and may the words flow through your fingers.

See you next week!

Short Story Tales

Happy Blog Day Everyone!

Today, I’ll be talking about short story writing, while also showing a couple of my previous attempts at the form. Like always, before we get into it, let’s do the weekly briefs:

WRITE Festival 2019

So this past weekend the WRITE Festival (A festival of writing and reading, based of the Word, South Shields, England) launched it’s first writing anthology, the results of a writing competition that started and closed, last year. Why am I telling you this? Well I was one of the lucky shortlisted writers who were published in the anthology.

The short story is called A Portrait of Hope and was quite different from anything I’ve written previously. The theme that they wanted the stories to work around was one of uplifting, again something that is practically alien to me. I didn’t win the contest, but seeing the quality of the top three, it’s not hard to see why, there is truly some excellent writers around, and I hope they all get their due after seeing what they’ve produced for this contest.

Creator Chaos

Looking for the interview with Peter Hartog? Well keep checking your favorite places to get podcasts as it will be going live May 23rd! Also, we’re recording the main podcast this Sunday, so if you have questions about the characters, don’t hesitate to get into contact.

There is some sad news however, Matt Brown and the rest of the Creator Chaos have mutually agreed to part ways in an amicable fashion. We hope he has great success with his Ancient Blood series and gets the recognition he deserves.

A reminder of who the rest of Creator Chaos are:

Me – I don’t think I need to explain myself…
Kelvin Rodriguez – Fans and followers of the #vss365 tag will recognize this fellow and his creations, a master of the pun.
Zack Brooks – Author of the ‘Charlie the Cupid’ shorts and ‘The Trials of Amaford” novellas, the second of which is out now so please look for ‘How Not To Be A Scribe’ and give it a read (and if a review, assuming you get the chance!) ! A great guy and the defacto leader of our rabble.
Pete Hartog – Author of the novel Bloodlines, and currently working on its sequel. A great guy with a great taste in music and a fantastic name.

Click here to listen to all the podcasts so far and look out for us on Spotify and Apples Music Service!

Vector Unit Regen Orphan’s War

I’m afraid due to time constraints, this series is going on hiatus. I’ve missed last weeks update as a new writing opportunity opened up (hopefully I can talk more about this in the future). I shall endeavor to return the trials of Drake and Ava Vern as soon as I’m able.

To catch up on the series so far, click here!

Brief Mentions

Liking what you’re hearing about Brennan and Riz? Click here to look at the short story collection of their adventures so far!

Looking for their newer stuff? Click here for their Christmas encounter with a Yeti, or click here for the anthology containing the short ‘A Walk Through The Pleasure Gardens’, get this one and you also get a whole host of brilliant short stories as well from fantastic authors.
Click here to find me on Goodreads
And now…time for our main feature presentation…

Short Story Tales

So this week, I wanted to look at Short Stories and what I’ve learned about doing them. In school, as part of English classes, we wrote what could be dubbed short stories (as long as we actually finished them of course). Sometimes we were just told to write it to completion, other times, we were given a certain length we had to finish at.

A good example of this is the story I wrote for my mock SATs in year 6 when I was eleven years old. We were given just a single side of an A4 page to tell a fully structured story (beginning, middle and end). I was easily influenced in those days, and one of the big things for me was video games, most notably whatever was big on the Sega Saturn. At that time period, the game, House of the Dead debuted on the console release, and I wanted it. It also infected my imagination, as the story I wrote was pretty much a rip off, the game’s plot and one of its characters, filtered through the mind of a eleven year old who didn’t know how to properly balance the act structure then. This was the firsts time I can remember coming against the constraint of a size limit, and it wouldn’t be the last.

The next time came the year later, when I was in year 7, where one of our assignments was to write a story, but we were given six A5 pages to do it in. Ostensibly this was to enforce the structure, with two pages given each to the beginning, middle and end. This time I was enamored with the prophecies of Nostradamus and particularly the one that conspiracy theories said meant the end of the world was nigh…in July 1999. I don’t think I need to tell you that it was rubbish. Anyway, I spun an alien invasion tale, reminiscent of the old sci fi show, Earth: Final Conflict. This one fared a lot better and I was beginning to get a grasp of what to do within a tighter frame.

After that, there wasn’t any creative writing assignments as the English work became more concerned with the work of a very famous bard then anything else. So let’s flash forward to the next time I did a short story or two…In fact I’ll just show them to you.

