July: Oisinson & Other Musings

Howdee!!

Big news, friends! Oisinson, book 1 of the Raven-Friend’s Saga is now out on both Kindle AND Paperback! Because I was smart this time and actually formatted both versions at the same time. It does take a bit longer to actually get the book out when done that way but honestly I think the extra time and the ability to see text on a physical page helps a lot. So let me get the plug out of the way – fresh from the Five Realms/novels page – and I’ll continue rambling afterwards:

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Oisinson

“Nobody expects the healer to die.
For most of the village, it would be a simple matter to wait for spring, making do until a new wolf-woman could travel south. For Aizen Shouni, a young dark-elf wracked with an illness that has only gotten worse with age, that wait could be a death sentence. Fearing for their friend’s life, Esper and Kaillte Oisinson begin their search for a cure, a search that leads them down paths most would fear to tread. With winter closing in and Aizen’s health deteriorating, one desperate last stand could save the dark-elf and give him a chance at a full life… or spell disaster for everyone involved.”

Oisinson is a coming-of-age story that toes the line between viking age historic fantasy and low-magic sword and sorcery, set in a world where gods choose champions and differences are celebrated, rather than scorned. A quick read that sets the stage for a much larger adventure in the Raven-Friend’s Saga and beyond.

Get it on Kindle, Kindle Unlimited, and in Paperback!

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It’s gonna be a wild ride!

In other news, I’ve firmly decided on Gate Strider being the next book that comes out – might as well release them chronologically, even if it is a spin-off – and am about 20k words into it with very little of the actual story coming to light yet. I have a feeling it might be a long one, perhaps my longest one. I tend not to write more than 70k in a book so we’ll see how that goes. I’m alright with Gate Strider being the one to break that mold if it needs to, since it’s supposed to be a one-off bridge kind of thing. After that it’ll be back to Esper’s story, long though it may be. Five hundred years builds up a lot of history!

By the way, weirdest thing of the month: my Art Appreciation professor looks almost exactly like Esper. This isn’t new, I noticed it the moment I walked into class back in June, but this last week I learned he also has an identical twin. So I’m now convinced that Kaillte is teaching me how to appreciate art.

Be warned: past here be politics.

Amazon kerfuffle. That’s not a complete sentence but ya’ll probably know exactly what I mean. If you don’t want to see more political stuff you can skip out now, which is why I put this bit at the end of the rambles rather than at the beginning. But yeah, I’m in a weird/crappy place as an author that relies on Amazon for distribution, because Jeff Bezos is Smaug and I don’t want to support him, but the platform that Amazon Kindle provides is the easiest one I’ve found to use. I’m in the same boat with YouTube right now, because YouTube is being an unholy mess about supporting the creators that use that platform. Especially small channels, which I happen to be. YouTube is pretty easy to justify for me, though. I’m not monetizing any of my Skyrim videos (or any of my videos, period) but I’m just using their platform because it’s convenient.

Amazon is a bit more finicky. A lot more finicky.  I had Oisinson ready to drop last week but purposefully put it off because I knew there was a strike going on.  It may still be going on for all I know. I don’t mind the Kindle side of publishing with Amazon, that still makes sense to me, because – as far as I know – that’s all digital and doesn’t add to the general workload for people working in Amazon’s warehouses. The paperbacks are another issue. If I had it my way, my books would just be Kindle. But ya’ll seem to like paperbacks, which is fine, I don’t sell nearly enough books to be an issue for the people working on packing and shipping them, but it’s still one more thing that someone has to deal with today. I’m very aware that there’s someone working between the end of that “buy now” button and the beginning of the “your item has shipped” email. But, I’m keeping the paperbacks up, not just because that’s what seems to be selling – which I find utterly weird and counter-intuitive – but also because I’m aware that certain visual impairments and health issues make it difficult to read on screens. So… yeh. Rock and hard place, and ultimately it’s not a problem that I alone can fix. There are bigger fish to deal with.

Fun fact: I make the same amount of money per paperback as I do per e-book. So if you want to support me and that’s why you’re grabbing the books, save yourself some money and go digital. You can read it on your phone, I get the same amount back on my end, and it’s slightly easier to write a review, should you be so inclined!

Alright, enough of this gay banter. (To steal a Colville-ism. BTW his books are really good and if you think mine are too lighthearted, his are the way to go!) Back to work with me. Two weeks till I move. *Silently screaming.*
– E.J.

June: Big News!

Howdy!

