WRITING
From long, ponderous prose set in far away fantasy lands to compelling literary reportage to sardonic media reviews to technical writing to straight journalism, I continue to write for purpose and pleasure. Here are a few examples.
Myrinda. Playground of deities.
The fabled continent where the makeup of corporeal reality is still malleable. To the mundane world, sacred accounts of the strange land are no more than a collection of allegories on which the world’s cultures were founded. But make no mistake, the place is real, as is all of its wonder.
As the oldest stories tell it, the Age of Wonder saw brave explorers from all races converge on Myrinda’s shores. They came to cheat death, or to create life. They came to heal the sick, or to curse the fortunate. They came to learn the secrets of divination, or to take militant command of their fate. They came to find balance, or to invoke entropy. They all came with personal motivations, and they all recklessly tapped in to the supernatural agencies with no regard to consequence.
As word spread of the land’s magical properties, the scattered pilgrimages became mass immigration. The sparse, supernatural wells were torn open. Whether the response came from the deities or from the elements or from nature itself, the consequence was violent and beyond explanation. The global cataclysm known as the Samudaripen consumed the world. Entire civilizations were lost. The Age of Wonder ended. As the generations passed and the embers of memory went cold, stories of Myrinda and its magic devolved into myth.
Which is the exact intent of its protectors. After the Samudaripen, Myrinda was vacant save for those who were capable of the strongest communion with the emphyric plane. A rigorous, dogmatic order was established. Individual caretakers took on the responsibility for each magic type, and would as both vanguard and regulator. These were the first of the Mystics, and through thoughtful discipline and careful control, they have existed as custodians of the emphyreum, keeping Myrinda safely hidden from the world for generations.
But not everyone in Myrinda values the strict, regimented control over the world’s magic. As of late, there has been unrest. Racial rivalries have divided the population. The wildlife has become aggressive. Politicians have marginalized the salience of magic entirely. And a rogue cult has been exploiting these divisions, infiltrating all communities, and spreading a manifesto which seems aimed at undermining faith in the order of Mystics.
From the Celestial Observatory at the Sage Lakes, Mystic Paen reads the warning spelled across the night sky. The pattern in the stars warns of something ominous. Something that the Mystics will be powerless to prevent. And in the stars, he reads that Julian, the young vagabond who hears the song of the world, will have a vital part to play.
Using Scrivener as a plotting tool affords an easy way to translate between mediums. From poetic, verbose prose in the novelization, to a media rich audio drama, to a visually forward comic adaptation with limited verbiage, to structuring in game dialog, the organizational features allow for easy pivoting while sharing content and maintaining consistency.
Using Nuclino for world building allows for a communal, agile, well organized development environment in which to create. Taking more of a wiki approach allows for cross-link references and the addition of rich media. This modern approach to a narrative bible helps an entire team tie lore to game mechanics to music to art.
Below is a sample of collaborative world building for one of the biomes in Mystic Searches for which Nuclino was used as an agile, cooperative, multimedia repository.
The Sage Lakes
The Sage Lakes are the sprawling plains central to the continent of Myrinda. At a nexus point in the plaza south of the iconic Celestial Observatory, fingers from the furthest shores coil and entwine. All roads to and from everywhere of consequence lead through these arteries of aura and culture, mixing and mingling here in this centerpoint. The migrancy of wayfarers can, at times, artificially inflate the population, but being the heart through which all things pass helps boost the economy and enrich the experience of the deceptively small, otherwise insular community of denizens.
The sweet smell of autumn harvest is permanently baked into the agrarian sprawl, where tent collectives hug the fertile hills and glistening tributaries. The earthy eaves of scattered, humble dwellings punctuate the vista, many sporting plinths lit in tribute to the mystic Kesali.
Districts and Subregions
The Mercantile
While much of The Sage Lakes consists of a patchwork of paddocks and pastures and modest farmsteads, the volume of travelers to and through province facilitates a grand plaza just south of the entrance to the celestial observatory. The cobbled streets are inspired by those found in the capital, although here the stone pathways are more functional than ostentatious. The makeshift mercantile has few permanent fixtures and even fewer permanent residents. It serves mostly as a fluctuating station of trade between vagrants.