~

A Future Vision

 I have seen the future, and what a terrible thing it is. I have seen things that people would never believe as I scarcely believe them myself, even as I write them down here, though I am only writing them down in order to disprove my fears of madness. First I will start with the beginning, the dreams started about a week ago; starting with me hanging in the air like one of the sea-faring birds, hanging above what I can only assume is a large town.
While I hang there I look around, seeing nothing but dark cloudy sky above the town and the strange objects hanging in the sky pretending, like me, to be birds. After hanging there for what seems like an eternity I begin a slow and agonising decent to the town, which I can now see very clearly as what I can only describe as a wondrous nightmare; the buildings stretch up high into the heavens as almost like they can call god their neighbour, but these buildings are made up of a metal I do not know, and some of them are covered in glass.
Then I start to hear the sounds coming from this nightmare sounds worse then any savage animal or any deafening war. When I first had these dreams, it was at this point that I would mercifully wake up, never getting any further closer to the heart of the town, night after night the same point in the dream and I was powerless to stop these dreams, yet I was always glad of their sudden end.
Until recently, however when a morbid curiosity had set in and I started to long to see what lurked in this strange place and to see if the things living in this place were indeed people or demons of my creation. The curiosity seemed to pay off as the next night I had the dream instead of it stopping; I continued my descent into the maze of the tall metal buildings.
On the way to the bottom I look around franticly to see some amazing sights that I have never before seen in this world, I see that the beings that live here resemble me and my people but they move without direction, each one following another, who follows another. They all seem older then what time said they should be; this fact only seemed to bother a few of them.
I passed, on my way down, a large window on one of the buildings and on the inside was one of the denizens of the town, who must have been made to look large through some trick or effect, the person was speaking but I could not understand it and various images passed through the window, and although I knew I should have been frightened by this, I was strangely clam, my gaze fell to the people beneath the window, who were stood watching the window like in some sort of trance, occasionally one of them would break from this trance and walk off, as if to attend some business.
Still wanting to see more of this place I finally made it to the bottom and set my feet on the ground, it was then that I took in another horror, the ground around me, and in fact almost the whole town was almost colourless, save from the oddly coloured clothes of its citizens. There were very few trees that I could see when compared with my own home, and it had seemed that nature had fought against this place and lost its crucial battle. I walked around for a while, noticing that I caught no attention from the other people around me, I looked in all of the shop windows and saw things that should not exist and yet the people were purchasing him them without due concern.
I carried on in my journey, it was then that I found the thing causing some of the noises I heard before, steel behemoths on the road, fighting each other to get ahead, and sometimes the people riding them would get out and start shouting at each other in a language that I’m becoming strangely familiar with. While the steel behemoths on the road scared me it by no means put me off my quest to discover more about this place, so I went on, and found myself in an alley between two of the large buildings and it was here that I found more nightmarish things that may never leave my mind.
The alley was filled with empty grey barrels, some of which had been turned on their side, among these I found rats bigger then I had ever seen. The rats were feeding off the waste of the barrels. I approached them and they scattered, leaving behind their food and a body of one of the citizens, I kneeled down in the waste to get a better look at it.
The person had been young and handsome, but his sleeve was rolled up and in his arms were sharp instruments, the like I have never seen, and apart from the thing in his arm there was also what appeared to be a dagger in his other hand, which was still covered in his own blood. This person had taken his own life. I got back to my feet and then noticed another body, this one was wearing the almost exact same clothes at the other one but his features were different, and it looked like he had died trying to either protect himself, or trying to kill the other one.
Either way they were both dead, my mind started to reel with reasons as to why these bodies had not been taken care of, I noticed people were walking around the other end of the alleyway, the opening a few feet away from the bodies, no one looked into the alleyway they did not care about that their fellow citizens were dead.
Disturbed by their lack of compassion, I left the alley, hoping that the souls lost there would find peace on the other side of life. Moving forward, it was to my relief that I came across a large section of woodland, and as I moved through the place I saw children of different colours playing together while their parents were no where to be seen. I looked up to the obscured sky, and saw it gradually get darker, and as I stood there staring as day faded into night, time seemed to move faster, as the children dispersed and it became very dark, though the town itself was lit up by various far away lights.
Wandering around this new setting, I came across another two young people, holding hands and eventually settling down on a grassy hill, I cried after what happened next, as without warning, the male grabbed a small dagger from his pocket and proceed to slit the young woman’s throat, killing her instantly, from there he began to cut her up. I, the silent observer in this violent act, stood there helplessly, not even turning my head away from the male as he desecrated the woman. And then with his act done, the man threw away the dagger and quietly walked away. I was still standing there when another young couple found the remains.
It was at this point that I wanted to leave this cursed town, with its flock of people and its murderers and demons. I now found myself running from the woodland and back into the streets, witnessing more acts of violence as two males beat another to death for being of a different colour, as far as I could gather of course, it was then when I ran into some people who spoke my language and looked like my brethren, only they too were caught in the fight and one of them was stabbed and left to bleed to death. I continued my flight, screaming at the top of my voice for it to end, but there was no waking from this dream it seemed.
I came to the place where I first descended and saw the people who were following other people who were following others. I fell to my knees and cried to leave this world and time, cried to have the things I’ve seen removed from my mind, for that god to be merciful and to wake me now.
It seems that someone heard my last plea as all of a sudden the people stopped moving and looked into the sky as one; there were no sounds apart from a low thunder that slowly got louder and louder till the night sky was torn asunder by a blinding white light, like many of the people I shielded my eyes from it, lowering my hand I witnessed the final act of horror, as everything around me and everyone around were incinerated, clothing from flesh, flesh from bone, bone to nothing.
Only I was left, alone in this now dark world. It was at this point that I was awoken be the sound of the birds outside my window, and the local traders leading their horses and carts to the market. I wiped my brow from all the sweat that had gathered there due to the dream and the heat and sat up and reflected on what I had seen.
 I got up and walked to my desk and opened my diary and wet my quill and started to write about the dream in hope of showing my friend, Christopher when he gets back from finding the rumoured second route to India. But for now this diary will hold the event, and no more will my morbid curiosity make me go into the dammed city, I have seen the future of this world and it is a terrible thing.

