For context, I just finished chewing through The Vorkosigan Saga, which I thoroughly enjoyed and now have to cope with having finished. My other recent favorite series was the Realm of the Elderlings, which I also couldn't put down.

I've also recently read and finished WoT, and I unfortunately bounced off The Stormlight Archives after a few books, along with anything else from Sanderson I've tried to pick up. I also really enjoyed The Locked Tomb and Murderbot.

A little thank-you for @fivetail and @veggieblt, who played through Featherbent together on 4/13, and then the following stream went over some behind the scenes stuff from that last unreleased chapter.

Very often haha, I even repurposed some of the really really old ones into a new fantasy-apocalypse setting. I really want to talk about them sometime, but for now here's a ho-oh character I've been redesigning recently. His name is Malakbel. He's some kind of priest-government official u___u

Aster is a priest, and he worships at the temple of a local river spirit, who preaches pacifism and healing of the sick. During the trial he undergoes to prove himself worthy as a doctor within his priesthood, he runs out of food and nearly succumbs to starvation in the wilderness. When the stranger who appears to ferry his soul away takes pity on him, Aster believes he's been given a second chance, and insists on repaying the debt in any way he can.

Meanwhile the psychopomp Baltair had been tracking a powerful soul, when he finds it within a very weak and very mortal priest. Unable to harm mortals, and unwilling to watch him starve slowly, Baltair extends him mercy. Yet as Aster insists on travelling with him, the lure of such a powerful soul remains-- one which might help him pay his way out of gathering more souls for his demonic master.