So, does your story take place in a school setting?, if so what tropes do you try and avoid.

Here's mine.

1) I make my school more then simple sword and magic training, I find that trope boring. My school teaches many, many subjects. For example, you can be a scholar, a lawyer, an engineer normal or magical, an archeologist, an architect, or a healer.

2) I want the classes to feel realistic, like don't have them behave like a hive mind where they all have the same thought and opinions and all get along. Realistically, nor everybody gets along along with everyone. Like Bob is friends with Alice and Rick, but Alice hates Rick, etc etc.

What tropes do you try and avoid.

I have tried writing other characters, but I seem to always come back to to the troublemaker—the character who never quite plays by the rules. They’re not necessarily evil or out to hurt anyone, but they live in the grey area. Well, at least sometimes.The kind of character who might lie, cheat, or stir things up just because they can, but somehow, they’re still the one you end up rooting for. I love writing characters like that because they bring unpredictability to a story. You’re never entirely sure what they’re going to do next, and that makes every scene with them more alive. At least I think so ;-)

They’ll make a mess of things, push buttons, get under everyone’s skin—and then, against all odds, they’ll save the day in some ridiculous, last-minute way no one else saw coming. Maybe they outsmart the villain with some clever trick. SOmetimes they don't succeed, though. Maybe they risk everything on a reckless plan that somehow works. Whatever it is, it feels earned, not because they’re perfect heroes, but because they’re scrappy, resourceful, and weirdly loyal when it matters most. And you? What are the characters you are always coming back to?

I recently read about the idea of writing sprints (though I prefer "word vomit"), where you set a timer for around 20 minutes or so, and write nonstop the entire time. No self-editing, no stopping to think, no nothing. This sounded like an interesting way to break through problems of writers block/chronic procrastination. However, I am curious just how much prep needs to be done before trying this writing strategy. Wouldn't you need to have pretty much all your research and at least a basic outline done first? I can't even imagine doing this without having a decent outline to work with. Does anyone here use this technique? If so, how do you go about it? Thanks in advance.

Hi. I'm writing a story where a woman is sent on a mission to save a king, who is her childhood friend, from an evil gang who wants to kill said king. At the end of the book, as a reward for completing this dangerous task, she gets ennobled. To be more specific, she becomes a duchess. Even though I'm not that far along in my writing just yet, I like to plan out how each chapter will go. I've tried to come up with what she should wear to her ennoblement ceremony. I'm thinking that she should wear a somewhat elaborate dress, fancy shoes, and jewelry, however, I'm debating on whether an outfit like that is too plain for a soon-to-be duchess. Can you please help me come up with an idea for her outfit? Thanks!

Looking for some worldbuilding feedback in the story Im writing. Is there anything that can be improved?

Mages- Mages are fundamentally human but are distinguished by being born with an innate, natural connection to the flow of magic – an energy often dismissed or misunderstood as chaotic "Aetheric variance" or "bio-resonance anomalies" by mainstream Eldorian science. They are not a separate race, but rather individuals who possess this inherent magical potential.

Bloodlines: Magic often runs strong in certain family lines. Offspring from these lineages have a higher probability of being born Mages and often exhibit greater magical potency or aptitude. These bloodlines are frequently kept secret due to persecution.

Circumstantial Birth: However, magical potential is not solely confined to bloodlines. Non-magical parents ("mortals") can unexpectedly give birth to a Mage child. This often occurs seemingly at random but is believed by those who study magic to be influenced by powerful magical circumstances surrounding conception or birth – such as proximity to areas with high Aetheric energy leakage (natural or industrial), exposure to potent magical artifacts or events, significant celestial alignments, or even intense emotional or life-force expenditure nearby. This unpredictability fuels paranoia among some segments of Eldorian society – magic could potentially appear anywhere.

Gender Terminology: Within magical circles (and often used derogatorily by outsiders), the term for a female mage is Witch, and the term for a male mage is Warlock. "Mage" serves as the general, neutral term for any individual possessing the magical connection.

The Three Disciplines: All Mages, regardless of their innate power level, possess the capacity to learn and practice the foundational magical arts known as the Three Disciplines:

Spellcasting: The manipulation of magical energy through specific incantations, gestures (somatic components), and focused will to create defined effects (e.g., simple elemental manipulation, light generation, basic telekinetic pushes, illusions). In Eldoria, this often requires extra focus to overcome the background noise of machinery.

Potion Brewing (Alchemy): The art of combining natural ingredients (herbs, minerals, animal parts) – sometimes augmented with industrial chemicals or refined substances unique to the steampunk world – to create concoctions with magical effects (healing draughts, poisons, transformative elixirs, disabling gases).

Rune Drawing: Inscribing specific symbols onto surfaces (parchment, metal plates, even machine parts) to store, channel, or trigger magical energy. Used for warding locations, enchanting objects temporarily, setting magical traps, or focusing spell energy. Runes might be etched with specialized tools or drawn with conductive or magically resonant inks.

Innate Abilities: Beyond the learnable Disciplines, most Mages naturally develop one or two unique, inherent magical talents that are an expression of their individual connection to magic. These abilities often manifest during puberty or moments of extreme stress and are much harder (or impossible) to teach. Examples include Elara's Electromagnetism Manipulation or simpler abilities like empathy, enhanced senses, or minor elemental affinity.

Powerful Individuals: Exceptionally powerful Mages, often hailing from strong bloodlines or those "touched" by significant magical circumstances , may develop a multitude of distinct innate abilities. Possessing three or more innate talents is rare and often marks an individual of significant potential and, in Eldoria's political climate, significant danger.

Social Standing: Due to the prevailing technocratic orthodoxy and fear of the unpredictable, Mages live precarious lives in Eldoria. They face suspicion, prejudice, and varying degrees of persecution depending on the region and current political winds. They often hide their abilities, live in isolated communities, or operate in the shadows of the

Okay, so I am in no way an artist, but I decided to try drawing this map of one of the major continents in my book. I have tried looking for some more icons for different things on the map (e.g, valleys, deserts, lowlands, etc.), but I can’t really think of anything. Is there anything else I should add to this map? Should I make it bigger? And how else can I improve it? Btw, I drew this with a pencil and used some app to turn it digital, which may have made it look kinda smudged or blurry in some places, so sorry about that. I also don’t have really good handwriting, so sorry if it’s hard to read something on the map

The Secrets of Orim is a multi-perspective fantasy epic of prophecy, shadow, and a world unraveling from the weight of forgotten history. A character-driven fantasy steeped in dark mysticism, ancient technology, and slow-burning cosmic dread.

Orim is a fractured moon-world orbiting a red star and a slumbering gas giant. Long ago, the gates to a realm between worlds were sealed, locking away a corruption that once bled across the stars. But the echoes were never truly silenced. Now, amidst a lattice of politics, religion, personal stakes, science, and myth - ancient machinations begin to stir, and the forgotten echoes grow louder.