Sleepless

It has been four days since I decided to sleep no more, and I’m not sure how long I can go before I either die from exhaustion or succumb to that dreaded state known as rest. A few weeks ago, if this happened to someone else and they told me, I would have sent them to another doctor, or maybe even a psychiatrist, as every one knows, that sleep is vital to humans, without it we would die.

Now though I will seek no professional help, not even the help of my close friends and colleagues, as they will force me to sleep and incarcerate me into the asylum, were I will be helpless to defend myself against the waking nightmares, as I know the orderlies will not rush to my aid. As a doctor, I have seen all different kind of illnesses, from the common stomach bugs to other rare diseases, and one of the things that I seemed to have a lot of cases were sleep disorders, people who had insomnia or, a pure fear of sleep itself.

Thinking back about it, it’s very ironic how this is happening to me, as for all of these patients, I dismissed their cases, telling them to get more exercise and that the best cure would be natural healthy sleep, and in the most extreme of cases, I signed the orders referring them to the nearest asylum, where now I fear for their fate. My normal bed pattern would be to read for an hour, while listening to classical music on my headphones before reaching and turning off the light, and turning over about three times before finally getting to sleep, but seven days ago that pattern was destroyed.

I had just finished listening to some Mozart and had just read through the final section in the latest medical journal when it happened; I turned off the light, turned three times but instead of a dreamless sleep, I must have had what they would call a waking dream, I could no longer move my body, and I became aware of something else in the room, something above me, next to me and at one point, inside my mind.

I became panicky and started to stupidly call out, as if there was going to be someone to come to my rescue. As this was going on, strange visions danced in my head, of lands far away, of events eons in the past and seemingly eons in the future and of dread creatures which I will not describe, lest I go insane.

I do not know how long had past before this feeling disappeared, but while the feeling of being paralysed and there being something else in the room went, the horrors that were in my mind stayed. The day came and I returned to my normal routine, trying the best I could to forget about the night that had been, but then came the second evening. I tired to get to sleep straight away forgoing my usual reading and listening, trying to focus on leaving the waking realm and going to the strange land of sleep, where dreams live and memories dwell. But this transition never came for me, for once more I was paralysed and the feeling of not being alone came back to me, but this time in the still darkness I saw an outline of a fiend that words could not begin to describe, a beast that should not exist, yet was hovering above me, preparing once again to repeat what it did to me last time.

I tried to close my eyes, tried to convince myself that I was already asleep and that this was merely a dream, a terribly vivid dream, but a dream nonetheless. This time I could feel the monster inside my mind, touching each of my memories and thoughts, and I could feel it draining my mind, as with each passing moment I felt as though I was getting weaker and as though I had lost parts of my life.

Although that was a terrible ordeal it paled in comparison to the returning visions, each one was something that would be enough to make any one question their sanity, and their reason for being alive.

Dawn came and I was once again alone, but the damage had been done and a fear of returning to such a state had been set in, what could of normally been passed off as a recurring nightmare, has instead become something to fear, to fear bad enough to not ever even attempting to sleep ever again. The next few hours came and went with me still in bed, afraid to move.

Eventually I got up and went to ring the hospital where I would call in sick to avoid having to show myself in this sorry state. A curious thing happened though, I forgot the number, the number of the place where I had been working for the last ten years almost, a number which I’ve rang about a thousand times, while I eventually found the number in my address book, the event had left me a bit stunned, then I remembered that it had felt like I was being drained, and the more I thought about it, the more it became evident that things had been taken from me, things I would most likely never get back.

For the rest of the day, I hung around the house, like a dog missing its master, always checking on the time to see when it would get to the time that night would fall. During this period I went through all the cupboards in the house to try and find something, anything even, that may help against the creature, though in retrospect the mere fact I was doing something like that indicates that I was not of sound mind.

However during this mad search I did come across some strong sleeping pills, while at first I was attempted to get rid of them, an idea sprang to life inside me. What if I could induce a sleep so powerful that the visit of that creature would not wake me? So that I may sleep without fear, and perhaps the event wouldn’t happen and I can convince myself that it was, in fact all a bad dream to begin with.

The more I thought about it, the more it seemed to make sense and so at the usual time of my retirement to bed, I took a large quantity of the pills, as well as a small glass of water, and went to my room. I lay in bed while listening to some of my favourite pieces of Beethoven, all the way, feeling smug about my plan to end the past two nights of visitations.

Once the music finished I took off the headphones and prepared to ingest the pills and the water, ensuring a good restful sleep, as soon as I took the pills, sleep overtook me, and the last thing I saw of the waking world was of the glass of water falling and spilling on the floor. This plan I made, however, did not work, in deed this third visit proved to be the clincher for my decision not to sleep. As during this supposed ‘good, restful, sleep’ I was woken, not by any noise, but by something else, some feeling.

I was wide awake, and for the first few minutes I could move around as if it was time to get up, but as I glanced over to the clock which displayed the time as two in the morning, I knew this wasn’t the case. Hurriedly I got out of my bed and tried to leave the room but, the sleeping pills I had earlier taken seemed now to work against me as once again I could feel sleep overtake me, but this sleep didn’t feel natural, and as soon as I fell to the floor, I lost all control of my body, and I was no longer alone in the room or in my mind.