I’ve got some big dang news, both in terms of personal life and in terms of things I’m doing. We’ll do the book news first. Spoiler alert, btw: I’m not pregnant. So. Yeah. Not that kind of news.

The big news is that Oisinson, book one of the Raven-Friend’s Saga (aka Esper’s prequels), is in the final stages of production right now! I’m currently working on the art for it (I need to do a bunch of thumbnails so that the series is cohesive) but it’s all formatted for both paperback and Kindle at the moment. I’m going to set up the paperback, get a proof copy, and do some last-pass fixes and editing before I release both versions, hopefully at the same time. I’m hoping I can get that done before the end of July, but if not it’s going to be pushed to the end of August if not September. Why? Well…

I’m going to be moving out at the beginning of August. For the first time. There will be roommates. My legacy of doing things completely bass-ackwards continues. So I want to get Oisinson done and released or at least a proof copy in my wee hands before the move, so that don’t have to worry about it while I’m still trying to figure out which box I packed my routines into. Might be a weird time to release a book but to be honest, I don’t really care about optimal release time. I’m writing characters that started out as random NPC’s in a D&D game. Optimal is not my middle name, here.

Next book on the list to be written is actually two books: Gatestrider and Blackbird, the latter of which is a working title, and the former isn’t technically in the Raven-Friend’s Saga, though it does take place just after the end of Oisinson, and before Blackbird. I’m trying to figure out which order to write them in. It’s a pain. I’m leaning toward Gatestrider at the moment because Blackbird is fighting me right now. That way they’d release chronologically, even though it’d be a bit of a hiccup in the middle of trying to get a series out. I’ll workshop it.

With any luck, I’ll have more news this time next month. We’ll see! Have a good one, folks!
– Ej

March: Too Many Vikings

…is actually the file name I’ve been using for test writes of All’s Well in Asgard!

Howdy!

I’m actually more or less on time for this one! Probably would have posted last week but I had some personal drama and accidentally bought a book about plot and story structure in which I have immersed myself for about five days straight. And therein lies a tale. Both of those things, though I’m not going to get into the drama.

So! Speaking of vikings, I have just finished putting a basic plot together for All’s Well that actually makes sense and works as a story rather than throwing characters into a world and hoping it works. I am, unfortunately, not a pantser. I can’t write the way my dad does, I need structure! Even if it’s lopsided, haphazard, and a little bit held together by spit, duct tape, and Loki. Seriously. It’s a long story, a weird story, and kind of an awesome one, if I can pull it off as well as I hope I can. It’s a bit like sketching a drawing in that I don’t know if it’ll work until I start shading it, which for me in writing is actually the editing process. Could be a while before we see it, but I definitely want it to be my ninth book out. For reasons. Symbolic reasons.

Which means that Oisinson and the rest of Esper’s prequel series (and Gatestrider, honhonhon) is going to be put on the back burner again for a little bit. Even though Oisinson is technically done. I say technically because I haven’t proofread it or checked it for plot holes or continuity, yet. I kinda got distracted by other things. Speaking of vikings, the town Esper grew up in is very reminiscent of a town in viking-age Scandinavia, except it’s got a mage tower off to the side like a lighthouse. Thus, too many vikings.

Speaking of Esper, the whole Tales of Esper Ravenwood trilogy is available in paperback form now, as well as Kindle! And I have the sneaking suspicion that I’m going to end up publishing All’s Well before I even get Runesong‘s cover done, much less the actual manuscript formatted. To say nothing of The Redgate Chronicles. I might actually wait on those two. There is a third (and possibly fourth) book that I want to write for that, with a slightly different set of characters, but… ehh. I don’t think I’ve sold a single copy of either since they came out. Which, I mean, I kind of expected? You can’t win them all and breaking worlds is a risky proposition, so. For the moment, I’m going to focus on our world, and Tamriel.

Oh boy, speaking of gambles in storytelling, Unblooded took some intense turns. Chapter 02 is almost done which means I need to get my butt in gear and the reboot of Honorless, which I initially envisioned about a year ago, will be coming up in roughly the second week of April. I’m excited to bring Kinua back, given that she was the one who inspired this whole venture.

That’s it for this month’s update. See you in April, hopefully!

-Ej

December: Silently Screaming

Howdy!

It’s beginning to look a lot like Skyrim outside and I’ve still got a waiting list of art to take care of, but here I am! Dragging myself through into the new year with a smile on my face, hopefully.

