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…