Demon's Throne 3 - Planning

Intro

This post will be a spoiler-lite commentary on how I plan to approach Demon’s Throne 3, with a focus on outstanding plot threads, writing issues, and character arcs.

I didn’t do one of these for Spellblade 4 because the book was fairly straightforward and I didn’t know if there was much interest. As it is, DT3 is a bit of a beast of a book due to both its structure and the amount of overlapping threads. I also plan to completely deviate from the originally planned plot.

It’s amusing to look back and think that I thought this would be the easy series to write. On the plus side, I learned a lot from writing Spellblade 4 and the way I approached it that I want to apply to DT3. We’ll see if it works.

Overall Story

The general gist of DT3 is that it will resolve the Malus League plot. However, it also needs to set up the rest of the series.

I mentioned in the DT2 character post that the series is broken up into three arcs: the initial setup (Book 1); the expansion (Books 2 and 3); and then the conquest of the entire archipelago. Just like Spellblade 4 concluded the Empire arc while starting the Omria arc (or whatever you want to call it), I need to finish one arc while starting another. That means expanding the world over the course of the book, instead of just closing off existing plot threads.

A lot of series don’t do this, which results in a lot of asspulls to expand the world (“power levels are bullshit”). The downside is that it can crowd out the plot, and some people get frustrated.

As the cliffhanger of Book 2 suggested, Hell will be getting involved in some way. This will ensure that Rys remains tested even as his power rises drastically, as well as naturally drawing in global interest.

I expect the Kinadain to take a backseat for this book, although their problems will still be around. Some people might appreciate this.

Otherwise, there still needs to be continuing character development and empire building. Book 2 ended with an excellent excuse for a timeskip, and I plan to capitalize on that to build up Rys’s empire to justify the battles. Scale and time are handled terribly so often, and I’m sometimes guilty of this for story reasons, but nations can’t build and train unmatched elite militaries in the boonies overnight no matter how awesome the protagonist is or even if he’s watched a History Channel documentary one time.

Fox Politics

This isn’t an euphemism for Rys sleeping with Fara and her extended family.

Book 2 had an underlying plot line about Pharos and the fox’s Six-Star Alliance (that name is a mouthful), and ended with the alliance sending a representative to meet with Rys. Well, those political shenanigans will continue to escalate. I don’t think I’ll follow the same path as in the source material (as that involved an extended period of time in Pharos for Mina and Fara), but fox politics is important to Fara and Mina.

Also, there’s a very floofy character I want to introduce. The harem isn’t really that big even though the character count is high. So I don’t feel that bad bringing her in. Demon’s Throne is a series that I feel will benefit from “chase girls” after all. Rys needs to regain his strength in order to build his harem, instead of just landing everyone.

Otherwise, I probably won’t go too crazy with this stuff. But it needs to exist now in order for later books to resolve it. Fara can’t magic her way into being a havoc fox.

The Seals

One of the criticisms I saw of Book 2 was that Rys was too passive about the seals on his power, and that’s fair. The pace he breaks seals is transparently artificial (a seal a book right now) because each one is a fairly major event. That’s not to say I won’t change this once things cool down, however.

Like with Spellblade 4 and Nathan not trigemming anyone, this should have been explained properly. Because as Rys’s jaunt into Gorgria’s territory showed, intruding into the Labyrinth’s of other islands attracts attention.

Also, the next seals are big ones. They’re genuinely the hardest parts to include and pace, as they don’t fit into the book’s plot. This is one of the downsides of having a metaplot of Rys regaining his power and the mystery of being sealed away, and a more surface level plot for each book about politics and conquest. If Rys just fucks off in the middle of a war to crack open a seal, it can be really weird and distracting.

Anyway, I’ll do a better job explaining and justifying why he does and doesn’t do things. Fortunately, the next seal is a big’un and will do this job handily, even if it is currently a huge fucking sore point in my outline.

Children (and pregnancy)

I’m pretty sure some people got annoyed about this aspect, but it’s one that will remain going forward. It’s fairly important to the overall arc of the series and multiple character arcs.

