#the firewalker

Soooo, I may have had another god/champion combo appear, and it's kind of an interesting one. You remember how I mentioned there might be a God who would pick Merle for the fun of corrupting her oh so noble morals? Yeeeaah, combine that with the lovely description of a space siren in @queerlilchinchin's The Fantastical World of Dreams and I ended up with a new God/Champion combo that's basically a siren goddess and her very bewildered, not at all happy with this situation champion. Their story doesn't really have a good cross section with the other chaotic god/champion duo which means I now have another story in the Forgotten Gods universe I'm probably going to write someday.

So Forgotten Gods is on the brain again, endless gnawing at my brainstem for attention, but I sorely need to buckle down and knock some Shackles of Time chapters out because once the December Book Dragon Challenge begins and people start completing the challenge, I'm going to have 0 time to work on any of my projects and as it is I don't have enough chapters banked up to even get through December, little alone my sure to be packed with art January.

I'm almost done with the rough draft of the final chapter of The Stormy Road Ahead arc in The Shackles of Time, so I'll be sinking my teeth into the second team's first arc soon. Merle, Arlen, and Night will still be the main focus of the series, of course, but I would be lying if I said I wasn't excited to get to play with my depressed elf druid, Drusilla, again <3

Now looping back to the original question you had - Firewalker magic types and their auras.

The auras are not exclusive to anger, pretty much any extreme emotion, sadness, too happy, ect; can do it. Anger is just the most prominent in the story since Valerian has the hardest time reining that particular emotion in. I don't blame him given the circumstances I put him in, and he's not the only mage to lose it because of anger in the story, but still.

There's different levels to each aura, and the stronger the mage the more powerful these effects are and the more dangerous they can be to the mage and the harder than are for that mage to rein in.

Fire - Begins with body temperature rising and the mage feeling their magic flowing without them pulling on it, continues on to heat around the magic user rising. The magic begins to feel like it's burning. Then flammable things around the mage, including clothing, may begin to catch fire. At this point the magic within begins to burn the mage. If they cannot get control, they catch on fire themselves and will likely die.

Water - Begins with the mage feeling like their skin is damp and magic flowing with out them pulling on it, continues to condensation on the skin much like a cold sweat. For some mages this is salty like the ocean and for others it is fresh water, depends on the god their power originated from. The humidity of the air around them then begins to increase and they feel like they've got water running down their throats or filling other parts of their body, this seems to depend on the individual. Continues on to water running off the mage and potentially causing internal damage or drowning. In cases of very powerful mages the area around them may become encased in a bubble of water.

Earth - Begins with mage feeling their magic flowing without them pulling on it and the ground beneath them begins to crack slightly. Continues onto the soil changing depending on the God that original granted the line magic, ranging from sand to rock to just loose soil. Continues onto the terrain beneath the mage changing, also ranges depending on origin of the magic. Uncontrolled magic flow begins causing internal damage. The ground will begin quaking beneath the mage and can tear open the ground beneath the mage, sometimes resulting in injury or death.

Air - Begins with the air around the mage subtly shifting and the mage feeling their magic flowing without them pulling on it. Air movement begins to strengthen and the mage feels something in their breathing change. Air currents grow stronger and more unpredictable, small whirlwinds and the breaking/moving of objects may occur. Progresses to mage having difficulty breathing due to air in lungs being affected and magic running uncontrolled through the body can cause internal harm, wind becomes too strong to move effectively through and in cases of powerful mages can even throw people around. Mage can be harmed by flying objects or lack of air. Ice - Begins with the body temperature dropping and the mage feeling their magic flowing without them pulling on it. Continues onto the temperature of the air around them dropping. Progresses to frost-like ice growth on the mage's skin and clothing. Temperature continues to drop and where the magic flows grows painfully cold. Surrounding area begins to frost. In case of strong mages ice crystals can form around the environment or grow off of them and the air gets so cold it's hard to breath. If magic is not controlled, mage's body temperature will continue to drop to dangerous and even deadly levels.

Lightening - The air around the mage begins to smell like ozone and the mage feels their magic flowing without them pulling on it. Static electricity begin to build up around them. The mage may begin to experience slight muscle spasms or jolts of pain next. Little flashes of electricity begin to dart around the mage's body and may lash out at random things, causing harm to others, start small fires, or harm the mage. The pain and spasms increase and the electricity grows stronger. In cases of powerful mages these may become very strong shocks that can kill, or seriously harm, things that get struck. During a storm, the lightening from the storm will also react to the mage's out of control magic and become more violent. If left unchecked, the mage can suffer great harm or death from the internal damage of the magic or the electricity.