The fiend had returned, and as I gazed upon its horrible features, I realised that I could now see all of it, as though it had fully materialised in this realm, I thought not of the things it might do to me if this was indeed the case. The thing came nearer and I fancied that I could hear it mocking me, in its own alien tongue, and once more the thing had penetrated my mind, and started to drain my memories, and as I lay there, I was given access to another slideshow of the things that lay outside of our perception of life. And once more, I screamed out.

It was on that morning, after I awoke on the floor, near the fallen glass, that I made a promise to myself and indeed to that mocking fiend that haunted my sleep, that I would never sleep again if I could help it, as death would be a welcome release compared to a lifetime of visits. Once more I phoned in sick, but this time I managed to get a longer stay off work, as if anybody saw me like this then they would take action, action that would not beneficial for me, or for them.

That was four days ago, I have made it four days without sleep, but now I am weary, for it feels like I am neither asleep or awake. And with this being the case the boundaries between the waking world and the dream world are beginning to break, as today I thought I was being hunted by some of the fiends that I had seen in the visions, but once they cornered me I found myself in my bathroom. And all the while, every now and then, I lose control of a part of my body and I see it trying to get to me, trying to get inside my head to finish what it started, and with these incidents I hear laughing, and the worse part of it is that it is in my own voice.

Now I sat alone in my bedroom, I am sure I am alone as I have not heard its laughing to indicate that it is here now, with my head held in my hands, I cry, not because of the thing coming but because I am to afraid to take my own life, to prevent my own suffering , I can no longer continue this fight against sleep, and I know that soon I will be either dead or asleep, though to tell the truth they will both be the same. As when the thing was stealing my thoughts, I was able to see into its, I know what it plans to do with me, what it has done to millions of others through out time, and with this being the fourth visit, it will be the final one, as all that is me will be consumed.

It is now two in the morning and I can barely move, fear acting as weights on my being, and I can hear the laughing, it has come for me, and already the paralysis is beginning to set in, so I must finish off this explanation for my death, and all I can do now is hope that I die from lack of sleep before the thing gets me, as I said before, death will be a welcome release.
~
To be fair, I was quite happy with the first one when I wrote it some thirteen years ago. This was when I was very much in my Lovecraft phase, though I failed to reach his lofty heights like Dagon. I learned though these that you have to start as close to the action as possible, otherwise you’re just wasting space you don’t have. I also never did any editing in those days, making the stupid mistake of thinking I didn’t need to do it. Ah youth.

Now, you can trace a link from them to the short story that changed my life, Girl in the Water. Readers who know me should recognize that name, as it is of course, the first story featuring Brennan and Riz, and my shortlisted entry in the first Crossing the Tees short story contest, back in 2017.

It has not been an easy ride from, going from my inferior copies of video game plots to a tale of a mismatched duo investigating Water Ghouls but along the way I’ve learned that short stories is a mix of knowing when to start the story.

This is a bit of evolution from what I mentioned in the last paragraph but it’s not just starting close to action, it’s about the effect you want. It’s still possible to do the slow build within a short story, as pacing becomes important, and that leads nicely into my next point.

Less is more. If you’re writing to a word limit, be stingy with your adjectives, choose the best one for what you’re describing, but don’t over describe at the same time. Get you reader to engage their imagination, just from a few prompts. Bloated paragraphs will slow down the reader and will make even the shortest of stories a chore that they will just skip.

Editing is key. Through the hard choices of editing, you can chisel that stone block of a story to a masterpiece. This is something that Tracey Iceton, the fantastic author who ran several workshops I attended in the run up to Crossing the Tees, taught me. The phrase she used was, “Kill your darlings” which roughly means, don’t be a afraid to lose bits you really like in the name of pacing and word count. I’ve had to do this several times in order to meet the limits. I grieve for all the words that I’ve sacrificed this way.

Thank you for reading all of my rambling so far, and I’ll see you all again next week!

Orphan's War

Happy Blog Day everyone!
As I stated last week, today’s main feature is a look at the other story series I’m currently active on, Vector Unit Regen Orphan’s War (or just Orphan’s War).

What’s that? You want to hear more about that Gabriel and Serena who have appeared in my tweets sometimes?

Patience. I’ve got a lot to say about them, believe me.

Anyway… before we get into the mech action, let’s deal with the weekly briefs.

Brennan and Riz: A Boy and a Rat update

Great news here as chapter 11 had been finished! It and the preceding chapter 10 have been sent to the beta reader (as if I didn’t, she’d probably murder me). The pair form a mini arc of sorts, focusing on the Seeley Council. I’m a bit hesitant about them being essentially one long scene but they do give answers about things… and more questions. As always I’ll keep you posted as I write more, especially since we’re now a few chapters away from Valarie entering the fray…

Creator Chaos

So if you’ve been following Creator Chaos’s twitter account you'll maybe have seen that we’re launching some new content soon, the first of which is an interview style recording, focusing on one ourselves. Our first test subject, I mean, willing guest, is Peter Hartog! So if you have any burning questions for him about Bloodlines, his writing process, boxers or briefs etc then send them in through the creator chaos account and we’ll endeavor to answer as many as we can! Be quick though as recording is tonight at 7 p.m est

A reminder of who Creator Chaos is:

Me – I don’t think I need to explain myself…
Kelvin Rodriguez – Fans and followers of the #vss365 tag will recognize this fellow and his creations, a master of the pun.
Zack Brooks – Author of the ‘Charlie the Cupid’ shorts and ‘The Trials of Amaford” novellas, the second of which is out now so please look for ‘How Not To Be A Scribe’ and give it a read (and if a review, assuming you get the chance!) ! A great guy and the defacto leader of our rabble.
Pete Hartog – Author of the novel Bloodlines, and currently working on its sequel. A great guy with a great taste in music and a fantastic name.
Matt Brown – A fantasy author looking to make a name for himself with his Ancient Blood series and his Valkyrie story which he serializes in his blog every Monday.