Most of December has been trying to get yuletide commissions done before the Day – which I did, though I’ve still got several more with no deadlines – trying to keep up with Vagrant, and trying to get all my red tape sorted out for college next semester. I’m only taking one class because the last time I tried to get a degree of any sort things went pear-shaped pretty fast, and I’m not about to commit myself to this at the expense of the things that are currently earning money and providing a service to others – namely, art and entertainment – if it turns out things are just going to go bum-over-teacups again. I’ve also got CoSine Con coming up in January, right as the semester will be starting, thankfully, so there’s also that to keep track of.

The prequels are still slogging along, though my focus has been pretty heavily centered on art and sanity the past month or so. I’m in the swampy middle bit of the book where things need to happen in order to get the characters where they need to be psychologically for the rest of it to make any sense. Esper is turning into a very different young man than I thought he was! Which is good, since he’s got a lot of time and a lot of tragedy to go through in the next four books after Oisinson. (I really do have to rename that but whatever.) Speaking of which, next year is the 5th anniversary of Revenant, and to celebrate, I’m thinking of reworking the covers and actually re-learning Lyx so that I can have shiny new physical copies of at least the Tales of Esper Ravenwood before Mile-High Con in October. That’s my goal, anyway. I might do the same with the Redgate Chronicles, but we’ll see.

On a less-stressful note, Ingrath was a complete surprise! I honestly didn’t expect to be able to do his voice, let alone have a video of him up, ever, but it happened. With how important he is going to be in the story down the road, I probably should have expected it, but he’s now got two more – at least – in the works. Dunno when they’ll go up, I do rather have to take care of Vagrant first, but it is what it is. It’s actually quite nice having one character I can just pop in with whenever I need a break from someone else. I’ll have to go update the Table of Contents to include him now.

And with that, I have to go continue kicking butt and taking names because my commissions list is long and full of backgrounds. All the best to ya’ll!

– Ej

July: Method Writing & Tablet Weaving

Hi! How are you all today?

I hate July. I hate summer in general, actually. Between my own brain chemistry being hard-wired to over-react to just about everything (heat, noise, light, barometric changes) and the fact that my “office” is in perhaps the hottest room in the house, I’ve been in a bit of a rut since about the time when people started setting off fireworks. In June. That said, I’ve started working on the next book already. Yeah. I know. I just published New World. I don’t think this one is going to be out until sometime next year though, at the rate I write lately. Who knows? I might surprise myself.

In my last update I mentioned that my list had a three-way tie between another Redgate novel, a mythology collection, or the first of Esper’s prequels. I’ve decided on writing the prequels, since there’s five of them to get through and I can’t wait to meet everyone he meets. The series is tentatively titled Raven-friend’s Saga, or, in Old Norse, Hrafnavinasaga. Yup. The first book, currently going by the working title of “Oisinson,” follows Esper, his brother, and their best friend in their life way back in the old days when Boreas was still Boreas. One of the main characters is a weaver, since it’s something he can do that doesn’t require a lot of moving around.

Now, I like a bit of realism in my stories. Part of the reason very few horses show up in the books is because I’ve never ridden a horse in my life, even though I live down the street from a couple of gorgeous chestnuts. I actually have a saber, a bo-staff, and a bow, all of which I use for standing up and choreographing fight scenes when they’re being tricky (and I’m trained in one of those), which is why my characters tend to use pole-arms when they aren’t casting spells. I’ve studied HEMA and Kenpo. Everything I know about sailing I learned from my dad’s sci-fi books and playing AC: Black Flag. My sister pointed out once that this makes me a “method writer.” Which is like a method actor, but my screen is a blank page, and my actors aren’t myself.

I’ve never had a character who weaves before. I’ve never woven before, at least not in any historical way. So I decided to try my hand at tablet weaving, just to get a feel for it. It is so much harder than it looks. Especially if you don’t have a loom to work on. My back is so sore, but now I know. This kid – he’s older than me, but his elven heritage means he’s still a kid – must have the most amazing posture. It makes me think of my days in high school band, playing French Horn. When your instrument is the same size as your torso, you learn to have good posture real fast, otherwise you can’t reach the mouthpiece.

So that’s where I’ve been this month. I’m only three-thousand words into Oisinson right at the moment but it’s going to be a while until the end. I’m super excited to see what these kids do.

