when comes the dawn monthly update {12.2025} + year in review!
Can't believe it's been a full year of these omg.
THE STATISTICS FOR 2025
January: 6,008 words total / 501 words average February: 1,247 words total / 337 words average March: 5,027 words total / 503 words average April: 6,509 words total / 542 words average May: 2,399 words total / 343 words average June: 4,854 words total / 405 words average August: 1,293 words total / 340 words average October: 771 words total / 771 words average November: 2,110 words total / 528 words average December 850 words total / 283 words average
TOTAL WORDS WRITTEN IN 2025: 34,421 WORDS
# OF DAYS WRITTEN: 62 DAYS
TOTAL DRAFT WC: 52,176 WORDS
STORY NOTES
• So much worldbuilding. Soooo much worldbuilding I gotta establish in order to make the whole Lurs-e-Luran thing make sense, which in turn helps make Fenice and Nike's dynastic marriage make sense
• Naming people is hard yall (T^T)
• Overall, I think I'm about 80% done with act 1. I would say 90% but then I remembered that I changed where act 1 officially ends lol.
EXCERPT
While to glory of retaking Hesperian lands back for the empire was the main draw of Dantalion's campaign—as was the ones that came before his—the annexation of the new territories brought with it the rich lands of Lurs-e-Luran, a state occupying the southern point of Hesperia. Once upon a time, Lurs-e-Luran existed as two independent principalities, small in size when compared to its neighbors, but vastly wealthy thanks to its natural ports and location near the middle of the Iphegenian Sea facilitating bountiful trades. A long and complicated history of conquest, rebellions, dynastic marriages, and political negotiations resulted in the two principalities not only being joined into one state, but with multiple factions exerting their own 'traditional' claims upon the throne of Lurs-e-Luran.
From the old guard of the two principalities, to the crown of Hesperia, to the House of Soliece in Leohthal, there was never a time in the past few centuries where the mantle of power could transition in Lurs-e-Luran without the continent holding its breath for another conflict. Even the Aetierian empire during Saphynia I's reign, close as it was, considered claiming the lands for her own, but she couldn't afford the war with its neighbors when she was already occupied with affairs in the Notolis territories.
Where Prince Nikephoros factored into the tangled web of rival claims on Lurs-e-Luran can be traced back to his maternal grandmother, the lady Catalina di Surrina, who was adopted and chosen by the childless Prince Urphe III of Lurs-e-Luran to become his heir. The principality then entered Hesperian hands with the marriage of Ipollita di Surrina and King Pollux Deominos, and with their subsequent deaths, ownership of the land fell onto Ipollita's two remaining children: Isandros and Nikephoros. Should either die, the question of succession would open up once more, and give the Kingdom of Leohthal some much needed casus belli against the Empire.
It was fortunate then that the complicated question of Lurs-e-Luran had a relatively simple answer.
Happy new year everybody!