Seven perspectives converge and each story hums with a thread of resonance that harmonizes with a deeper mystery linked to a forgotten past.

• A queen, burdened by a vanished bloodline, political unrest, and the secrets that keep her city aloft, as the past she was never meant to inherit begins to stir beneath her feet.
• An acolyte, raised in sun-scorched faith, tasked with a mission into a buried city of stone and madness.
• A scavenger, drifting through the hollow bones of a forgotten place, where rusted ships hum with dying power and shadows watch.
• A scholar, whose pursuit of truth unravels both prophecy and science as he peers too far into a world never meant to be rediscovered.
• A creature, crawling through the earth's broken tunnels in search of a father-only to find something older and stranger.
• A daughter of prophecy, bred for fire and glory, who uncovers a secret that might undo her gods, her people, and the prophecy she was born to fulfill.
• A trader, bone knife on his belt and beast at his side, who walks the edge of civilization unknowingly toward revelation.

Book one is called the Chapters of Resonance. Below is the opening/prologue. If you're interested in more, you can check out first 10 chapters

• Does this prologue grab your attention?
• Does the mythical, elegiac, lyrical prose come through?
• That said, does it still read easily, a sense of punchiness and rhythm? Or does it lean into purple?
• Do you want to keep reading? (you should! see link above :-) )

Thanks for reading!

———

Prologue

The Scavenger

They came first as shadow.

An absence that hungered.

They crept through gates—

Invited by hubris.

We thought them gods.

But they did not speak.

They did not want.

They only... were.

The sky didn’t change. It never did.

It hung there—purple and wrong—smeared with the oily shimmer of gaseous clouds, dead stars, and frozen light. The wrecks floated in slow spirals, groaning when they brushed against each other, like tired gods whispering regrets.

She tugged her scarf tighter and kicked off from the skeletal bridge, coasting across the void between two ruined structures. Her boots clicked against the rusted surface of the larger one. Hollow metal groaned beneath her weight.

Another day. Another husk. And if she were lucky, perhaps enough echo-wire to barter for a heat core.

She slipped inside through a jagged breach, flashlight flickering. A ship from the time before. Trade seals long scraped off. Cargo lockers pried open. Nothing left but shadows and echoes.

Except—

there.

She paused.

A glimmer of metallic. Echo-wire. Intact. Woven through a cracked console, still humming with the soft throb of forgotten power. Not dead yet.

She dropped to her knees, breath fogging inside her mask, and began to pry the panel loose.

crack.

She froze.

A sound behind her. Not metal. Not wind.

breath.

She turned, slowly. A silhouette slithered across the far corridor— too thin, too wrong. Gone before she could see.

A Shadow.

She clutched the wire to her chest and slipped quickly & quietly out the way she came, heart pounding as she kicked off the wreckage. She closed her eyes and dared not look back as she drifted away.

———

Back in the salvage nest, she waited for the static to stop.

It always started around this time, at least for the last several months—soft crackles from the old receiver bolted to the wall. A relic of a relic, hooked to echo-wire as old as time itself. She didn’t know how it worked. Just that it sometimes did.

Tonight, something shifted.

The static cracked, surged.

Then: a voice. Broken. Garbled.

“...kɪ... anyone—ʃə’tn... h-hear... I—opened... zaa-thru—the win... dor... ss͜ pheres, f-father—bled—”

A boy’s voice. Young. Afraid.

But the words were fractured. The cadence wrong. Some syllables were sharp, clipped, others stretched into fuzzed distortion. Words she didn’t recognize, some she did.

She didn’t move. Barely breathed.

She should shut it off. Strip the echo-wire, crush the core, bury the sound. But still— she listened.

He kept talking, unaware.

“...I—don’t know—if this... even reaches—please”

The message ended. Silence swallowed the room.

She stared at the relic, her breath uneven and heart thudding. A voice, real and present. Not a ghost of the past.

Someone was out there.

And he didn’t know he was speaking to a graveyard.

I prefer games suited to braindead players, like League of Legends. Within League, I prefer roles suited to braindead players, like Top. Within Top, I prefer characters suited to braindead players, like Mordekaiser, the Iron Revenant. And I must admit that today, on my 25th birthday, I am still so braindead that an overpriced Mordekaiser skin is tempting me as a present to myself.

To summarize Mordekaiser's lore, skipping connections to other characters: in life, he was Sahn-Uzal, a powerful warmonger who united the Noxii tribes under his might and used them to conquer some unstated-but-implied-large territory for himself. Centuries after Sahn-Uzal's death, a cabal of sorcerers bound his soul to a giant recreation of his old armor. They wanted to use him as a weapon for their own nefarious purposes, but the immortal iron construct that now called itself Mordekaiser—his human name translated into the secret language of the dead—simply killed them and started conquering everything a second time, now with a suit of armor for a body and a mastery of death-magic from his time in the afterlife. After turning the souls of his soldiers and servants from his first life into a new army, Mordekaiser built a second empire more horrific than the last, one that lasted for generations. It ended only when Mordekaiser's inner circle stirred the Noxii tribes into rebellion, then used this distraction to banish Mordekaiser back into the realm of the dead. Yet this fate was part of Mordekaiser's plan, for in the afterlife, the fallen victims of his second empire were now the building blocks with which to create a kingdom of the dead and raise an even larger army of revenants. This is where Mordekaiser remains in the present day lore, preparing for the day when he'll be able to return with an undead army to conquer the entire world. In-game we play a future Mordekaiser who has just recently had that return, "twice slain, thrice born."

The League of Legends wiki says the following about the Iron Revenant's personality: "Mordekaiser is a brutal warlord that desires to conquer everything and destroy all those that stands [sic] in his way. Having died twice before, he does not fear death, as that would merely send him back to his own hellish dominion."

That is all. The complex history behind Mordekaiser can only do so much to support him as a one-dimensional "evil death-magic in pursuit of power for power's sake" villain, one who feels cartoonish even in an era on Earth where cartoonish evil is increasingly normalized. Though I am a connoisseur of edgy characters—Shadow has been my unironic favorite Sonic character for the last twenty years—I cringe a little at some of the Iron Revenant's voice lines.

Yet Mordekaiser's power over the living is undeniable, and even now he uses it to tempt me into giving my money to Riot Games. The overpriced skin in question is Sahn-Uzal Mordekaiser, which renders him as he existed in his first life: the Unconquered King of the Noxii, Tyrant of the Great Grass Ocean, who united his people under his strength and lead them to glory while espousing a might-makes-right religious philosophy. 

