I recently discovered an interesting little creature called the nutria or river rat. They are an invasive species that was brought from South America by fur traders. Since coming to the southern United States, the nutria have caused widespread destruction to swamps and other ecosystems. The devastation they cause is so great that state governments pay hunters extra for their fur and meat. Butchers across America have described butchering nutria to be similar to butchering a rabbit.
In some of the medieval documentaries I watched, I discovered some of the earliest forms of both robotics and prosthetics. There was one case in which a man lost his nose in a trial by combat and replaced it with a prosthetic made of solid gold. I therefore had the idea of including a form of medieval robotics in my fantasy series. These robotics would be fueled by both magic and the souls of human beings.
With magic returning to the world, long forgotten secrets will resurface from the ash heap of history. Some secrets revolve around manipulating the elements, some to prolong life, and the greatest and darkest of these secrets can be found within the deepest and most obscure levels of the Imperial Palace itself. History has a way of coughing up old secrets from the sands of time. We see it all the time in both paleontology and archaeology.
For the past few days, I have been building a potential idea to include in my third fantasy book. With magic returning to the world with a vengeance, a new army would be required in the new age. This army will consist of not knights, but warrior sorcerers. I am thinking of drawing inspiration from both the Knights Templar and Shaolin Monks when creating this mystical army.
I am planning to include a very big plot line to my third fantasy book. After the Dark Death plague ravaged the Empire and the Sword of Power was lost, magic mostly disappeared and most of the bloodlines of Druid sorcerers lost their power. Only two Druid bloodlines kept their power, but they were shadows of their former selves. This absence of magic had been going on for over three hundred years until the Sword of Power was rediscovered in Numen the Slayer. This along with other factors will lead to a resurgence in magic and the Empire will never be the same again. I will be seeing a magic show in Las Vegas in two weeks so that should give me some ample inspiration.
It has been a busy few months, but I managed to write chapters eleven to fifteen in my new superhero book. Throughout this time, I developed origin stories, life threatening situations, and the debut of my new crime fighters. My schedule is full this summer so it is nothing short of a miracle that I was able to pull off this much writing. As the season progresses, I hope to write even more before the year is over. I will keep you updated on any further developments.
I have binge watched the first two seasons of the Netflix show known as The Dragon Prince. As a medieval history buff and fantasy enthusiast, I could not resist watching this show. It exceeded my expectations and is one of the most intriguing fantasy stories I have ever encountered. It featured a fantasy world that was inhabited by a very diverse collection of characters.
Among those characters was this mysterious elf known as Aaravos. I cross examined various aspects of the show’s lore and I believe I have a good idea of what kind of character Aaravos is. Aaravos was an archmage who mastered all six forms of magic as well as dark magic.
Strangely, whenever someone tries to read about him in books and scrolls, the pages that mention him fade away. I have seen this happen at least twice in the fantasy genre. It happens when someone is so intolerably evil that their very name and existence is banished from history. The first case was in the Inheritance Cycle where the Forsworn and their dragons had their names wiped from the history books of Alagaesia. The second case was in Game of Thrones when the 13th Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch allied himself with the White Walkers and did things that were so horrid that his name was purposely forgotten.
With Aaravos, I definitely get this powerful feeling that he is an incarnation of evil. He looks more like an unholy demon than an elf. It is clear that he was sealed in his mirror for a reason. Before the texts mentioning his name faded, I was able to translate them from Danish and Arabic languages. They mentioned that at some point in history, Aaravos gave a gift to mankind and may have fallen in love with a human woman. It is obvious that humanity did not discover the secrets of dark magic on their own, which means someone must have given them the secret. That someone must have been Aaravos.
If Aaravos had an affair with a human woman and they had children, it is possible that their descendants might be the main character Callum and Ezran. That would explain why the magic cube was passed down through their mother’s side of the family for generations. Also, it could explain why they could naturally wield magic without the assistance of dark magic or archaic stones. Aaravos could be the ancestor of both Callum and Ezran.
Once the dragons and elves of Xadia witnessed the unnatural magic humans were wielding, they banished all humans out of Xadia. As for Aaravos, I assume he was sealed in his mirror as punishment for showing humans how to wield dark magic and possibly falling in love with one of Xadia’s hated human enemies.
If this is the case, then Aaravos’s story greatly resembles the story of the titan Prometheus, who gave fire to humanity to give them even footing with the gods. For this, he was punished by Zeus by being chained to a rock and having an eagle rip out his liver day after day. The previous Dragon King was a storm dragon with power over lightning, which is a clear symbolism to Zeus. Also, according to legend, Prometheus was eventually freed by Hercules, the son of Zeus. The Dragon Prince is the son and heir of the Dragon King, which could make him the Hercules of the story and Aaravos’s ticket out of his mirror.
Overall, I get the feeling that Aaravos is an incarnation of chaotic evil. Chaotic evil is a type of evil that just wants to watch the world burn. This could be his motivation for helping Viren start a war between humanity and Xadia. I look forward to seeing how the story will unfold when the next season comes later this year.
Throughout the medieval era, kings always feuded with one another. Easily one of the most prominent rivalries was between Henry II of England and Louis VII of France. These two kings had PLENTY of reasons to hate one another’s guts. First, they embodied opposite ideas of what makes a king. Henry II was a warrior king while Louis VII was more like an educated monk than a king. Second, Henry was much wealthier than Louis and did not waste an opportunity to show it off. Third, Henry ruled more of France than Louis did. Fourth, Louis was originally married to Eleanor of Aquitaine, who divorced him and married Henry two months later. Fifth, not only did Eleanor marry Henry, but she also produced one male heir after another. When Eleanor was married to Louis, they repeatedly failed to produce a son, which was extremely painful for Louis’s sense of masculinity (a sentiment shared with Henry VIII four hundred years later). I am thinking of modeling the relationship of two of my fantasy characters after the rivalry between these two kings.
I just discovered an extreme medieval entree called the turducken or the roast without equal. The idea behind this monster of a roast is taking a bunch of birds and stuffing smaller birds into larger birds. The most extreme order involved taking a bustard and having it stuffed with a turkey, a goose, a pheasant, a chicken, a duck, a guinea fowl, a teal, a woodcock, a partridge, a plover, a lapwing, a quail, a thrush, a lark, an ortolan bunting, and a garden warbler. This dish puts your average Thanksgiving turkey to shame! The idea behind this dish originated in Rome and later perfected in medieval times. I am definitely adding this dish to my fantasy series because it is truly a main course fit for an emperor.
Ever since I was in middle school, I was aware that there were other ways a superhuman could wield fire. Normally, a superhuman could either manipulate fire like Pyro or generate fire like the Human Torch. However, there is one form of pyrokinesis that I find fascinating: psychic fire manipulation. The most famous wielder of psychic fire manipulation was Jean Grey from the X-Men. This form of fire manipulation does not use actual fire. Instead, it uses psychic energy that is so potent that it becomes visible in the form of flame-like energy. Unlike real fire, psychic fire does not actually burn its target. Like a really powerful telekinetic blast, psychic fire disintegrates its target atom by atom. In addition, because it is psychic in nature, the flames attack a living target’s mind to provide the sensation of being burned alive only it is more extreme since the mind is being torn asunder while the body is being ripped apart on an atomic level. While real fire only inflicts physical pain, psychic fire inflicts both physical and mental pain simultaneously. For my new superhero story, I am thinking of giving this power to one of my main characters.
Grady P Brown - Author 