Click here to listen to all the podcasts so far and look out for us on Spotify and iTunes!

Vector Unit Regen Orphan’s War

Well I would normally update here but given I’m talking about it today, I don’t think I need to…

Brief Mentions

Liking what you’re hearing about Brennan and Riz? Click here to look at the short story collection of their adventures so far!

Looking for their newer stuff? Click here for their Christmas encounter with a Yeti, or click here for the anthology containing the short ‘A Walk Through The Pleasure Gardens’, get this one and you also get a whole host of brilliant short stories as well from fantastic authors.
Click here to find me on Goodreads
And now…time for our main feature presentation…

Orphan’s War

So the origins for this series are multiple, in one part, they stem from the moment I saw my older brothers Battletech source books, and subsequently coming across both the model kits for the Robotech franchise (I forget the company behind them, or if they were just imports of the Japanese kits created for Super Dimensional Fortress Macross) and the Robotech toys. At the young age I was, I didn’t understand or even care about how two different, yet similar sounding, things could share mech designs, all I knew was, I was hooked on giant robots….Transformers would help push this one along, as did the Robot Jox movie (possibly the best movie where people use mechs to fight each other…

possibly the only movie like that, discounting the rock’em sock’em robot movie, Real Steel). The real catalyst for this story idea, came when the Toonami block on Cartoon Network introduced me to a little show called Gundam Wing…

It was glorious, and it wasn’t long before I started chasing down the model kits and the other anime in the franchise (pro tip- watch 0080: War in the Pocket, you won’t be disappointed). Not long after, I turned my attention to imagining my own giant robot saga…That underwent several changes, as I toyed with all aspects of it and what the mechs would be called, at one point they were Wraiths, which sounded dramatic enough but at the same time, just didn’t seem right.

Time moved on and I started writing seriously (as seen in the blog a few weeks ago when I talked about the Terrorform story.) I didn’t return to the mech idea till after I had just finished the third Daemon Soul story and was planning the fourth. I had the urge that all writers get when they yearn for something new, and then I rediscovered the word files from my old thoughts. Reading through them I started adding new ideas to the list, which slowly changed the world, morphing it from a futuristic one with the mecha as mass produced weapons of war and where life is cheap to a world where war has taken its toll on the world and the mecha are relics of an older era that the new generations have reengineered.

This is the world of Vector Unit Regen (the Orphan’s War tag came much, much later on). I settled on the concept of the Domes as being the refuge of the rich and the lucky, places where technology was used to combat the changing environment and make controlled paradises. Of course not everyone was going to be able to live in such splendor, and this where the Silvers come in, the idea that because of the environmental changes that everyone outside the Domes are born with Silver eyes.

So, I had a setting, with some world building done. The question turned to characters, and for a story like this, I was going to need a large ensemble cast, so I set to work on deciding the principal cast, the antagonist(s) and all the help they would need. This led to Drake Vern, who emerged as the main character viewpoint. I created the backstory for him and made it tragic, giving him a reason to hate the enemy. Though people who have been reading through the story as I’ve posted it will probably ask who that enemy is, given that he’s working for the Atlantis Empire. You see originally, I was going to begin the story with Drake already a fully fledged resistance fighter, his family victims of the Empire. This changed to Drake’s sister being his responsibility and her death, more so. That’s right, Ava was doomed to die in the original version, with the Empire hiding her and a dozen other prisoners they just want gone in a building that they then order Drake to fire upon, and which he does not realizing straight away. I abandoned this for a simple reason, it didn’t make sense.

No matter how I approached it, it was simply easier for the Empire to just kill it’s target themselves and somewhere in the chaos, dump the bodies. So readers of the series on Royal Road, relax as Ava’s fate has been changed.

Then came a big change, instead of starting out in the present (or what passes for the present in the future) I dialed back a bit and settled for telling Drake’s story from an earlier point, explaining how he got his piloting skills and why he fights against the Empire. Ava went from being a character that was destined to die, to being the second main character alongside her brother, though she wasn’t the only female character feature prominently in the story.

Melody Moon came about as I wanted an another view point in the story, someone who wouldn’t be fighting in a big robot, someone who had a different set of skills entirely. Going back to anime mecha shows as inspiration, I took a leaf out of Macross’s book, and made Melody a pop idol, one that the Empire used in their propaganda. Why she did this would be simple, she had no over option as they owned her. I went quite dark with her background, a lot darker then I have ever done previously with a character.

At the beginning she’s broken, and through the story, hopefully you’ll get to see her grow and find the strength that hides in each of us.

Elements of the previous versions bled through, most notably characters like Tina, but I can’t say much more on her for now as that would be a spoiler for the next couple of chapters for Orphan’s War.
You may notice I haven’t spoken much of the antagonist (the Empire is evil but it’s far from being the antagonist) and that’s deliberate as just like any good Gundam anime, the true villains don’t often make themselves known at first. Suffice to say I’ll have more to say at a future date.