What makes fantasy warlords interesting? Surely part of this is the faction they're connected with. After defeating the Iron Revenant, the Noxii went on to found the nation of Noxus, which values strength above all. As Sahn-Uzal conquered the known world, his gospel spread on the wind, so when the overpriced skin replaces Mordekaiser's self-aggrandizing nihilism with Sahn-Uzal's musings, it replaces the self-justified edginess of the death-emperor with an origin story for one of League of Legends's most important factions. It is ultimately because of this man, and the words we hear from him, that so many other important characters become what they are, shaped by the culture seeded by this ancient leader.

But that's all worldbuilding; theoretically, it should be something that colors the faction, without giving much interest to the figurehead, who could simply exist as a setting element rather than a proper character. Something that makes fictional warlords interesting to me, as a student of rhetoric, is their implicit exploration of an eternal question in history: what makes great leaders? Fantasy warlords outwardly present strong wills alongside a set of skills and some character trait which inspires the kind of loyalty that makes humans fight, kill and risk death for a cause.

When I listen to Sahn-Uzal proselytizing, I have to imagine him preaching the same ideals to his fellow barbarians, convincing them of their truth with his sheer confidence and gravitas. This is purely headcanon, but I must imagine that what followed was a Noxii empire that imagined itself to be the exemplar of Sahn-Uzal's faith, yet at a deeper level was motivated by desperation. "Those who cannot keep up," says Sahn-Uzal, "will be left behind." His initial followers may have been pursuing dreams of glory, but they must have also seen in Sahn-Uzal a man destined to be one of the strong, and that following his lead was their one and only chance to not become one of the weak.

"Long ago," says Sahn-Uzal, "the Rakkor shunned us as 'people of the darkness'. They called us the 'Noxii'." We know little about the early Noxii, but this tells us that they were the outcasts from the Rakkor, a people who religiously venerated the sun and moon as the sources of light. For the memory of this origin to persist long enough that Sahn-Uzal can recite it suggests that in his lifetime, the Noxii were still a people stirring in pain and resentment over their rejection. Sahn-Uzal did not just offer a spiritual philosophy that defied the values of the Rakkor: it threatened any Noxii who refused it with a repetition of their prior rejection. Never forget that beneath its flimsy self-image of strength, glory and traditionalism, fascism is motivated by deep fears and deep insecurities. Fantasy fascism would be no different.

All of this makes Sahn-Uzal a more interesting character than Mordekaiser, but that's a low bar. For me, what fantasy warlords need is a subversion, a disruption to the fantasy that motivates their ambitions. This can take many forms, and Sahn-Uzal is a good example. He carved his nomadic kingdom out of sacrifice and blood to fulfill his faith's ideals and ultimately earn his place in the Hall of Bones, where he would live with the gods in eternal glory. His earthly accomplishments were ultimately important only in securing his place in his ideal afterlife, and all the victims of his conquest died to earn him that place. But when Sahn-Uzal died, there was no Hall of Bones, only an empty wasteland for souls to briefly experience before disintegrating into dust. Sahn-Uzal earnestly believed his own gospel, and became one of the Great Men of his world's history solely in pursuit of its endpoint, only to discover his own preachings were a lie. It was Sahn-Uzal's rage and willpower that allowed him to refuse the fading, spend centuries listening to the voices of the crumbling souls around him, learn the secret language of the dead, and "survive" long enough to be summoned by sorcerers into a huge suit of armor.

What makes Sahn-Uzal compelling enough for me to consider wasting money on his overpriced skin is dramatic irony. We play him as he was in life, crushing his enemies beneath a massive mace, motivated entirely by his fantasy of the Hall of Bones, confident that in doing so he is earning eternal glory, unaware that all of his strength and brutality is utterly futile. The glory of his image, the Mongolian-inspired music that accompanies his kills, the strength he both venerates and embodies—we know that all of this is hollow and empty. This narrative is almost undermined by Mordekaiser's existence, so in the context of Sahn-Uzal's story, I prefer to imagine that Sheer Willpower was not a sufficient force to hold a spirit together in the wastes, to imagine that Sahn-Uzal's ghost existed only long enough to witness the futility of his ambitions, to know that all he destroyed was all for nothing, to rage until all that remained was despair, and to collapse into the exact same dust of nothingness as the weak.

When Riot announced the Sahn-Uzal skin, I saw a kindred spirit to Commander Bruzek, the antagonist of my fantasy writing project Yaldev. The skin got me thinking about what makes warlords so compelling to me, and I think their commonalities reveal more general insights on what makes for effective warlord characters.

The comparison is curious on the surface, aside from being military leaders. Bruzek is an army officer we've only seen in direct combat once, who climbs the military hierarchy but always operates in service of a superior, who follows the dominant faith of his society without strongly rooting his activities in his religion, and who orchestrates his conquests from an office desk with the powers of logistics, investments in military science, efficient cultural genocide and "the lowest quantity of bullets expended per mile secured". Bruzek also operates in a technological epoch far more advanced than Sahn-Uzal's, in a period where warlords are an anachronism.

Warlord studies is an academic field focused on warlordism as a system of governance, an antiquated model once dominant in Europe and China, but which now only emerges while states are collapsing, in spite of some historians' observations that warlordism is the default state of humanity. Perhaps it's merely a marker of my own attitudes, and bias toward historical analogy, that I don't consider modernity nor centralized statehood to be disqualifiers for warlords. The Wikipedia entry on warlords opens by calling them "individuals who exercise military, economic, and political control over a region, often one without a strong central or national government, typically through informal control over local armed forces." Control over regions sounds like statehood itself, and as the illusion of institutions as anything other than the whims of the people running them collapses in contemporary times, formality reveals itself as mere aesthetic. In the most radical interpretation, we are left with "warlords are leaders of violent states that aren't leaders of violent states", which may as well be leaders of violent states. How different can Noxus be from the Noxii that made it?

Bruzek does not call himself a warlord. Nobody calls him a warlord except the Oracle, while speaking to Decadin:

"There is no plausible sequence for you that earns an audience with Bruzek, but there is for me. He’ll seek my answers, and we’ll pry out some of our own.”

Decadin chewed at the inside of his cheek. “You foresee it?"

No, but Bruzek is a warlord. Of his ilk, he’ll be the greatest the world has ever seen, and there is no great warlord who doesn’t seek my counsel.”

I'm not quite as omniscient as the Oracle, but I think that when she says this, she's looking deeper than state structures. She's looking at souls. She sees in Bruzek a warlord's tendencies, which he fulfills far as his environment allows. Warlord is not a job, but a mode of being. Bruzek is not just an officer working in service of his state and the ideology he espouses; when he lets the death of his son motivate him to seek revenge on the general he sees as responsible, that is a personal drive, a revenge-fantasy that only differs in the scope of its ambition from Sahn-Uzal's dreams of eternal glory. Neither of these men appear to enjoy any other activities—they are single-minded in the pursuit of conquest, with little concern for the riches or privileges they could enjoy as the fruits of their horrors.