See you next month, probably!
– EJ

The Redgate Chronicles: New World

Chapter 0

Dragons

After making an irrevocable mistake, Marcus finds himself, Evaline, and Kisuke in a world where myth is reality and nobody is quite what they seem – or what the trio remembers. Dragons now rule over what were once Provinces, and the necromancers that defeated them before have been all but eradicated. Torn by forces both within and without, Marcus, Evaline, and Kisuke find old faces in surprising places, fight to repair the damage done, and survive as best they can in a war between powerful Dragon Lords. Their skills and wills will be tested equally, as these outsiders find their places on the stage once again. This is a new world, and the Champions of Redgate certainly aren’t in Laine anymore.

Author’s Note: This book also has a dedication that’s more important to me than most:

In loving memory of Jacob Thiess
1994-2016
Thank you for everything you were able to share, big brother.
Thank you for Tiberius, Evaline, Henrietta, Setok, and so many ideas.
Thank you for the smiles, the hugs, and all the raucous donkey-laughs.
Thank you for the endless hours of talking story and drinking chai in thunderstorms.
And yes, the Boop Ship made the cut.

NEW WORLD

Now available for Amazon Kindle.

June Update: Snags and Sagas

Hello! Didn’t think you’d be seeing me back so soon, huh?

So my owned domain hit some kind of tech snag and appears to be malfunctioning. I don’t know if it’s bluehost being wonky or WordPress being frustrating, but for the moment I’m back here for updates. Because I like this blog. I’m real glad I kept it.

Alright! So between the last update and this one I actually did finish writing the newest Redgate Chronicles book, and the expected release date is June 30th. I’ll probably postpone that a bit if I don’t get it edited in time but for the time being that’s what I’m planning. On June 22nd I’ll be doing a countdown deal for the first Redgate Chronicles novel! It’ll be 99 cents for a few days, and steadily creep back up toward its normal price of $3.99. The countdown deal lasts a week, and the day after is when the second book should come out! If you’re a fast reader you might be able to snag the first one and get caught up before the second one goes live. Of course, if you have Kindle Unlimited it doesn’t really matter because they’ll be free for you anyway.

Next on my writing list is a three-way tie between the third – possibly final, though there might be a fourth one – Redgate book, a collection of short stories/vignettes on the Mythology of Omnia, or the first of Esper’s prequels. I’ve played around with the first chapters of two of them, and so far neither are working out the way I want them to. So, for July, I may end up writing the mythologies. I don’t know how long the collection will be, but if it’s over 100k by the time I’m done I’ll probably split it into two books. For now, though, I need to get my editing and formatting hat on.

See you soon, probably. Belay that last post.
– Ej

NaNoWriMo 2016

Heyo!

It’s that time again. Time to settle down with a good book and a warm coffee. Of course, I’ll be writing said hopefully-good book. It’s November! Which means it’s National Novel Writing Month, and this year once again I’ll be diving into the Redgate Chronicles with the second book in the series, New World. Marcus, Evaline, and Kisuke were such an awesome group to work with last year, so I’m excited to continue their story.

A quick project update: The Tales of Esper Ravenwood audiobooks are in production (by me, as usual) and will be up on YouTube eventually. Probably not this month. I’ll make an announcement for it when it happens, and I plan to release two chapters a week when I start releasing them. The audio versions of my books have been edited, and I think the story is, frankly, better. Which means I’ll also be creating revised-edition versions of the Kindle books at some point. The Lazarus Anthology and Blood of Hyperion are on the back burner at the moment, and at some point I’d like to visit Esper’s younger years in a series of prequels, tentatively titled the Adventures of Esper Ravenwood. That’s a long-term idea, though, and I won’t know until I get there. Other far-distant projects include a sci-fi universe in the works, slowly developing with the inspiration of my friend and romantic-fantasy writer, Sarahbeth Lazic, and the story formerly known by various names, such as Charge and All’s Well in Asgard. For some reason it isn’t working as a story, which means I need to sit down and have a chat with it at some point. But not this month.

This month I’m breaking out the old Redgate playlist on YouTube and settling in to see what mischief this band of reprobates get up to. To my fellow WriMo’s, as usual, may the words be ever in your favor, and good luck!

Character Tip: The Well of Nope

You ever have characters that, no matter what you do, you can’t seem to find a decent conflict for them? Maybe they’re a major support that needs a subplot, maybe it’s a main character who wants nothing to do with the story being told, or maybe it’s a character that should have a bigger role in the story but nothing is working.

Enter, the Well of Nope. Also known as the giant list of things that your character never wants to do, be, or witness.