Whithaven Glen
As the foliage thickens in to the south of the Sage Lakes is the mouth of the Borrowood. At the threshold of the enchanted forest, overwhelming residuals of old magic is evident. The scattered skeletons of architectural remains suggest a valiant yet futile battle between a once proud civilization and the nature that long ago subdued it. During the day, the sun softly spills through the canopy of mosses that hang heavily from each tree limb. The skin of the occasional albino birch, for which the Whithaven Glen gets its name, peels in ribbons that dance in the haunted whispers of wind. At night, strings of phosphorescent fungus that have snaked through the cracks in the old stone illuminate the blood red, night blooming rustlers. It is a place of spiritual secrets with an unsettling serenity.
Unique Geographic Features and Structures
Celestial Observatory
From above, the site of the observatory may appear as a meticulously fabricated lake or basin, its implausibly perfect circumference edged with weathered ore. It’s intentional beauty is such that a naive traveler may mistake its function as purely aesthetic. But this monument is an imperative to the Order of the Mystics, as its structure is built with the specific purpose of magnifying the aura of Order.
From below, the observatory is a shrine to the heavens. A supernatural seal creates a ceiling barrier and serves as a non corporeal filter through which the lights in the sky can be processed and studied.
Y'ccan's Tavern
Like many of the structures in the Sage Lakes, the tavern and its adjacent hostel are carved into raised earth. Within, the cool, earthy scent of being underground fights valiantly against the sweet yet stale odors of sitting ales and hard ciders, and hanging smoke and incense, and savory leftover scraps of seasoned hoad and sweet confections.
The menu and the atmosphere hasn’t changed much in two hundred years despite the frequent updates to the engraving hung
above the entryway. This is indicative of the transient nature of the mercantile at the center of the Sage Lakes. What the passing patrons know as Y’ccan’s, had first been Shi’s. Then Shim’s. Then it had adopted the moniker Twi Fargone, named for the son of a Iohai politician who won ownership in a trivial, and highly contested, gamble. When Twi was stabbed in the back after a drunk argument, ownership passed to his orphaned children. Forced to mature quickly, they wisely uncoupled the establishment from any associations to their family name. For a while, it was just casually referred to as the hovel or the hostel, which may have been the most apt handle in its entire existence. Before too long, the casual descriptor became the formal name, The Hovel and The Hostel. When the children of Twi Fargone were convinced into retiring young, it was rebranded the Sage Cabaret. Then Cabaret was dropped and it was just The Sage. After that, there was a cyclical return to a series of vanity names; Iye’s, Fornissa’s, Bevol’s. Each change, an effort to improve. All were incidental.
Through all of this, the character endured, and endures even now. The gray stone and dark wood and deep red trim and gaudy gold accents - the aesthetics may as well be load bearing on the structure itself. The food is still adorned with too much salt and spice, the specialty drinks still diluted with too much water and swill. It is a common local tavern and wayfarer’s inn with a questionable reputation. No custodianship has had the power to change much of anything. Y’ccan’s Taven is just the latest name for a mechanical human necessity in a capricious place like the Sage Lakes.
Demographics
The Myrs
Humility, family, and sweat on the brow are staple values of the Myr. They are rarely formal, and are generally disinterested in the luxuries, eccentricities, and passing fashions of the world beyond their fold. Combined with an orthodox perspective on metaphysical that has been consistent across many generations, they are often categorized as regressive. Their aversion to moral, supernatural, cultural, and technological complexities may very well be tied to their ancestral exposure and subconscious communion with their emphyreum’s aura of Order, as simple things are less subject to entropic complications.
More of a colloquial designation for those that live in the greater Sage Lakes region, myr as used properly refers to the rural residents with a deep lineage in the foothills that surround the mercantile. With their economy dependent on travelers, they maintain a facade of polite enthusiasm for tourism and wayfarers, but it’s often hollow and superficial. Their traditions and superstitions are most often observed intimately by the insular community, behind closed doors and strategically without record.
The Dexani
While the Myrs give proper respect to the sanctity of the emphyreal plane, the ‘xani maintain a much more liberal interpretation of their place in a magical world. Parallel to a general reverence for their station, they are known as tricksters who have no ethical dilemma over exploiting their abilities for sheer entertainment and personal profit. Ironically, the long standing order of Myrinda has left those in service of the Mystics with a twinge of existentialism.