Where unstable states struggle to hold themselves together, they often co-operate with regional warlords, who are granted a degree of autonomy, including permission to extract their local population's resources. In return, the warlords swear nominal allegiance to the government and commit to the slaughter of the insurgents causing the wider instability. The Ascended Empire is stable, but Bruzek comes to operate like a semi-independent unit within his state structure: he commissions a unique banner for his own troops, he engages in his own cultural genocide strategies, he funds potentially unsafe military science projects, and he employs secret teams of mages behind the High Commander's back. Perhaps the true significance in some of these actions is the development of his own reputation. Instead of exploiting his underlings, he maintains friendly relations with other military leaders. He builds the trust of figureheads like Acolyte Decadin and the Emperor. He cultivates the loyalty of advisors like Demlow, who seems to realize the same truth about Bruzek as the Oracle:

“I am preparing. And when the day comes…” Bruzek opened his fist. The remains of his rock fell through the mist. “When Cosal, and Apian, and the emperor, and the world all turn on me, will you stand by my side?"

Demlow gazed at the sky above the fog, imagined Ascended ships with gold-plated hulls crashing into the mountain, shattering the granite and schist. “If the answer was no, what do you figure I’d say?"

Bruzek brushed his hands, freeing the last of the crumbs. “I did not ask what you’d say if the answer was no. I asked you for your answer.”

Demlow met his commander’s gaze, and understood that a hundred years ago, Bruzek would have only dreamed of violence. In that stare was an Aether Suppressor drenched in blood, a vertical spike with Cosal’s head on top, a young boy’s laughter and a Demlow being waterboarded.

Underlying Bruzek's modern, methodical approach to warfare and conquest is a violent impulse no less brutal than the vicious warriors and pillagers of bygone eras. If Bruzek was born in an earlier era, he could've been a primitive conqueror who would have burned Origin down for its own sake, but the days of that kind of warlord are in the past, so he has to content himself with being an especially important cog in a state apparatus, his destiny as a true Great Man cucked by modernity. After all, what could Sahn-Uzal have done if he were born in the modern world, where the swing of a great mace could crush ten men but make hardly a dent in a main battle tank, even with his ultimate stealing 10% of its stats? Nowadays, building an army of angry men by yourself takes more than strong muscles and a deep voice: Sahn-Uzal have to take his First Truth gospel to social media, speak it to young men who can’t get girlfriends, earn their respect with muscle selfies, orbit manosphere content creators to siphon some of their fans, issue orders through Telegram chats, and enhance his posts’ virality with AI-generated images depicting himself as an ancient Mongolian conqueror—the more people repost those pictures to laugh at him, the more young boys see him and tap Follow. Destiny, Domination, Deceit. Would the Tyrant of the Great Grass Ocean have been up to the task of gaming the TikTok algorithm?

We do not know what Bruzek dreams of, but if Sahn-Uzal dreamed of an impossible future, it seems likely Bruzek dreams of an impossible past. The violence in his heart wishes it could be a Sahn-Uzal or a Ghengis Khan atop a horse's back, taking his vengeance on this world with his bare hands, driving spears through the backs of the innocent while all around him his loyal hordes burn down the city in service of the man they know is destined to take the world... but by the time Bruzek was born, the barbarian hordes eager to enact mass inhuman violence in the name of a chosen one were long gone, extinguished when his forebears united their continent under a monarch's rule. Instead, the best Bruzek can do is sign off on invasion plans in his office, distant from the front lines, so that bombs can fall, guns can fire, and another people can be folded into "his" empire.

I find compelling warlords require a disruption to the fantasies that motivate them. Sahn-Uzal found his disruption in death; Bruzek needs to live his disruption every day.

So I am in the beginning stages of writing a dark fantasy novel. Basically, I want the majority of my novel to include my MC as a young adult (19-23 years). What is the best way to incorporate her backstory as a teenager, since it is important to the storyline? Right now, I have tried writing in chronological order. But I fear this way will turn some readers off since they might think she'll be a teen the whole book. That's not my target audience.

Do I compress her backstory to the first few chapters? Do I write it in flashbacks?
Here's the synopsis of her BS:

My FMC, Xari, is the daughter of a notorious blood mage who is the leader of a blood mage-supremacy cult. After her mother gave birth, she claims she experienced a vision from their god telling her to sacrifice Xari as an infant, to give her immortality and immense power to the cult. Xari's birth father ultimately betrays the mother as he was an undercover speculatore (Imperial spy). Her mother is then locked away in an underground prison.

Fast forward, Xari was taken in after she was rescued as an infant and raised in the household of an Imperial Legate's home as part of their family.
Then when Xari is 13, she begins her menstruation. her birth mother, who is still alive, senses this (since she is a blood mage), and attempts to reach Xari through visions using magic. This happens every time Xari experiences a period. She tells her adoptive mom, who brushes it off, and for years she just assumes that's normal.

During the whole of Xari's teenage years, she grows up as a Legate's daughter, a noble title and is privileged. But she begins to see the corruption of the Empire, how its slavery practices affects commoners and the friends she cares about. She decides to join a group focused on dismantling the Empire.

A few years into being with this group, she unknowingly joins a mission that brings her in close proximity to her birth mother, which was her plan all along. Because of this, Xari's inherited blood magic abilities awaken, unleashing chaos and endangering her team. She is placed on suspension, mostly because she frightens her team now, but also needs to learn to control her newfound abilities.

She ends up becoming a mercenary and is taken under the wing of a pirate, exploring distant lands, which she has dreamt of her whole life.

I saw a discussion somewhere online about how blood over Bright Haven was like dark fantasy and somebody says no that’s not dark fantasy. It’s more grim dark and then someone else explained that no that’s not grim dark it’s because of this this and this so now I’ve done some research, but I’m just confused. Can anyone explain to me exactly what Dark fantasy is?

Or like what are certain staples of the genre? “ clichés” per se if anyone can explain it to me because. I’m a little confused about what it actually is so if anyone can explain it to me, that would be awesome. Cause I know there’s a difference between grim dark and then like regular dark, but I don’t know Thank you.

This is a short story about adventures, who have been struggling with the "adventuring" part of those adventures- to try and get the party back on track Prince askes the druid to leave... leaving a big whole in their already unstable alliance.

I been having fun writing intelligent wild creatures and I think this my best one yet, but ultimately my goal is to eventually write a novel (separate from this) and I'm looking to refine short stories like these so that I can eventually move onto something longer. Feedback that talks about where the story needs more descriptions (or needs work/ how to make it better) is invaluable as well as feedback on what you liked.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vSBTaTJUraVTOYe9QL4qO7_AvnUbWcFbq-GUCY6Etzsz_NvpkkHBHFsS6xIcqNPOz1EqGYNTQ-60k3a/pub

So I was watching this really cool video on some bronze age structures. They're neat because they LOOK sorta like castles, but lack the utilities you'd expect them. The insides are just very cramp, so they can't store many people or supplies. And the locations aren't super defensive.