To clarify, Rys is going to have several children. They’ll grow up and be fairly important in later books. The series will spawn some 15-20 years after all – the long timeframe makes things a touch more realistic, while also reinforcing the fact that Rys is a very patient man and plays the long game.

This also means there isn’t really a “pregnancy fetish.” The focus will be on the children (and there’ll only be so many of them), not on having a harem of perpetually pregnant women. Maria’s scene was for laughs and a reminder of what sort of person she is.

There is one child that is still up in the air, but I’m not in a position to make a decision on him yet.

Length

After Spellblade 4, I didn’t want to write any 600 page monsters. Sure, some authors write these but they’re difficult to manage and edit. If my books keep getting longer, I’ll reach a point where I really should just split my books up. I don’t really want to split DT up, however.

Right now, DT3 is roughly 1.5 books in size. Act 1 is a fucking beast (not the good kind) and is the main reason Patreon chapters are delayed – anything I post now is almost guaranteed to be completely changed. The downside is that if I split the book at a natural point (i.e. where it would still be a good experience for both books) then the second half would be artificially stretched. There’s also the issue of getting new covers if I extend the series, which would be a pain as I’d need to change artists again.

In other words, I’m going to knuckle down and trim the fat. It’s important that I do that now, while still focusing on what I feel is important, because otherwise everything will go to hell like it did in DT2.

Character Development

One of the things that always surprises me when I go over Demon’s Throne is the harem size. It’s not really that big.

There’s only Fara, Maria, and Alsia currently in it. And Maria is more of a secondary character, as it’s difficult to give her a proper character arc.

Current applicants are Mina, Vallis, and Tyrisa. However, Tyrisa needs more development.

Once you open the list up to prospectives, it become fairly interesting, however: Sarae, Faeris, Maeve/Mave. Alaretta. the Darus Twins, and a bunch of mentioned infernals (Ariel, Asa, Krisanem, Harah). Chase targets in Imira and Morai as powerful female “opponents.”

This means I need to pace the current character development with introducing future harem members, who will come with their own arcs (or their arcs might be resolved before they join). Some characters have fairly long arcs, such as Mina and Fara, whose arcs will transform over each book.

And, yes, like half the harem are foxes. I haven’t even mentioned some of the prospectives attached to the Alliance, because I’m not worrying about any of them other than Marin (who I’ve kept in purely for her role in Mina’s arc). The series might as well be called “Demon’s Floof.”

Infernal Summons

Finally, the big question comes down to who Rys summons. With another seal unlocked, he’ll gain another jump in power and access to more summons.

I chose not to use Asa in Book 2, but I’ve sorted her out and she’ll finally show up. Every other infernal is a surprise.

One of the difficulties in managing this is that I’ve explicitly acknowledged multiple methods of summoning other than permanent summons.

See, Rys only uses powerful permanent bindings in the series. I don’t remember off the top of my head if he explains why, but he’ll be reiterating why in Book 3. The short version is that other methods of summoning require the summoner to pay a price, whereas permanent bindings allow him to control the infernal with only magic (unless they’re strong enough to say no).

Pacts were explained in Book 2, but the temporary summonings were only hinted at. Those are basically short-term pacts, which is why Grishaw referred to Maliah as his customer during his brief period of being summoned. They made a deal and Grishaw needed to kill Faeris to fulfil it. In retrospect (and after some correspondence with a reader), this was poorly explained.

These relate back to infernal contracts again, which will come up repeatedly over the course of the series. They can be a source of great power.

Rys’s pride and lust for power gives him a natural unwillingness to pay the price for short-term summonings. By contrary, other mages lack the power to match him in permanent summonings, and rely on the cheap and dangerous pacts and temporary summonings. Hopefully I do a better job working it in to the book.

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Commentary: I hope you gained something of interest from this little planning update. I can’t exactly spoil where the plot is going or the sort of twists I’m writing in. Right now, I’m happy with the outline save for the length and I mostly need to trim the fat and find room to squeeze in character development.

The first chapters will come up before the end of the month.

I should also have chapters of something else. Whether it’s Billions or something else I’ve been working on will depend on a few factors.