At the end of October 2022 I’m releasing a series that I’ve had on the backburner for about four years now, one that I’ve been slowly worldbuilding. It is called The World According to Dragons, and it takes place in the Four Kingdoms of the Sagaland, hence the ‘Sagaland Chronicles’ subtitle. I have other series planned in this world and they will use the same subtitle as a moniker.
The pre-order is up on Amazon and available here. If you’re reading this after the end of October 22, congrats, it’s out already! Print and ebook will be released the same day, the audiobook, produced by Tantor and narrated by Wayne Mitchell will be out in winter 2023.
I haven’t quite revealed the cover yet, mostly because I’ve had three covers made and I’m going to decide on the best one for the first book. Or I’ll take a vote in my Facebook group, which you should join.
What is the new series about?
The World According to Dragons is about a relic hunter with a mysterious past who unlocks the cultivatable power of a dragon. It is a cultivation, progression fantasy series. In terms of other works of mine you may have read, it has Pilgrim vibes in the way it uses yokai and vignettes as part of a larger story (yet does so in a better way, I believe). The magic system, which I’ll have a post about later, blends some of the things I used with echos in Pilgrim and chi in War Priest with concepts I liked from Hunter X Hunter, like the ability to turn off stored power. It is the most advanced magic system I’ve conceptualized yet, but it is also quite versatile.
What I wanted to do was create a system in which I could tell a story using it one way, and then tell a different story using the same system in a different way. So flexibility, yet the underpinnings of a hard magic system through the basic rules that the system follows.
The Dragonessence system is one that can have ranks and tiers, yet also a system that could totally be improvised. In that way, it is very much like music, a classically trained musician versus someone who can ‘play it by ear.’
In The World According to Dragons, the main character, Twillo, is beyond the point where he would be learning a system. Not only that, he’s a very fluid individual, yet the dragonessence system still works for him and his style of combat and cultivation. For future works planned in the Sagaland Chronicles (I have four at the moment), the dragonessence system will be used in different ways, from more structured to a hybrid of the two.
For now, since this is the first post about The World According to Dragons, I’ll share some settings that I used Midjourney to create mostly because it allows me to get a visual of what I’m writing about.
Introducing the Kingdom of Icenor
The main character, named Twillo (another post on that later), is from Icenor, the northernmost kingdom.
Refer to the map above. Also, the book will also have a map of just Icenor.
Icenor is home to Icenordian elves, who have drowish traits. It is ruled by Ravenna Vraizard the Blade. His daughter, Princess Embla, the Crown Ravenna, is first in line to the throne. I will have a post on terms used later, but ‘Ravenna’ in this context means ‘Petty King.’ Each kingdom has a Ravenna that rules it, and they report to the Moon Dragon Emperor, who resides in E’Kanth, City of Dragons.
The Icenordians are a powerful race in the Sagaland Chronicles, and they ruled the entire continent until about a hundred years ago when a Middlinger (From Middling, map above) named Victrin Otonashi took power. A lot can be said about Icenordians, but mostly, they are a people that are used to a frigid, sometimes desert-like climate, who aren’t very humorous and are responsible for the outlawing of dragonessence.
Did I mention dragonessence is forbidden to use? It is, but there are objects imbued with its power that are frequently sought after and traded, hence Twillo, a ‘relic hunter.’
Icenor’s capital is Vendir. North of Vendir is Sparrow’s Rise, where Twillo is from. His father was the Saracent of Icenor, meaning he was a ruling nobleman. Toward the Middling border is Padrian Sands, a setting used in the first book quite often. This is a college town by the coast that is known for its two universities and its monk’s college.
Outside the city is an enormous statue of Livia, the Goddess of Luck, a concept of which I designed below:
Returning to Vendir, the capital. One item not noted on the map above yet will be noted on the individual map of Icenor is the City of the Dead. The City of the Dead is where powerful Icenordian families are buried. It is on the fjord west of Sparrow’s Rise and Vendir. The City of the Dead is noted for its cholums, which are stacked graves. I tried to generate a picture of this but it wasn’t easy.
The Necropolis is also noted for its vigans, which are sculpted pillars of bodies that are stacked upon one another. I was inspired by a trip to Norway over the summer of 2022, most notably the Vigan Park in Oslo, which is where I got the statues.
Finally, a note on the religious practices of Icenor, Icenordian elves, and how it relates to the research trip I undertook. Icenordians worship Livia, Goddess of Luck, and Vitharr, her father, God of Fate. Without spoilers, Livia plays a KEY role in this story. Icenordians honor these two gods with stave churches, which are based on the actual stave churches of Norway (of which only 22 exist in the country).
Above are some pictures of I took of a stave church, including one inside. I go into detail in the book about their construction from notes lifted from a book on stave churches I picked up in Norway. You’ll see why I wanted to include it in this series.
These stave churches act as energy points for dragonessence. They often have vortexes, and the reason they are built around staves (pillars) is because dragons used to be able to go inside them.
The World According to Dragons is coming in October, with the second book planned for winter 2022 and further series developing in this world. I will post more in the coming days about the conception of this story, what it’s about, and the magic system. A deeper primer on Icenor will likely happen in the future, once I have the kingdom map.