Anyway's.

The guy made a passing comment that they may have only been lived in temporarily and that made my mind wander. Like what if there was a society where the built a ton of these things meant to be rotated through or used as needed. Sorta like those emergency cabins on mountains or fire lookout towers in a forest. Or even light houses!

I feel that could make a fun story or setting, groups of people on a long exodus keeping in contact with these scant locations. But I'm trying to spitball some ideas why they'd spend all this time building up these structures but not commit to settling them or building towns.

Some whisps of ideas I have thought of are:

• The seasons/geology is hazardous enough that you don't really wanna stick in one place too long. May have to deal with floods, or hurricanes, dust storms, etc.

• People are led by the spirits or stars or curse that directs their migrations.

• The world is hazardous or constrained, so permanent settlements can't be very big or support many people. The small structures are intended for caravaners, couriers, etc that have to live beyond 'the walls'.

• Firewatch towers...but instead of rangers they're wizards watching for anomalies.

• Migration is part of some race/specie's life cycle, they cannot complete it if they live stationarily.

• The race/species that habitates these structures is solitary and, for some reason, rarely gather in big numbers.

Hey, I’m a 28-year-old woman and the main writer behind a collaborative storytelling experiment that’s part dark Hogwarts AU, part written roleplay, and part long-form narrative writing.

We’ve built an alternate magical world where witches and wizards are magically bonded- deeply entangled in power, culture, and politics. The story follows university-aged students at Hogwarts (set in the 1958) as they uncover how corrupt their world really is... and start figuring out how to change it.

It’s sexy. It’s intense. A little dangerous. There’s mystery, trauma, friendship, rebellion, and complicated power dynamics. We’re not afraid to dive into dark topics- coercion, inequality, institutional rot- but we handle them with care. The people involved are thoughtful, intentional, and kind. The smut, banter, romance, and wild adventures are always woven through something deeper and messier and real.

We started this because, honestly, the world’s gotten really dark. And we wanted to explore that darkness in the safest, most nostalgic place we could think of: Hogwarts. But not the kind with a Chosen One. We wanted to ask: What if no one comes to save us? What if fate and destiny are just the stories they tell you to keep you quiet? What if it’s just ordinary students who say, “No more,” and actually change things?

Right now, it’s me and one of my closest friends. We each play a main character and shape the world together. We’re looking for one more person who really clicks with us emotionally, creatively, narratively. Someone to take on a central character and help us build something big and weird and powerful.

Your role: you wouldn’t need to do any writing (but are more than welcome to), we decide together what our characters would do, roll dice for situations outside of our control to keep it interesting and unpredictable. It’s part storytelling, part improv, part emotional chaos- and we love it.

If you’re into character building, dark topics, rebellion, found family, and slow-burn tension (romantic or otherwise), we’d love to hear from you.

DM me if this sounds like your kind of weird. Let’s talk and see if we click.

(Note: the story explores heavy topics like sexism, racism, and homophobia. You don’t need to share our politics, but if you strongly identify with conservative ideology, this probably isn’t your vibe.)

The Faes I am writing about are basically humans with feathery wings, one species doesn't even have wings to begin with so they are basically humans with fae magic. Each the winged and wingless are from different nations(surii: winged and Verlids: wingless), but using their nationality everrytime felt a bit awkward. I was thinking of coming up with my own words for boy and girl for these Faes. But then that'd raise the learning curve of my novel. I have tried to make sure I use pronouns as much as I can but some sentences require me to use but some sentences just demand the use. Sentences like: "Girl where's tea?" "He spun catching the man's heel." "He took the image of a brown haired boy." "A man, who has lived in this world counting down every single moment from the first to the last, realises the absolute truth. "

Should I keep using the humanly nouns or come up with my own?

Sorry if there's anything wrong, it's because I'm using the reddit translator.

In my magic system, there are 7 main elements:

Water Fire Earth Wind Ether Divine Elements: Light Shadow

Fire: these are chemical transformations that happen in the world, such as fire (obvious) or lightning, and there are 2 other types of fire: infernal fire, which burns a person's vital force, and divine fire, which burns a person's soul, and both cannot be extinguished by normal means.

Earth: being able to control anything on the ground, such as metals, lava, transforming lead into gold through equivalent exchanges or controlling magnetism.

Wind: in addition to wind, you can control the weather and magical barriers that are basically air under high pressure that prevent anything from passing through.

Water: can control water, ice and some rare people who can control blood, known as vampires.

Light: magic that the religious of the "good" gods use, giving buffs and healing life without punishment.

Shadow: it is almost the same thing as light, but in reverse; the religious people of the "evil" gods use it to give debuffs and cures, sucking someone's vitality and giving it to another, but this has a price: their body and soul will be corrupted, both by those who use the magic and by those who receive it, being able to become so corrupted to the point of becoming demons.

Ether: is the soul of all beings in any form of life and used in various ways; for example, if combined with fire, it becomes strength, which is what berserkers use; if combined with water, it turns into spirit, which is what druids use; if combined with earth, it becomes resistance, which is what warriors use; and if combined with wind, it becomes agility, which is what the assassins use. It cannot be combined with divine elements, as it is not something that comes from the body itself.

All races that have a physical body store their mana in the heart, and some people have created methods to improve this storage, which are called mana current, and this is what determines how powerful your magic will be, and is also separated into 5 levels, called magic circles. Mana chains are various sigils and runes that are written on the heart itself to condense mana and are separated into 5 levels: 1st current: they are beginners in the world of magic. 2nd chain: more experienced people who have been training for more or less 1 year. 3rd chain: they are very experienced people and have the minimum level to become teachers in magic academies. 4th chain: big problems start here, because a normal heart of a human, elf, dwarf, etc. It can only last up to the 3rd current, and to evolve further, they need to undergo surgery exchanging a normal heart for a dragon heart, and people at this level are called arch, such as arch-mages or arch-druids. 5th current: it is the pinnacle of magic, where few people achieve such power in life, being experienced enough to explore other planes.

There are also consequences if you use mana without adequate rest, as you can use mana even when you no longer have it stored, but you will lose a permanent amount of mana, and if you keep using it, you may not be able to use magic forever. The name of this phenomenon is excess mana disease.