Light - Body temperature rises subtly and the light around them grows brighter, the mage/knight/priest also feels their magic flowing without pulling on it. A light begins to shine behind the eyes next and the light around them grows brighter. Then, the light magic wielder may begin to feel a dull burning ache inside them as they begin to glow. Air temperature continues to rise as does body temperature and light brightness, magic wielder's out of control magic begins to cause internal damage. In particularly powerful mages, particularly flammable objects around them may begin to catch fire and looking at them may cause damage to people's eye sight. If left unchecked, the mage's out of control magic burns them out.

Darkness - Darkness is kind of a unique element in the set. It's the only magic type that doesn't have a direct means of attack or anything that it physically manifests besides shadows and darkness, and therefor how it manifests when the mage is experiencing intense emotion outwardly appears milder, but the out of control magic within is still doing internal harm like all of the other elements.

Begins with the light around the mage dimming slightly and the mage feeling their magic flow without them pulling on it. Continues to a more obvious gloom and the mage begins to feel discomfort as the magic flow begins to run wild. Progressed to a deep darkness and pain as the magic begins to cause internal harm. For particularly powerful mages this darkness can encase a large area. If left unchecked, the darkness continues spreading while the magic continues to eat away at the mage, causing significant harm or death.

And that's all of the magic types and what happens when they let their emotions run amok. It's worth noting that once a mage recognizes that their magic is moving without them pulling on it, which is just how I describe them consciously using their magic source, they usually stop what they're doing immediately and start meditating or finding another way to calm themselves down. Arguments with mages tend to stop when one or both of the parties are showing signs of their magic activating without the mage's consent and are put on hold until it's back under control.

One of the first thing mages are taught when their magic begins to manifest, assuming that they are around a more experienced mage when it happens, is control over their magic flow so they can suppress/gain control of these effects even while upset. Some have an easier time with it than others, though, and every mage has a limit to what they can handle before the magic slips.

~

As for new and specific world building details - Yes. Yes I do have some.

I have decided that there's a sparkly black Ocean in Forgotten Gods, see the first part about a siren goddess.

And I've been working out the details of Arlen's flow magic and some of the world's history as well as more information about Spirits and how they work in Forgotten Gods, and I've finally pinned down exactly what Cherrenth is.

An interesting thing I've learned is that flow magic can be corrupted. When it's corrupted it messes with flow casters' abilities to control their magic properly. They can call upon it easier, but hanging onto it for too long is very dangerous. You can learn more about this soon, if I'm remembering where you are in the story correctly >;)

Another interesting fact - There's an ancient order of mages in Shackles of Time's history that was dedicated to waging war on fiends, which means that the Mad War was not the first invasion that they fiends have staged through the shadow gates, which implies that they've been fully opened before in the past. Which is a fun world building detail that I've been having lots of fun playing with >;D

I have sadly also learned that there was an entire clan of wood elves that was nearly entirely wiped out by the Mad War, along with the spirits that they had lived alongside, but as an interesting side-tangent of that line of thought I discovered the wood elves have a large degree of cultural differences between the clans that partly depend on region and partly depend on what spirits they lived beside. We'll learn more about that when Drusilla and her team come in.

And that's all that's coming to mind at the moment. I'm sure there's plenty of newer details I have that are just slipping my mind right now.

Thanks for dropping by~! If you have more questions you know where to find me.

The Plight of a Sparrow is in the middle of a 2,000 year long war. There is all kinds of horrible things happening in this world that Sparrow is vaguely aware of but doesn't come face to face with until she gets into the thick of it in book 2. Slavery, battles, magic that will physically break you just for being born with it, cruel leaders, monsters that roam unchecked, gods that turned their backs on mortals, it is a lot bleaker and harsher than Sparrow had been expecting when she was reborn into it. I'd say it's up there on my list of most ruthless world.