There’s a phrase that I keep in my head when I’m writing, especially when I’m planning a story: “Never name the well from which you will not drink.” Not only useful to remember for character development, but decent life advice as well. Never say never, as in, never say you’ll never do something. This can have unintended side effects. For instance, when I was in school I constantly told myself that I’d never be an author because I don’t tell good stories. Esper and the rest of the Five Realms happened. I also told myself I’d never be a good multiplayer gamer, because lots of information overwhelms me. Overwatch happened.

So, what would your characters “never?” This question actually goes deeper than one might think. As an example: a young man never wants to become like his father. Which begs two questions: What about the father does he hate, and what is the father actually like? Answering those not only gives insight into the boy’s psychology, but also provides a direction and potential for growth. Let’s say the boy dislikes his father because he ignores his son. That would, of course, be from the young man’s perspective and not the objective truth. The flip side to that is that the father is a hard worker and wants desperately for his son to have a better life than he did, so he throws himself into his work.

That would mean a potential path of growth for the young man might go something like this: The son has grown up and made a name for himself, but now he has a young apprentice. He keeps working, but when he realizes that he’s ignoring said apprentice, he faces one of his “never’s” from the Well of Nope. From there he can confront that issue while maintaining his hard work, eventually becoming very much like his father, but not just the negatives. The end point might be that once he’s made peace with the fact that he is his father’s son, he realizes he is better able to manage both his work and his apprentice. He ends up knowing when to work and when not to ignore, and resolves whatever conflict stemmed from the neglected apprentice.

Marcus, from The Redgate Chronicles, also has an example, and one that illustrates how the Well of Nope can also be used as a massive catalyst. Because of his appearance, he believes he’ll never find love. When that belief is proven false, it gives him both hope and an exploitable weakness. It leads to him both screwing up in the worst possible way, but also to him trying again. The massive screw up? Changes the world forever, and leads him toward encountering and subsequently dealing with even more of his never’s.

While single never’s can have far reaching consequences, there are usually multiple answers to this question. Esper has a long list of never’s that he confronts throughout his story. All of them are double-edged swords, bringing both complications and boons. See how many answers you can find to that question, and pull them apart to see how the result would affect the character, both negatively and positively. How many of those can you weave into the plot? How many would change its course entirely?

From which wells would your character never drink? 

Think about it.
– E.J. Lowell

The Five Realms – Arcturus

Synopsis

The Astral Realm, the Divine Realm, home to gods, Gaurdians, and floating cities of light and magic. Unlike Liserna and Oberun, Arcturus and Senabyss aren’t so much harmonic opposites as they are harmonic equals. Beings from either realm can exist in the other, but it takes a great deal of energy and willpower to get from one place to the other. Beings from Arcturus are generally called Immortals, because they tend not to age or die. The languages spoken here are Archaic, used as the common tongue by the Celestials, Eionic, which is the language of the long-dead Dragon race, and used mainly by the Alkali when speaking to each other, and Primordial, a primitive language spoken only by the tribal Groundlings.

Lands

From anywhere in Arcturus, you can see the stars, even in the daytime. They flicker through the clouds in bands of vivid pastel shimmers, and are even more beautiful at night when the auroras light up the entire sky, both above and below the High Cities. Most civilized places on Arcturus are situated on islands that levitate above the landscapes and seascapes below, suspended by the innate and powerful magic of the Realm. There are very few places on the Ground that are settled and civilized, because of the extraordinarily high concentrations of wild energy that flow through the ground and water, and permeates the air. This incredible power has adverse affects on those of a more fragile nature, thus leading to very little contact between the Ground and the Cities.

The sea is similarly avoided by most Isle dwellers, despite the plethora of edible creatures that can be plucked from it, but the Clestials have come up with their own technology and systems to harvest resources from around them. They are a very sustainable civilization in general, with greenhouse farms, atmospheric water harvesters, and alchemy machines that help keep everything in working order. They’ve imported plants and animals from other Realms, and over the years they’ve adapted to the strange environment. Most plants in the Cities are used for food, while most animals are kept as pets, transportation, or for shearing to make fibers used for clothing and decoration.

Countries

• The Ground

  The main landmass of Arcturus, which consists of vast stretches of mountains, valleys, deep chasms, forests, deserts, and grasslands, all shrouded much of the time in veils of mist and fog. Veins of magic in the rocks result in alloys and materials unique to Arcturus, as well as creatures that resemble nothing else on the Five Realms. Surrounding the Ground is a massive ocean, called the Astral Sea.