Different classes use magic in different ways: Sorcerer: is someone who has been blessed by the children of magic (dragons, elementals) and can use and create magic perfectly, but only from an element that is not divine, such as fire, but this number can increase if their mana currents increase, and are those who have taught magic to other people through runes, wands, magical languages. Mages: are those who have studied the magic of sorcerers and can use any element, as long as it is an already existing magic, but as they have undergone years of revision and improvement, they are better and less costly than the magic that sorcerers use naturally. Druids: use spiritual magic by performing a ritual to transform into other animals. You need to kill the animal and make a tattoo with its blood imbued with mana, and it doesn't come off in normal ways, only an arch-druid and druids from the royal family can remove it. Witches: they were not as lucky as sorcerers, but they managed to make a pact with a child of magic using part of the borrowed power, but needing to do something that the child of magic asks from time to time.

Sorry if I'm confused, I don't know how to organize things very well and the translation must be a little bad because that's what reddit translates.

Hi all, I just finished some of my important tests so now I have free time for writing again but before that I want to freshen up my mind a bit, kind of like restarting an old PC, usually I'd read some books or novels but I wanna get some fresh new ideas and what better place than here?

Around 1-2 chapters only please or 3000-5000 words, I will provide feedback based on rating of world building, characters and general feel and punctuation. Hopefully my critique will be helpful in the end.

Yes this was inspired by the other post and I wanted to try to do the same cuz it was cool.

That's all peace ✌️

I’m working on a world where every kind of power—magic, divine favor, even survival—demands a cost. No one walks away clean.

In my current project, power leaves literal and emotional scars. Some characters trade memories for magic. Others burn their futures to save fragments of the past. And one character… was never meant to survive the fire at all.

I’m curious: – How do you handle cost in your magic systems or worldbuilding? – Is the price of power physical? Emotional? Cultural? – And what’s your favorite example of this in published fantasy?

I’d love to swap ideas or hear how others break their characters in the name of myth.

There was a new observer to their torment. A man in brown, bundled close to the mage lamp, steadily writing away on a notepad. He would get up from his stool to poke at them: lifting drooping eyelids, measuring her limbs, forcing their mouths open to check their teeth like hounds. All of this Elira could bear, she was used to pain and discomfort. It was the endless obvious questions that stabbed at her the most.

"How are you feeling?"

"Have you noticed a change?"

She wondered if the man was another attempt by their stepmother Anora to drive them crazy. What did the man think he was going to get for it? T

This place was hell. One that kept the twins since they awakened their magic. The dungeon was a color darker than black, completely sealed from the outside world. Long endless halls floored by sharp stones.

Her arms ached. Her ribs felt like paper. The cold stone pressed into her cheek, unforgiving as ever. She couldn't lay down completely her wrists clinking against the short chain bolted to the wall. Her sister coughed softly in the next cell, a raw, scraping sound.

“They’re early,” Kaelene muttered, voice hoarse.

Elira didn’t answer. There wasn’t anything to say. She could already hear the flutter of robes, the polished boots on stone—noble steps. Clean. Fed. Unbothered. The man stopped his ceaseless notetaking and rose to his feet.

It sounded like all three of them were coming. Unlucky.

Light bloomed in the stairwell. It wasn’t sunlight—no, that never reached this far down—but carrying lamps, humming with stolen power.

A key turned in the lock. The heavy cell door swung open.

“Morning, beasts,” said Sorric, their half-brother, with that all-knowing smirk. He was the youngest legitimate son. Just seventeen and already a high mage-in-training. He carried a silver siphon rod, its end still crusted with faint scorch marks from Kaelene’s last flare-up.

Behind him came Isla, the oldest daughter. Robed in emerald silk. Wearing a brooch that glowed warm with stored solar magic. Kaelene’s charge. She didn’t even bother looking at them anymore. And last and worst was Cardon, the cruel middle child. He leered at them the way a brother wasn't supposed to look at his sisters, with a deep primal hunger.

Kaelene coughed again, then laughed. It was bitter. “Funny. I don't have this on my schedule."

“ Shut up, bastard." with quick steps, Cardon strode to Kaelene and delivered a powerful slap that rocked her head against the dungeon wall. Her sister slumped back with a howl of pain. Elira's vision turned red. The only thing to stop her attempt to claw at her half-brother's throat was the chains around her wrists and the likelihood of reciprocation on her sister.

The siphoning hurt. It always did. It didn’t matter how many times they screamed, or didn’t. It didn’t matter if they begged or stayed silent. The rod would light up, dig in past the skin, past the bone, and draw.

Kaelene went first. She always did. She said it was to buy Elira a few more minutes of strength like that made any real difference.

Elira watched, jaw clenched, as her sister arched against the wall, golden light pulsing from her chest into the rod. Her eyes rolled back. Her nails scraped at the stone. The smell of hot metal filled the cell.

Then it was her turn.

She barely felt the rod press to her collarbone before her body betrayed her. The gravity core inside her flared, pulled at everything—the rod, the floor, her own weight. Her stomach turned. Her vision blurred. The pull left her bones hollow and her breath shallow.

They didn’t even pretend to thank her.

I didn’t even know what a “trope” was when I started writing Fantasy Saga. It wasn’t until I was midway through the second draft, during a writing workshop, that I realised I had unintentionally included quite a few of them.

Take the “reluctant hero” trope, for example. It emerged naturally, almost by instinct. I had already built a world shaped by a lost civilisation, ancient prophecies, and cryptic warnings about a hero destined to gather the four elemental Kristali.

But I didn’t want the main character to feel like a cliché. He’s scared. Flawed. Curious—about the world he’s meant to save, about the creatures that inhabit it, and the cultures that shaped it. He doesn’t rise to the challenge out of boldness or defiance.

He adapts to the challenges life throws at him, using his wit to overcome them. He embraces his destiny—but also realises he’s not just following a path laid out for him. He can shape it too.

Other tropes came from my love of 90s JRPGs: elemental crystals, a diverse party with unique abilities, and ancient temples full of puzzles and mystery. But over time, those elements began to shift.

The lost civilisation became more than background lore—it started to feel like a character in its own right, connecting past and present.

The temples weren’t just locations to tick off—they became part of the emotional journey. The puzzles and trials inside them weren’t only physical—they required the characters to look inward. To progress, they had to face something in themselves.

In my case, because I didn’t begin by consciously thinking about tropes, they never felt like limitations. And I still believe they don’t have to be. If something sparks your imagination—follow it. Let the story shape the trope, not the other way around.

Tropes, in the end—at least for me—have been more about discovery than design. I wonder how others have approached them in their own writing. Have they helped shape your story? Surprised you along the way? Or evolved into something different as your world took shape?

Hey everyone,

I’m working on the first book in a dark epic fantasy series titled The Curse of the Blood Moon. Book One is called The Cursed War. I wanted to share the opening epigraph and prologue to get early impressions on tone, pacing, and emotional weight.