My Ancestor, My Enemy is pretty brutal in the story itself, but as a world I'm not sure how harsh it is compared to the others since the general world itself is not fleshed out at all. The monsters are a constant threat, the elves have been driven to one small community after their ancestors' terrible, terrible choices, along with the general fantasy nonsense. The stress the elven hunters are under is certainly enough to break a person, but I'm not sure if the entire world is in so dire straights or if it got shifted to the elves.

Forgotten Gods has, of course, it's God nonsense. Like, for every protective god like Corona, every helpful god like Tear, and every harmless god like Eternity, there's an asshole god with tons of power and 0 damns to give. Some of them might even enjoy making mortals suffer. There are gods who just want to destroy everything. Then there's gods who are just using mortals to basically fight each other since fighting in person, so to speak, is useless since they are immortal.

The Firewalker is recovering from basically a holy war between the priests of the old gods and the priests of the new gods, so the mages, descendants of the old priests, are being hunted, if a holy knight senses magic in someone, they'll be killed. Even if they haven't awakened their powers, even if they've never hurt anyone, they will be killed. The mages are fighting back, in secrecy with equal brutality. And to top it all off, since they're busy fighting each other, criminals, like Sin, basically walk freely and run things in large cities. Normal people are losing all the way around, but the cycle of hate and revenge between the factions won't stop.

The Dragon's Crown's world is literally rotting. Food and resources are getting scarcer, more and more people are turning to crime, and the nobles are too busy fighting to fill the power vacuum left behind from the disaster that outcasted the royal family and broke the world.

Orion's Oblivion I don't have much of the world state, since it takes place over several planets and most of it happens on the ship I didn't need to flesh out a whole lot, but some places are ruthless others are pretty mellow.

The Shackles of Time is complicated because the threats and such vary throughout the series. But you know some of it, monsters, corrupt guilds, bandits, mages playing with lost magics without knowing that they are, rivalries between countries, guilds, and clans; places of raw magic that could affect you, a war with a literal God that they're still recovering from, and probably other threats I haven't come across yet.

So, yeah, pick your own flavor of awful there. So sorry if this shatters your view of my world ^^'

Rereading is my main go-to for refreshing myself when switching between stories, but it also helps that I'm usually thinking on them even when I'm not actively working on them so some things always stay fresh in my mind. But a key element to that is the distinctness in my worlds and characters is intentional.

I made this mistake once, and once was enough to make me go out of my way to not do it again. When I was trying to write Silver Tiger alongside The Plight of a Sparrow, some elements were too similar. Sasha and Sparrow start at a similar square, modern young women thrown into fantasy madness. Under achievers tired of their lives were now faced with new realities, and while their arcs go in opposite directions and their paths and situations are wildly different, they bled into each other because of those similarities. Some of the fantasy elements also started bleeding into each other and the worlds and characters got muddy in my mind. It was... a disaster. The drafts of both were almost unbearable to read once I got to the parts where I tried to write them alongside each other, so I put Silver Tiger back on the shelf. I will write it someday, just not until Sparrow is done.

But with each world being so distinct, it's a lot easier to separate them out in my mind and keep them from running together, particularly with the rereading to keep my mind fresh on them. It's part of why I don't do AUs with them, since I'm afraid that might muddy the details in my minds again and lead to another incident of the worlds melting on me.

Beyond that, there's not much else I can think of that I do to help me get into different projects as I switch through them.

So, I suppose I should start with my disaster children. Honestly, the only OCs I have who have their lives in even more chaos is the Dragon's Crown cast XD Even Kitan has his life more put together than these too, and he's a lost kitten lol.

Thistle, as you know, is an assassin turned traveling healer. She was raised in one of the major port cities of the lowlands. Her mother was killed by the knights of the new Gods and her father, a healer, disappeared on the docks on the day he was going to take her on a ship to leave the continent.

At the start of the story, escapes the crime organization that's been holding her captive ever since her parents' death/disappearance and forcing her to steal and assassinate people by poisoning a large number of the members and slipping out. It was, admittedly, her last resort after years of trying to find another way out. Unfortunately, the leader of this crime ring, a man only known as Sin, was not there the night she made her move and so she has to run for her life and keep moving to avoid his deadly daggers and remaining goons. She decided to become a traveling healer to follow in her father's footsteps, as he was a traveling healer before he married her mother and settled down. He's the one who taught about medicines to begin with.