• The Middle Isles

  Low-floating islands populated mainly by the Alkali, in small towns and cities. They trade different forms of salt as their main form of currency, and don’t have any one ruler. They are mainly self-sustaining, with some groups of harvesters flying down to the Ground to gather components and other miscellany, via the use of special suits constructed to withstand the huge power of the land. Because they are generally below the clouds, the Middle Isles do get rain and snowfall, resulting in rivers that cascade in waterfalls off the sides of the islands.

• The High Cities

  The towering, sprawling cities of the Celestials sit upon the highest floating islands, in the midst of the clouds. They have become alchemically and magically advanced, constructing large converters that harvest water and other minerals from the atmosphere, and a network of Stangs that allows them to travel from city to city easily. The capital of the High Cities is Æspherium, the City of Hope, from which the Kings rule Arcturus. For most of recorded history, only one of the two seats has been occupied, by the god of Sun and Summer, Dinmora.

People

The native races of Arcturus aren’t as widely varied as the other Realms, in terms of number, and tend to keep to themselves. They are the least likely of any Realm to adventure into the others, so seeing an Immortal anywhere outside of Arcturus is practically unheard of. Immortals include Celestials, Primordials, Archons, Ephemerals, and Alkali.

• Celestials stand an average of just over 6 feet tall, and are built slim and willowy. Their skin shines as though it was made of starlight, with some even having brighter pinpricks in constellations, just as Humans would have patterns of freckles. Their hair tends to be fine and silky, and, like their skin, varies in rich, metallic tones, from silver-pale to obsidian. Their eyes tend to be vivid and multi-toned, with heterochromia being the norm. Celestials are by far the most common race in Arcturus, as well as the oldest.
• Primordials stand from 5 to 6 and a half feet tall, and are generally built like highly muscular Humans, with two glaring exceptions: their skulls and faces resemble that of a Dragon more than any other race, and they have an extra pair of arms. Primordials make their homes not on the floating islands of Arcturus, but on the ground, where they’ve built up tribal societies around the patterns of magic in the rocks, rivers, and trees. They are very much in tune with this energy, and it has shaped them in return, possibly being responsible for the strange appearance of these creatures.
• Archons stand about 7 to 9 feet tall, with long features and slender bodies. They have subtle, smooth scales on their skin in brightly colored and intricate patterns, that change as they age and go through important events in their lives. These patterns can also be color-changed to communicate to other Archons, though they also speak the common tongue. Some Archons live and work alongside the Celestials in their floating cities, but others have formed loose-knit communities around the outskirts, and sometimes on nearby islands, accessible through various means.
• Ephemerals are serpentine beings that possess a humanoid torso and face, but their lower bodies have long, snakelike tails instead of legs, and whose arms, tails, and backs are patterned with a wide, colorful variety of feathers. From head to tail, Ephemerals are generally around 10 feet long, and use their feathers for a variety of purposes, including limited gliding. They form wandering bands alongside the Primordials, trekking along the ground in search of resources and trade.
• Alkali are a small race, standing only 3 and a half to 5 feet tall, and are the only race in Arcturus who speak primarily Eionic. They live on the scattered islands that float between ground level and cloud level, rather than above, like the ones the Celestials live on. Their skin and hair come in a wide variety of shades, usually metallic or vibrant tones. They have the largest variety of efficient airships in the Five Realms, and often times the most contact they have with the other races is trade, though the Groundlings prefer to walk, usually, and the Celestials prefer teleportation via the various Stangs in each city.

 

From the in-progress Five Realms Oracle deck.

Celestial Guardians are extraordinary individuals, usually from other Realms, chosen by the rulers of Arcturus to defend the Realm and its people, as well as perform tasks in their Realm of origin that serve to keep the peace between all Five. They are given wings, like those of a large bird, to symbolize their position and rank, which can be summoned and dismissed at will. Celestial Guardians can only be chosen in times of impending chaos, and only if two or more rulers (or deities) agree on the decision. With Dinmora being the only ruler for hundreds of years, after Luscerann stepped down, he’s had to get creative in finding other deities that agree with him. However, because of the infrequency and importance of these Guardians, there have been rare occurrences in which one is called back from even Death to serve.

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Thanks for reading through this exploration of Arcturus! It is by far one of the more mysterious Realms, if not the most so. In the next installment I’ll be diving into the Dark Realms, and as always, let me know if you’d like me to write about anything in particular!