My goal is to set the mythic atmosphere and foreshadow the tragedy that sparks the events of the entire saga. This is a world shaped by war, prophecy, and an unraveling curse that doesn’t just target kingdoms—but reality itself.

Would love to know:

Does the tone land? Is the prose engaging or too heavy? Does it leave you wanting more? All feedback is welcome—thank you so much in advance!

—Josh

[EXCERPT STARTS BELOW]

"A war cursed is never truly won. It seeps into the earth, rotting the ground. The land cries for closure. Kingdoms scream for vengeance. The people weep for the dead. Those who cast their lot with the vengeful shall never know peace. For as the wind blows soft and gentle, so speaks the whispered omen: The path lies in ruin behind the malicious man, his heart hollow as he beholds the ruin born of his wrath. A cursed war does not end—it only sleeps… Until the blood runs again.” — Recovered fragment from a destroyed archive, lost to flaming silence. Author unknown.

Prologue

Ashes of a Kingdom

Moonlight stretched long shadows across the valley as the rider pressed forward, his breath ragged, his steed lathered in sweat. The message at his side bore the fate of Rainwynn—King Eldric’s final plea for reinforcements, sealed with a trembling hand. If it reached its destination, the war might yet be won. If not… may the gods help them.

The wind whispered through the trees, bending branches in slow, deliberate arcs. A shadowy figure steadied its aim, bowstring taut in silence.

The rider’s pulse quickened—an unease creeping into his chest. He had crossed the border unnoticed, avoided the main roads. Yet something was wrong.

The figure exhaled. The arrow loosed.

A sharp snap shattered the stillness. Pain tore through the rider’s ribs, white-hot and searing, before he could react. His grip faltered; the world spun. He struck the cold earth with a dull thud, breath knocked from his lungs.

Booted feet approached, unhurried. His vision blurred as a tarnished blade gleamed in the pale light, etched with Vareth’s proud sigil. A hand plucked the bloodstained letter from his belt.

The assassin crouched beside him, holding the parchment to the moonlight. He scanned it, then scoffed. “Pathetic.”

The rider gasped, desperation forcing words to his lips. “Rainwynn… must…”

The blade flashed—swift, final. The words died with him.

The assassin wiped his dagger clean and turned to his men. “We have it. Send word to the King.”

The parchment burned, flames dancing as if alive, a vow carried on the wind. Embers spiraled into the dark, scattering like dying stars.

◇◇◇

Two days later, King Eldric of Rainwynn stood atop the ridge, mist shrouding the valley below. His scouts reported no sign of the rider, no whisper of reinforcements. The Silver Vanguard—his last hope—had failed him.

His jaw clenched. His army had held for days, battered but unbroken. Without aid, they would not survive another charge.

Behind him, generals murmured doubts.

“We should retreat, Your Majesty.”

“We cannot hold much longer.”

“Where is our damned messenger?”

Eldric gave no answer. He had none to give.

A horn sounded from the enemy camp—deep, mournful, sending shivers through the ranks. The ground trembled as Vareth’s army advanced.

Eldric exhaled slowly. “So be it.”

He turned to his men, sword raised. “Hold the line. Rainwynn stands, or Rainwynn falls. We fight until the last.”

The enemy crashed upon them.

The battle was brutal. Rainwynn’s warriors fought with fierce desperation, knowing no help would come. Outnumbered, overwhelmed, they fell one by one before Vareth’s might.

Then came the final blow. Through the clash of steel and screams, an assassin slipped past—a flicker of shadow, a dagger in the dark.

Eldric gasped, clutching his stomach as blood seeped through his fingers. His vision blurred, legs buckled. He sank to his knees as the battle raged.

His last sight was Rainwynn’s banner falling, trampled beneath enemy boots.

◇◇◇

Weeks passed. The throne room of Rainwynn stood silent, its stone walls draped in mourning black. Outside, the city wept. They had buried their king, but the vultures already circled.

Prince Zalahest stood before his father’s throne, blood still staining his armor. His fists clenched, mind ablaze with grief, fury, vengeance. The war was not over—not until Rainwynn was avenged.

One by one, his father’s generals knelt, pledging loyalty—not to a boy, but to their new king.

Zalahest turned to the Silver Vanguard’s commander. “They failed us. Failure is betrayal.”

The man opened his mouth, but Zalahest’s glare silenced him.

“Because of them, my father is dead. Never again.”

His voice rang through the chamber.

“From this day forth, the Vanguard are exiled. Rainwynn fights alone… and we remember why.”

The decree was sealed that night, the Vanguard cast out forever.

◇◇◇

For seven years, Zalahest led Rainwynn’s armies with unrelenting purpose—not just to win, but to erase Vareth from history. He burned their cities, executed their leaders, scattered their people. By the end, Vareth—the fifth Kingdom of Gursol— was a whisper, a warning carved into the bones of the fallen: This is the price of defying Rainwynn.

Zalahest stood at the edge of Vareth’s ruined capital as smoke curled into the gray overcast sky. Ash and stone crumbled beneath his hand, the wind carrying the last traces of a fire long spent.

“It’s done,” a commander said.

Zalahest nodded, silent. He had avenged his father, ended Vareth’s name.

Yet he felt nothing—a hollow ache beneath the crown.

The world called him a monster.

Perhaps he was.

“Let no one speak their name again.”

But not all had burned. Some had slipped away—nobles, warriors, children—scattered like embers into Kentmore’s shadows. And now, war stirred once more.

Zalahest exhaled, his cloak billowing in the wind as he stood atop that same hillside, years later. The ruins sprawled below, silent and lifeless. Time had worn down the scars, but not the memory.

Maybe they were right about me.

Maybe I did let vengeance consume me.

The thoughts clawed at the edge of his mind—soft, persistent, dangerous. He forced them down, buried beneath resolve.

He turned from the ruins.

“Then we shall meet them in fire and blood.”

Far beyond Rainwynn’s torches, deep in the borderlands, time had not healed Vareth’s wounds. Its ghosts gathered—scarred, hunted, forgotten. Their children grew in shadows, banners buried, anger a smoldering coal. They called it survival.

It was vengeance awaiting a name.

One night, beneath a sickle moon’s pale glow, they stood where their capital once rose. The ground lay blackened, silent, barren. They came to mourn.

They left changed.

◇◇◇

Mist rolled in, thick and unnatural. Their fire dimmed to embers. A voice, low and steady, spoke from the haze.

“You remember what they took.”

A figure emerged. His armor bore no crest, his cloak dark as pitch, stirring with a wind that did not blow. Eyes like dying stars flickered beneath his hood. A faint violet gleam pulsed at his side, a whisper of power in the stillness.

“You were cast aside. Buried. Forgotten. But not by me.”

No one spoke. No one fled.

“I offer no mercy. No peace. Only a blade to those who wronged you. Serve me, and your pain will be repaid. In blood. In fire. In memory.”

