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kdrobertson
kdrobertson

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Messengers: July Content + Question

Quite a few things happening this month. HS3 is out mid-month, HS2 audiobook is out, I'll start on Demon's Throne 2, and there'll be a slew of updates for you.

The Patreon's still in the experimental phase for now, while I work out what sort of content to post and how much time to spend here (that part is really hard to work out given it's early days).

Exclusive content this month will likely come mid-month or later, due to the need to focus on HS3. Current plans are:

That's a fair bit, but a lot of these don't take too long and I figure building up Patreon content is better. Like I said, we're in an experimental phase for now. I'll tweak the content later, once/if things stabilize.

There'll be votes on the stories later in the month, before I start working on them. Again, let me know if you have any characters or events you want focused on (Ciana was brought up last time). Otherwise, I'll just put some together in the vote.

Finally, I have something to ask you.

While I do a lot of worldbuilding and the like in my books, it's fairly obvious that I also skip over a lot of the details. This is generally because I'm wary of how heavy some of the infodumps get - Demon's Throne was jam-packed full of this, and it brought out a lot of these complaints (can't make everybody happy). As a writer, there's always a balance I need to strike between explaining the underlying concepts of the world and letting the reader just flow through the story.

Fortunately, I don't need to care here. I can do write detailed explanations of how everything works, without worrying about dialogue pacing, infodumping etc. I've done this before (there are some gigantic lore documents for my older stuff lying around).

Tell me in the comments what you want to know more about from the books. The magic system is an obvious one, as is learning more about how binding stones work and how Bastions and Messengers interact with them, or the races of either book. If you're not interested in lore, that also helps.

Comments

I thought info/lore dumbs were a great amount. I read alot of historical fiction and historical non-fiction books, with some fantasy novels thrown in every now and then. (Massive bernard cornwell fan) And love how every nations feels and runs different to each other. And the anfang empire made think of vespasian era. Keep up the great work. šŸ‘šŸ»

Corey Morris

Thanks. I'm glad you like the way I slowly expand the lore. It's understandable that some of the less important worldbuilding doesn't interest you. I slip it in from time to time because I feel it fleshes out the world and I enjoy writing it. Given the responses here, if I find the time, I'll probably do a detailed magic system explanation on Patreon to see what people think of detailed lore dumps. Hopefully, you enjoy that.

K.D. Robertson

There are a lot of historical/IRL influences in my writing, so a writerly post is something I might do in the future about that. The nations are fairly obvious: the Anfang Empire is the Holy Roman Empire; Falmir is vaguely English (as in, the days when the king spent most of his time in France); Trafaumh is France; the Federation is a mishmash, but Tartus was Ancient Greece; the Spires are influenced by Eastern Europe (Steph's accents in the audiobook for the dark elves are great). But a number of the plot points, or even stuff like the Kinadain in Demon's Throne, draw from history. I feel it makes the world feel more real. Character background makes a good fit for short stories, so I'll keep those in mind for ideas.

K.D. Robertson

You'll find out more about Omria over the course of the series. :)

K.D. Robertson

The mystery of Omria is tied into the whole series, so I can't really talk about her. I can talk about the rest of the weird stuff (Messengers, Kadria's boss etc), but not her.

K.D. Robertson

The amount of info or lore "dumps" in HS and DT was in a good balance for me. I wouldn't change it. But i also like to know more about Omria :)

Hugo Kater

I'm less interested in general lore dumps; but really enjoy the expanding lore as it's relevant to the story. Small bits as the story expands, and not even strictly the big, important details. I love little snippets that show how the lives of the non-major characters/major powers go. As far as bigger dumps, if they're on something fundamental (magic system) then I appreciate them, but if they're less fundamental (in depth difference between two beastkin types, or broad history of a nation/people) then it's more hit/miss for me. I've got my own gut reflex as to Omria, and am interested to see how future hints play into that.

Jesse

I’d love to hear more about Omria and just where she came from. I’m sure there are tons of spoilers there, though.

Tanner Lovelace

Its been pretty strongly hinted that there is German influence in the Empire for HS, maybe something on cultural inspiration for different nations? Character background stuff that gets cut out because it doesn't really fit. Personally I love digging into lore.

Paul Matson


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