Now all that’s left to talk about is the mechs themselves, heavily inspired by Mobile Suits from the Gundam franchise. Well there’s not too much to say on the basic ones, but I do plan on dropping hints to the more powerful machines lurking around, in fact the full title gives one away if you pay attention. Vector Unit Regen Orphan’s War. So Vector Unit is the name of the mechs in this universe, which of course means that Regen must be a Vector Unit….What is Regen? Well readers, you’ll be waiting a while to learn more about it or what it can do (a hint, Regen is short for something, Regenesis).

It was due to make its appearance about a third of the way in, going by the original schedule, but now it will have to wait longer then that…
That’s all the time I have this week, thank you for sticking with me while I talked about this Mecha story, and I hope you have fun reading through it! Next week I’ll be looking at short story writing, and the things I’ve learned about it.

Remember you can Click here to read Orphan’s War over at Royal Road, and till next time, may we all dream of owning a giant robot….

The Lost Writings: Ghosts…But Not As You Know Them

Happy Blog Day!

Here we are on this fine Wednesday, and I would like to take us all back to the past for another venture with my ‘The Lost Writing’ series. But let’s get the usual out of the way shall we!

Creator Chaos.

Last week, I said we were recording Sunday and that I had hoped the new episode would be out by the time you read this blog, well I can happily confirm that Zack Brooks did his magic (Runes or Voodoo, he didn’t specify) and that Episode 4 is now online for you to listen to! Click here to give it, and the rest, a listen.

Just so you remember who you’ll be listening to:

Me – I don’t think I need to explain myself…

Kelvin Rodriguez – Fans and followers of the #vss365 tag will recognize this fellow and his creations, a master of the pun.

Zack Brooks – Author of the ‘Charlie the Cupid’ shorts and ‘The Trials of Amaford” novellas, the second of which is out today, so please look for ‘How Not To Be A Scribe’ and give it a read (and if a review, assuming you get the chance!) ! A great guy and the defacto leader of our rubble.

Pete Hartog – Author of the novel Bloodlines, and currently working on its sequel. A great guy with a great taste in music and a fantastic name.

Matt Brown – A fantasy author looking to make a name for himself with his Ancient Blood series and his Valkyrie  story which he serializes in  his blog every Monday.

Vector Unit Regen Orphan’s War

The latest chapter is now online at Royal Road, chapter 7 A Meeting with Melody. To give it a read, click here!
As per my new fortnightly schedule, a new chapter should hopefully be posted a week Friday. Next week I’ll be covering Vector Unit Regen as the main point, shedding some light on the origins of this series (hint: inspiration came from certain big machines as featured in certain animated stories from a certain country in the Pacific Ocean).

Brief Mentions

Liking what you’re hearing about Brennan and Riz? Click here to look at the short story collection of their adventures so far!

Looking for their newer stuff? Click here for their Christmas encounter with a Yeti, or click here for the anthology containing the short ‘A Walk Through The Pleasure Gardens’, get this one and you also get a whole host of brilliant short stories as well from fantastic authors.

Click here to find me on Goodreads

The Lost Writings:  Ghosts…But Not As You Know Them

Today let’s flash the clock back to 2010, a mere nine years ago now. At this point I was talking to a friend, trying to hash together an online Roleplaying game for us to post in, wanting to create a good setting. We had managed to come up with an alternate timeline where the cold war of the 80s resulted in a nuclear war which more or less destroyed everything.

 My friend was already at work putting this as the backstory for a story he was working on, and it got my mind racing at what I could do with a setting that’s a thousand years after the war that ended it all…Did I forget to mention that bit? Yes, the timeline for the RP would be a thousand years (this was never concrete though, I certainly can’t remember setting a date) after the nuclear onslaught, meaning the work was post-apocalyptic, just without the Mad Max style setting.

Instead, we went feudal, with a slight touch of modernism seeping through. My friend relished creating the whole series of events that led to this, while I pondered on what to do about characters. At this stage in my writing, I was still dead set on my Daemon Soul stories being the big ticket for me, so any other writing that I did, was connected somewhere to them and the characters (in a sense I still do this, as I regularly use Gabriel, the Daemon Soul villain in tweets almost weekly), I did but didn’t want this to be the same.

This setting was going to be darker, and I just didn’t want to rehash the main characters origins again, I wanted something different. I decided to turn things on their head. The following scene was written as a proof of concept for the character I was going to use.

To set it up, some teenagers have snuck away from the nice harvest festivities in the Village of Duskwald, near the Black Forest, so called of the pitch black trees that make it up. They have snuck out to try and find the villages legendary protector, the Daemon Soul. What they find…Well you’ll see.
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It was a tense moment and a shout cut through it with ease:
“You're surrounded my friend, there's no heroics to be had here, if you won't join us then we can't have you running around against us” The voice belonged to a man in a smart looking military uniform, all around him were soliders either in iron plate armour or simple dirt caked uniforms.