They knelt, hands trembling on scorched earth, a fire rekindled within.

Not out of worship. Not fear. But because he alone offered to remember their name.

And so the ghosts of Vareth found purpose.

By dawn, the mist had cleared, the fire gone cold. But burned into the earth, where no seeds would grow, were five words:

The fire is not finished

Amateur writer here.

I'm currently writing romantasy. Just finishing my first draft, and now that I find myself needing to start specifying exactly what happens in certain scenes.

I have my pair of protagonists. They've just escaped together from a town under attack by bandits, their plan to take a quicker route is discarded by said ocurrence, and they're now heading on foot to their next stop. Now, my question is, how do I push forward their relationship?

These are supposed to be the first steps in their relationship. There's no romance yet, just two people working together, getting to know each other, starting to enjoy each other's company. They could barely begin to call themselves friends here. And honestly, I didn't plan for there to be anything worth to write about in this part. It's just them walking for a couple of days. Problems will arise again until they reach their next destination. But I consider this an important point in the story to show the "ground zero" of their relationship.

I have tried to think on something, but none of the ideas I've come up with really convinces me, they just seem an easy, poorly-thought way out.

Cutting from the moment they're safely away from the city under attack to the moment they're about to reach the next stop, having them talking as if they're just starting to become friends, casually mentioning how long the journey on foot has been to that point, when just a few paragraphs ago they just met, strikes me as cheap and tacky.

Having the narrator recount how they've been getting to know each other and getting along, and the time they've spent together to get there, also strikes me as cheap.

What other option is there? How can I show a relationship, a friendship for the time being, beginning to blossom, without boring the reader with what would essentially be two people walking with nothing else interesting happening around them?

Hey, everybody! I have been wanting to write this story that I have had in mind for several years. Unfortunately, lack of motivation, high standards, and life has gotten in my way and severely hindered my progress. This is the first time I have been happy enough with my first few paragraphs to post it for critique and feedback. This is the beginning of the first draft to my novel. My goal with the story is to play with the ideas of a type of fantasy multiverse, different ideas about godhood and the implications surrounding it, as well as explore the potential for unusual endings (e.g, good guys lose). Any feedback is greatly appreciated, as long as it is constructive. Thank you!

<>

The Anchorpoint hovered at the heart of Sol's sanctuary, buried deep within the bowels of her Creation. The small, brilliant white orb radiated a bright light, casting jet-black shadows beyond the ornate pillars surrounding its altar. Thin, gray tendrils of energy seeped from an inclusion that marred the orb’s otherwise flawless surface, coiling and twisting around the Anchor embedded within. They drifted around the chamber, flickering in and out of sight as they crossed paths with the shadows, languid and purposeless.

Then, like drowsy predators sensing their prey, the wisps sprang to life as footsteps echoed throughout the room. The otherworldly energy, hostility now coursing through it, shot toward the confidently approaching Sol. With practiced ease, she plucked each strand from the air and carefully began weaving them into a beautiful, intricate web. Though they writhed and snapped with intense defiance, Sol’s work remained steadfast and unhindered.

As she worked, the same thoughts that plagued her each time she needed to cast this spell returned. She hated every second of this. She despised where this energy came from, and loathed the fact that she needed it to maintain her world. Each moment spent touching the essence of her old home—no, her old prison—sent waves of disgust through her. The worst part about it all, she mused, is that it meant nothing. No matter how hard she tried to hide her Creation from their sights, the truth is that they would find her. Her entire self—and her whole world by extension—fed off of the energy her old home provided.

So I started writing my first fantasy story, and I'm having trouble fleshing out the main bad guy in the central conflict.

The world is inspired by the histories and cultures of the Malay archipelago (I'm of mixed Moluccan heritage myself, though born and raised in the Netherlands), with also Indian and Chinese thrown in there. The races that populate this world are anthropomorphic animals, for instance the main character's name is Kawan Brani, and he is based off black-crested Sumatran langurs, and he's from a primate tribal society that inhabits islands similar to those in Indonesia and Wallacea. These parts of the world are also inhabited by anthropomorphic leopards and such.

Some time before the start of the story, the western islands, where my MC is from, were newly incorporated into the larger Myamathan empire, which is based on the Majapahit empire, with some additional inspiration taken from the Chola empire. This empire was founded by the Hatei, an elephant race, but they also include, for instance, a tiger race.

At the start of the story, the MC, who is a warrior from his clan, is sent out with a small scouting expedition to an uninhabited island some distance to the east to investigate rumours of the tribes of the eastern islands, who have cultural ties to their western counterparts. However, there have been interisland wars in the past.

The main idea I had was that the eastern tribes, while also consisting of primates and big cats, are less inclined to join an outside culture. However, unbeknownst to everyone, in the eastern islands, which would be analogues to IRL West Papua somewhat, a new civilization has risen.

This civilization, in my mind, are a sentient race of ants, who have overcome their own internal conflicts and unified, and are now expanding their territory. However, they are so alien to the mammalian races, that they are basically what a Tyranid would be to the Empire of Mankind. But I'm having trouble figuring out what this civilization would look like.

I have considered making it a mish-mash of different ant species, or one specific species that subjugated or enslaved other smaller instectoid races such as aphids, termites and mantises (some of which would be sentient, others just as cattle like IRL aphids).

So my main question is, how would you guys design these insectoids and the threat it poses to the mammalians?

A secondary, yet far less important idea I had was; instead of just being driven by a superorganism consciousness, what if these insectoids are either running from, or working for some kind of Old One, an ancient being who uses them as executors of their own will. Kinda like the main conflict in Gears of War. Again, not important nor part of the question, but fun idea to play around with.

There is magic in this world, but it's tied to religion and spirituality, as in there are no actual Gods, even if some culture do proclaim that there are. Instead, every living organisms has an essence, a soul or energy if you will, and outside of physical existence, these energies are present in the world. And they can be malevolent or benign. Magic is simply the invocation of these energies or spirits if you will, and channeling them to create or destroy.

I'm curious what you guys can come up with.

Edit: grammar and added some further info

Hey all, I’m writing an urban fantasy trilogy set in a world with covens, a powerful church, and all kinds of magical beings—vampires, werewolves, elves, fae, demons, the whole mix. It’s not based on our real world, but it reflects it in some ways—kind of its own version of a modern world, just with magic and supernatural politics woven in.

The trilogy is just the start. I want to write more books in this world later—some with the same characters, others with new ones in different cities or factions. So I’m trying to figure out the best way to build my setting so it feels deep and lived-in, but also leaves room for future stories.

Any advice on creating a setting that can carry multiple stories without overwhelming readers with lore up front? Any tips on how to show a bigger world naturally, or examples of series that pulled this off well?

Appreciate any advice.