The other long term residents of the Sage Lakes are the Dexani, who are less a people and more a cross section of stray individuals marked by the Council of Appointment as having particularly resonant aura. Heralded as the future custodians of the wonders of Myrinda, their aptitude is cultivated and their temperament evaluated. Many of the ‘xani recruits end up in service of the sitting mystics.
The racially diverse ensemble of young conjurers and spiritualists and mediums and pyromancer all live in underground housing adjacent to the Celestial Observatory. Unlike the Myrs, most of the ‘xani have no ancestral or historical ties to the Sage Lakes. Lacking that, their respective appointments fan an ambition to one day leave for something grander. Many fall into the trappings of the arrogance of youth. The benefit of youth is potential, while the detriment is a void in the place of experience.
Linguistics
The myrs have an unwritten language that is relegated to use only when in the exclusive company of other myrs. Since there is no written record of its development, there can be only speculation, but common nouns seem to have developed around a binary class system that invokes an association to a rudimentary interpretation of the emphyreal spectrum. Long vowels and soft consonants are associated with order, progeneration, and exigence, while short vowels and hard consonants are associated with entropy, decay and causality.
In terms of their treatment of the common tongue of the civilized world, one notable mainstay of their preserved traditions is that their conjugation often does not recognize continuous or perfect tenses. They live, they lived, and they will live. There is no state of living or having lived (am living, was living, will be living / have lived, had lived, will have lived).
The dexani, especially those in their pubescent years, have a lazy fusion of slang dialects from all over the world.
Important Characters
Glume
Glume is a bit of an enigma. One of Julian’s closest friends, he the child of a Paan and Zmeu, the sitting Mystic of Exigence. This isn’t so strange on the part of Zmeu. As one might expect from the Mystic of Exigence, he procreates with every opportunity and without prejudice to expand his progeny. However, the residents of Paanitan, guided by Mystic Sirene, are curators of the magic that is responsible for predetermination. And so Glume’s split lineage demonstrates a perpetual tug of war between subservience to destiny and personal intervention into one’s course in life. The constant tension between the two has made him a very capable student with and obscene level of unbridled talent, though his certainty in his own noble destiny leaves him with an aloof disposition. Ironically, it’s the boastful delusion of his own fated greatness steeped in predetermination that most fosters a competitive side, ironically yielding an embrace of the fire of exigence.
Fezyx
She was a mutant child of the swamps of Swynhall and was identified early as having a special penchant for the aura of decay. She has been among the ‘xani for so long that she scarcely remembers her formative home. Through the recursion of daily practice, she has come to recognize the glory of her privileged appointment in the Sage Lakes is actually a cautious and unfortunate detention. She is no longer actively training to serve any Mystic. Mystic Paen had long ago given up on shaping her stubborn conduct into a future acolyte. But now her focused communion with her element makes her too volatile to just throw back into the proverbial sea. So she is, in all practicality, imprisoned under the guise of cultivating her talents. In her captivity, she has carved herself a comfortable misanthropic identity, and with every breath she practiced her rage against perpetual, existential boredom.
Wilco Scrimm
Wilco’s 128 years of life can be defined by a single unfortunate incident in his youth. Paen and Wilco ascended together to notoriety as ‘xani recruits. At the time, the two were infamous in Iohai for balancing precariously on the line of legal impropriety, boasting their mystical talents in late night hustles.
One dark night, a gentlemanly contest between Wilco and a Maidj guard escalated to hostile, and fiery tensions led to the capital resident’s accidental, gruesome, and public death. This led to a dramatic ideological skirmish between the spiritually driven Council of Appointment and Iohai’s politically motivated Office of the Magistrate. Ultimately, the recourse was a form of exile.
Paen, though, refused to leave his friend’s side. To raise the spirits of a friend who was borderline suicidal, he euphemistically transformed a penal sentence into an opportunity, and volunteered to explore the darkest corners and deepest mysteries of the continent of Myrinda. Their excursion lasted for four years, and gave them both a renewed perspective on life and purpose. Wilco would come to reflect on this unfortunate consequence of his misdeeds as the greatest chapter in his life.
Upon return, the strength of character demonstrated by Paen’s unexpected selflessness, combined with his newfound, holistic appreciation of all aspects of the greater emphyreum and all of the diverse cultures it affected, opened the door to a seat on the Council of Appointment, which he rejected unless Wilco was granted a partial pardon and welcomed to return to service. This condition was met with caveats of his own. Wilco’s aspirations of high service to a mystic would be forfeit, and his primary function would be as a cautionary tale to the dexani.