They were all armed with bolt action rifles with two even having prototype machine guns perched in front of them. Their target was a man in his late thirties and an 18 year old from the local village, who's wide eyed stare was captivated by the scene around him. All the older man had to defend himself was a ornate sword. He swept his cloak around him and addressed the commanding officer one more time.
“I will not help you, take my life if you must but you will never have my power” He got ready to strike, if he was fast enough he could hold the commander hostage, the cowards fear of death would be enough to end this little siege. It may prove unwise in the long run but for now it was a way out.

The officer tutted and was about to say something else when the elder man ran straight for him.

He never made it though. The sound of a revolver echoed throughout the dark forest and carried on into the night, and as the elder man coughed up blood he dropped to his knees.
“This is the mighty Daemon Soul of legends? Hah, your fast but I guess you couldn't outrun a speeding bullet. You are lucky though, my aim was slightly off, any higher and I would of hit your heart”
“Dastun!” the boy replied running to his side, he was stopped though by a hail of bullets that cut up the dirt between the two.
“Stay out of this...I'm sure the great legend can survive that...” The officer smirked, he wouldn't admit it but scenes like this turned him on. Dastun stood slowly and with his free hand grabbed the bullet wound.

“I thought you were going to kill me?” He said as he took another step forward. He knew that there was no way out of this now for him, his only concern was to get the kid out of here before something happened.
“Did you hear that boys? He's getting cocky...Admirable that you still try to get to me after a shot like that, but what do you hope to do? If you're going to act as a diversion so that brat can get out of here alive then your sadly mistaken...You're the starter, the village will be the main course and he's going to be the desert. If there's such a thing as the afterlife I'm sure you'll be regretting your choice to turn down our kingdom's offer” The officer pointed his gun straight into Dastun's face.

Dastun turned to face the young man and smiled softly and said.
“I'm sorry sir, I guess I wasn't able to carry on your legacy after all” He then charged forward with all the might he could muster. He barely made it three feet before the hail of gun fire tore him apart. The steel of his sword was shattered and his bloodied body crumpled to the ground.
“What a waste of time...Well gentlemen let's get back to the others and roast the village. We can get something to take back to the commander general...oh Trey and Douglas, see to it that the brat accompanies us, remember there is to be no witnesses to this.” The two soldiers sniggered and then left their standing to go and apprehend the boy who was knelt down by Dastun's dead body.

If they had looked closely at him, they would of noticed the glare of an anger tempered by a life of over a 1000 years. Douglas went to grab his shoulder when the boy spoke up to them.
“Who are you?” His voice went from being carefree and childlike to commanding and full of power. The solider was taken back, as was the officer who turned back to the scene.
“I'm the one who's going to kill you now if you don't come with us...well I guess you're going to die anyway but out of a choice between a quick death or my specialty then you're going to want to keep your trap shut.” Douglas said as he grabbed the guy's shoulder.
“You didn't answer” There was a large snap as the boy quickly reached up and then pulled Douglas's arm off his body, joint and all. The soldier fell back as his body entered shock, the floor below becoming enriched with blood. Trey almost fell over as he tried to get away, he rose his gun up and pointed it and instinctively fired. The boy easily side stepped the awkward shot. He then grabbed the gun and yanked it out of the soldiers arms and smashed it in his grip. He placed one hand around Trey's neck and then threw him into the amassed soldiers.

With a burning gaze he looked at the officer and with a venomous tongue he addressed the officer once more.
“I asked who you were”
“What on earth....Now this is quite the surprise, hmmm you may be a better catch then we thought, how about you join us, don't worry about that guy you ripped the arm off, he would of probably gotten himself killed anyway”
“No. I'll ask again, who are you”
“Maybe that last display of our power wasn't enough for you, so we'll see how you do with this” The officer gave the signal and all the soldiers opened fire, just like with Dastun. The boy then just brought his hand up and there was a faint glow and the metal bracelet that he was wearing on his right arm seemed to melt and quickly solidified into a new form, that of a ornate sword with a razor sharp blade. Armed with this weapon, he began to twirl it around, blocking all of the bullets. With astounding dexterity and speed, the boy emerged from the bullet storm unhurt.

“What did you do there? What kind of...of magic was that” The officer said in amazement, he had heard all the legends and the stories but what he had witnessed had surpassed them.
“That was not magic...It is far from the tricks and sights of hand your culture passes as entertainment. I used a technology never again to be seen on this blasted heap of a planet”
“A technology? From before the war?”
“No. From before mankind even stood upright. I'm done explaining things to you. You still haven't answered my question” The boy started to walk towards the gathered soldiers, in his head another voice was speaking: Go on, call my name and bring me forth, with our combined power we can avenge and put things right He ignored it and stared straight into the eyes of the officer.
“Who are you?” The boy demanded. Now everyone was getting chills down their spine, and they felt the dominating presence, and an killing lust that was almost unbearable. The officer backed off in fear, he cried out against himself, but couldn't overcome his instincts. He could only mutter what would of sounded like a fearsome reply.
“Kill him”

The guns blazed into life again as they all trained their sights at the inhuman being before them, like before though the Daemon Soul ducked and dodged, parried and reflected. He leapt into a crowd of nearby soldiers and killed them all with grace, the blade he carried dancing from artery to artery, severing muscle and bone. He jumped again to avoid more fire and continued his dance of death. The officer was now cowering till he felt the ground rumble, one of his men must of given word to the relief force that was supposed to be keeping watch at the village. A steel behemoth crashed through the trees, and what used to be a tank in the old language came trundling in, its main cannon primed and ready to fire. To the side of the machine were a couple of soldiers carrying the latest in heavy weapons, flame throwers. Regaining some of his composure the officer stood and brushed off the dirt, he would yet bring this monster to heel.