Valerian was born in the Highlands in the middle of a remote forest. His mother lived alone and didn't have a partner, and he distinctly remembers the day she found him displaying signs of being a mage, she cried. Even though he knows that she too was a powerful fire mage. He suspects it was because she was a mage that she understood the tragic path his life was going to take. One day, when he was a young boy, holy knights came to their cabin. She managed to get him out of the way, but she and the knights ended up slaying each other in the battle, leaving Valerian alone in the world.

Before his mother died, she taught him many rules to live by. Trust no one, let no one see his magic and escape, that sort of thing. And he followed them to the letter, but the mage hunters and knights and priests still came and still found him. Eventually, growing sick of the fighting and the hiding, he decided to go to the lowlands, where his mother was born, to see if he could find the ocean and see it for himself at least once before he died.

They ended up crossing paths the night of her escape and after his latest battle with mage hunters went wrong. You could say that Val ended up being Thistle's first patient as a traveling doctor.

For Thistle and Valerian shenanigans -

Thistle frequently changes the name she calls Valerian by, and it drives him insane. He doesn't mind her giving him a nickname, but she keeps bouncing from nickname to nickname because she can't find one that feels right for him and the inconsistency is what annoys him.

They frequently pretend that he's her stand offish older brother to explain to people why they're traveling together.

Valerian often hears his mother's voice repeating her rules right before he let's Thistle talk him into breaking them.

Valerian's familiars, Anise and Talon, are quite fond of Thistle and it initially annoys Valerian because they literally trusted a stranger to watch over him at his most vulnerable and helped talk him into traveling with her.

Thistle often does the talking while Valerian just watches with astonishment at how easy she makes dealing with other people without getting attacked look. It must seem more like magic to him than his actual magic.

Speaking of, onto the magic -

Basically, no matter what the holy knights or priests of the new Gods say, magic is all the same. It originated from blessings given by gods to specific mortals.

Magic is hereditary. If both parents are magic users, the child likely will be one too. The chance is a lower if only one parent is a mage. It can skip generations and resurface later. But it also means that if a person is a mage, one of their ancestors was a god's favorite person.

Magic is also very elemental based. Every mage has their own element, and this also tends to be hereditary. Valerian's mother was a fire mage, and so is he, for example. If the parents are different elements, then the kid can pick up either element, but not both. Their kids, however, can be either of the grandparent's elements. So it is possible for a light mage and a dark mage to be twins, or a set of triples to have their different elements.

The elements are air, fire, water, earth, ice, lightening, light, and darkness. Mages can only use magic of that type, and usually what the magic can do is quite limited. Elements have nothing to do with a mage's personality. A calm person can be a fire element, a wicked person can be a light element, and so on. There also aren't set spells, it's more like bending is in Avatar: The Last Airbender, if that makes sense.

However, mages have a few things that benders don't. They create their elements, not just control them. A water mage can build a swimming pool in a desert if they want to. Mages can sense other mages and magic if they focus. They can also imbue items with magic properties. These can be more varied than the magic the mages actually wield, but have to be the same element. And finally, mages can have familiars.

When mages get attached to an animal or spend a lot of time with it, like say the family dog, part of their magic can transfer to that animal making them more intelligent and binding them to the mage. Valerian has two familiars, a pair of crows that are descendants of his first familiar, a female crow he called Co.

In the era of the old Gods, the element mages had depended on the god who originally blessed their family line with magic. For example, Valerian's line was blessed by a goddess of war and dragons, so it's fire.

The new priests/holy knights, however, only have light element magic. They also don't tend to have familiars, but they can still sense each other and other mages. Even if they don't call themselves mages.

A fun fact - Light and fire act very similar when used as magic in The Firewalker. They both burn. The main difference is how the energy is used. Fire is more heat and less light, while light is more light and less heat.

Another fun fact is that the Firewalker is my first nano project to actually reach the 50,000 word count goal. In fact I believe it's my only one to date that reach my nano goal. However, shortly after I hit the goal I struggled to work out the ending. I had to try and back off and try again a few times before I figured out how it all got resolved. I think the second draft will go smoother now that I know what's happening and where the story is going.

It was also a project where I was practicing POV switching. That was my entire goal that nano - figure out how switching between pov characters worked, which has turned out to be a very important skill for both Forgotten Gods and The Shackles of Time. Unlike Shackles and Forgotten, though, it's written in first person.

If you have more questions, or follow up questions on anything here, feel free to drop in anytime.