He served this purpose for a century as the world changed around him. Paen ascended to the Mystic of Order, which introduced a seed of resentment after his own life of unending atonement. His zeal turned to disenchantment as, to his eyes, the dexani recruits became increasingly complacent about their appointment with each passing generation. The growing potential for worldly connection that should’ve tightened the bonds of the world contrarily regimented and polarized each pocket of civilization into parochial factions. The Mystics themselves had transformed from unified purveyors of wonder into squabbling, dogmatic demagogues. Every new valley in his forehead became a reminder of the senselessness of his assignment. Finally, in the shadow of the awareness of his mortality, he had a hopeful epiphany. He needed to revisit that cathartic adventure of his youth. He needed to abandon the life that he knew and all of its responsibilities to reconnect with the farthest corners and deepest secrets of Myrinda. Never mind the frailty of his physique, he would retrace the inspiring steps of his youth with a four year sabbatical, cleansing his aura and recommitting to his purpose. This absurd idea came with such cloying insistence that he embraced the manic desperation, packed a satchel with essentials, and approached Paen about joining him again on a grand adventure.
Paen, who had grown preoccupied and sharp, was unmoved by this ambition. He was wholly dismissive of his old friend’s indulgent fantasy. The role of Mystic demanded his full attention. Jaded, the 124 year old dexani left The Sage Lakes alone in a desperate pursuit of purpose.
He returns on the penultimate eve of preparation for the Bijav Kintala.
The Incendiaries
Incendiary is an epithet given to the growing cult of transients campaigning against the order of the mystics. The hooded figures have become more and more prominent, distributing propaganda and sewing discontent with the status quo. In a world that is brimming with racial tension and ideological divide, this manner of manipulation very effective. For the incendiaries, the ends justify the means. They are willing to put the world through some serious upheaval to democratize the magic of Myrinda rather than see it filtered and regulated by the dogmatic order of the mystics.
To combat their influence, the Mayor of Iohai, Haviender Vendt, has worked with Mystic Paen to push for harsher penalties for anyone brandishing the mandala sigul as part of any distributed propaganda. The ancient symbol illustrates the balance preserved by compartmentalizing the emphyric plane, and under Vendt, the Incendiaries’ sarcastic, sardonic use of it as their emblem is seen as profane and has been deemed unlawful. The penalty has grown proportional to the rogue group’s influence. The latest punitive escalation is immediate exile to Nark, a heavily guarded, walled in wasteland of snowlike ash at the foot of a dormant volcano. This harsh punishment has only emboldened the incendiaries, and fostered sympathy for, or at least curiosity in, their cause.
Local Bestiary
Speckle
These clumsy amphibians often camouflage themselves, their spotted skin appearing to the naked eye as common mushrooms. Though their aggression when in captivity makes them too much a nuisance to pen and manage, their nominal threat and ubiquity across the plains make them readily available as a staple, primary ingredient in many Myr meals.
Lyr
The lyr have three stages of development. As larva, their blind, malleable bodies are barely ambulatory. They can burrow with their strong maw, but any lateral movement is achieved through pained constricting and expanding. At this stage, they mostly live underground, leeching off of the aura and nutrients found naturally in fertile earth. It is during this period that they develop their most distinguishable trait; a eye capable of perceiving the both natural light as well as the emphyric plane. In their nymph stage with their eye fully formed, they abandon the safety of their subterranean life. The constant strain of moving helps them develop wings. The sudden metabolic shift leads to a drastic change to caloric needs, and their diet transitions to omnivorous. In their adult stage, they grow sizable enough that their wings are unable to support sustained flight. This is usually their mating period, during which they are wholly carnivorous, and often in the case of overpopulation, even canibalistic.
Torg
The torg are shelled reptiles most often found in ares with dense, high grasses or plentiful tree cover. While not aquatic, they hydrate with morning dew and evening mist common to this sort of environment. Males are identifiable by their bony yet smooth carapace. This feature is remarkably solid, and is a known organic substitute in armor for the maidj guard. The female torg shell is much softer, facilitating the growth and morphing that goes into laying dozens of eggs in each clutch. However, females of the species are not without their own defense mechanism, as their shells are embellished with sharp rows of tooth like spikes.