“Blast him into dust” He said point in the blood soaked Daemon Soul. The Daemon Soul returned the stare and was unfazed by the tank and the new additions. He finished off one of the wounded soldiers before focusing on the arrivals.
“Toys can't save you” As he spoke the sword started glowing and part of the metal decorations he was wearing on his coat melted and fused with it, changing its appearance to that of a large broadsword with an edge that seemed to vibrate intensely.
“A sword against a cannon? Fair enough, its your funeral”
“I've already had one, I think its your turn”
“You may fire when ready” the officer said to the soldier who had peeked his head out of a small opening in the tank. The machine roared into life and moved forward, the cannon being brought to bear on the target. If this was a method of intimidation then it was failing as the Daemon Soul didn't move and instead hefted his new sword with great ease and got ready to strike. There was a mighty explosion as the cannon fired, the iron ball inside being catapulted towards the Daemon Soul but as it neared the boy simply caught it on the flat side of the sword, all of its explosive force being absorbed as the blade began to glow a fierce red. With all of its energy gone and its momentum stopped in place, the iron ball fell helplessly to the ground. Then the Daemon Soul leapt out of the way of the flames that were quickly spread around him in an effort to contain him so the next cannon blast could have a good chance of killing him.

This didn't work though. The Daemon Soul swept his sword around him and put all the flames astounding the soldiers even further, some of the smart ones had now fled the scene altogether. With the path clear and the tank still reloading, he faced no opposition. With one swing of his sword he unleashed the pent up energy contained within and decimated the tank, reducing it to molten scrap. The sharpnel from the blast tore up the remaining men, even going as far as igniting the fuel pack of one of the flame throwers. The officer had managed to survive the attack, only barely though as his arm had been badly mauled by the blast. He was going to order a retreat when he looked around and realized that there was no one left to retreat. His day had started off so well, his mission was simple and when the older man had turned out to be just a simple person, then he thought it was over. Now his squad were just pitiful remnants.

The cause of this disarray was still standing near the wreckage spying over the last few survivors. The sword changed shape again, and parts of the surrounding metal pieces were also picked up as the sword became a gauntlet armed with a crossbow. With stunning accuracy he picks off the last soldiers scrambling to get away. A final bit of mercy he would be prepared to give that night.

The officer watched as the Daemon Soul turned to him, through the fire that still raged, he saw a demon, an angel of destruction. He reformed the sword and stood over the officer. The officer went to draw his gun up but the sword was faster and the officer lost his arm at the elbow. Then the blade went of his legs and the officer was forced on to his knees.
“You made a mistake today, you made me your enemy, I've done my best to stay out of the focus, I've hid for the better half of a millennial. Yet you bring me back you re-instate my bloodlust and why? So I can fight your pathetic wars? No. All you've done now is brought down my anger. So I'll ask for a final time. Who are you? WHO ARE YOU!” The Daemon Soul roared.
“I am Captain Kraven Mudorn, and you can't fight us....no you can't fight us” By this point the Daemon Soul was through talking. There was a few quick slashes and then the deed was done, the dismembered body lay still on the ground. His sword reformed into the bracelet. He returned to the body of his descendant Dastun.
“I'm sorry you were caught up in this, I had thought my bloodline had escaped this curse but it looks like I was wrong....” The Daemon Soul closed Dastun's eyes and then left the scene. He had to return to the village to stop any conflict that was there.
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Now it’s important to point out that I called the protagonist a Daemon Soul, but I abandoned that a little while later, instead having him be what I called a ‘Ghost’. These were powerful beings that were created when a soul was brought back to life, in a new body. The powers stayed the same, with metal manipulation leading to some cool visuals.

Why did I change what the main character was? So I could kill the Daemon Soul outright, and have it form a crucial element in Aldo’s backstory. Had the storyline continued, it would have shown how the Daemon Soul died and what effect it had on him, and why he used the name again when creating folklore for his village.

The Ghosts were planned to be major antagonists for the RP, all of them born through acts of violence, and compelled to repeat it on others. There was problems of course, several ones that I never did solve to my satisfaction. They were bland and very similar to each other in what motivations they had. When I create characters now, I try to give them more depth and try to keep in mind what they would be like if they are real. With the Ghosts, they felt more like video game boss minions.

Aldo was lucky in that regard, as being the main character, he got more characterization by the virtue of asking why he wasn’t like the others (apart when you really upset him.). The RP fell apart not long after it was started due to real life issues, causing the story and it’s ideas to be abandoned, though I did try and write the prequel, but never progressed far in that either…

I did try to return to the idea a few years later, bringing in a new perspective, that of the Daemon Soul herself, fleshing out some of the time before the war, but I’ll share that piece some other time…

So at the end of all this, you might wonder why I shared this, and that’s because you never know when an idea may spring back to life. Never throw away your old work, don’t just assume that because something doesn’t click first time, it never will. Keep it and look back later, aside from cringing at what your writing ability used to be like, you may just see the spark of inspiration that caused you to write it in the first place, and with it, the seeds for a new story.

That’s all for today folks, remember, yesterday’s work, may be tomorrow’s masterpiece.