The Third Genesis Books

Have you not heard those prophecies yet? I’m sorry. Seers often tell of the coming of people who are Vessels for the Will of the One. They are called ‘Aeons.’

-Hava, former archon of Kernun, current agent of the Rebellion

While many on the world of Ymir have come to understand that the gods who have long ruled over them are false, there are some who still hold faith in some higher power. As such, several “cults” have formed on the world of Ymir, and inquisitors loyal to the gods hunt all these heretical sects.

The sect that has proven the most resilient in the face of such persecution is The Cult of the One, or, as they prefer to be called, the Path of the One (or, in some circles, the Way of the One). These people believe in a single deity who is above the false gods, and who will one day judge the pantheon of Empyrean for all the evil they’ve done. Seers are usually the authors of the holy texts of this faith, and many of those holy texts speak of encounters with the mysterious beings called “Aeons.”

Aeons have usually appeared to seers but have also made themselves known to various truth-seeking individuals, coaxing them onto the Path of the One. Aeons have demonstrated magical abilities that even the greatest casters of Ymir cannot replicate. They often appear out of nowhere and vanish just as suddenly. They know things that, even with magic, they should not be able to know. They can pause time itself to teach important lessons to lost and weary souls.

Each Aeon clings to a certain color. Animus, the Aeon in Red, for example, wears a long red coat and has matching hair and eyes. The Aeons claim to be “Vessels for the Will of the One,” and when they act, they usually do so to protect those on the Path. Yet, for all their power, their interference in the affairs of the people of Ymir is minimal.

This has led skeptics who scoff at the One to say that the Aeons are nothing more than charlatans who know more about magic than most people. Just more false gods looking for pious servants. The Aeons usually counter this by saying the reason for their relative non-involvement is because they have no intention of becoming tyrants, and if they were to interfere too much, that would surely become their path.

At this time in Ymir’s history, not all of the Aeons have been revealed. Here are those who are currently known:

The Aeon in Red

Animus first appeared during the Second Age. He appears as a young man wearing a long, red coat with matching hair and eyes on a pale, freckled face. He usually carries with him a staff that looks like a twisted double helix. Animus is said to embody justice.

The Aeon in Green

Like Animus, Ra’hamim first appeared in the Second Age. Hunters described following their game deep into the woods and finding in a lone grove a woman who was one with a gathering of banyan trees. She demonstrated a deep connection with the forest itself, as well as with all plants. Time and again, she has guided the lost out of danger. She is said to embody mercy.

The Aeon in Blue

The first records of Eidolon’s existence come from the Third Age. The Aeon in Blue typically appears wearing a vibrant, blue robe, with hair, eyes, and skin to match. An azure mist often accompanies him, and he always floats just inches off the ground. According to the holy texts of the Path, the first encounter with Eidolon happened in an ancient adonium mine called “The Godsthroat.” For a time, Eidolon was claiming to be a god, Enlil the All-Father reborn. That was, until the Aeon in Red arrived and humbled him. After that, he joined the ranks of the Aeons, and built the city of Civitas Dei as a safe haven for truly gentle, peaceful souls. He is said to embody knowledge.

The Aeon in Black

Sonia is the most recent Aeon to appear, first making herself known in the Fourth Age. She appears as a little girl with black hair wearing an equally black dress. Often, she is seen playing with dolls, though the way she speaks suggests wisdom far beyond that of a child. Those who’ve encountered her have described the experience as “unsettling,” “frightening,” and sometimes “harrowing.” She is said to embody remorse.

The Aeon in White

Currently, her name is unknown, but some have taken to calling her “The Starlit Empress” or “The Future Queen.” Seers have had encounters with the Aeon in White since the First Age, but most sages of the One teach that she is yet to be born. Some sages have also suggested that when the prophesied Third Genesis comes to pass, the Aeon in White will be the ruler of all Ymir, a benevolent monarch installed by the One. Just what virtue she embodies is unknown, though some have suggested wisdom, purpose, or compassion.

Whether it’s Elvish, Klingon, or Dothraki, one big thing that people love about fantasy and science fiction settings is the array of fictional languages that exist in these settings. Tolkien was a linguist, so he was able to use his vast education on the subject to craft the languages in Middle Earth. Professional linguists also crafted the Klingon language from the Star Trek series, but I would argue that you don’t need to be a professional linguist to craft a fictional language for your world.

Here are seven steps to building a fictional language with relative ease.

Start By Picking a Base Language from Real Life:

If you don’t know all the rules of how languages work, it can be difficult to come up with new words and craft things like grammar and sentence structure. So, start by picking a real life language that, in some way, reflects the culture you are trying to portray in your world. If your fantasy novel has an empire that rules most of the known world, then perhaps a good base language is Latin or Mandarin Chinese. Bear in mind, you won’t actually be using this language as the fictional one, but you will be using it as the basis of what you’re looking to build. It helps if this is a language that you already know something about, but it’s not entirely necessary.

Google Translate Is Your Friend:

When writing a scene where certain characters are speaking in a fictional language, write out the bit of dialogue in English first. Once you’ve gotten down what you want your characters to say, copy what you’ve written and paste it into Google Translate, and translate it into the base language you’ve chosen.

Translate the Individual Words:

Once you’ve translated the whole phrase into the base language, open Google Translate again in another window and translate each word back into English individually. In learning what the individual words mean, you’ll learn a little something about grammar and sentence structure in that other tongue. If you keep this in mind, you can prevent your fictional language from simply having the same grammatical structure as English.

Alter the Words One at a Time:

Once you know what each word means, open a Word document, and start putting them one by one into the document. This Word document will serve as your dictionary, which you will build as you write. Obviously, you don’t want to leave the words as they are, unless you’re fine with your fictional language being identical to a real-life one. So, once you’ve got the dictionary built, go through and change just a few letters in each word. Change the consonants to alternative consonants and the vowels to alternative vowels.

You usually only have to make a few small changes in order to craft new words. For example, when crafting a language using Latin as the base, I needed a word that meant “we” or “us.” The Latin word for that was “nos,” so I changed it to “noth.” In another case, when crafting a language that used Hebrew as the base, I needed a word for “human.” I found that one of the Hebrew words for man is “Ysh,” so I changed the word to “Yash,” and had my word for human. For shorter and less well-known foreign words, you need only change one or two letters, but for longer words or for more well-known foreign words, you’ll need to change more letters.

Consider How You Want the Language to Feel:

Fictional languages are meant to invoke certain emotions. The Klingon language, for example, is meant to sound threatening. To accomplish this, it uses a lot of hard consonants, a lot of “K” sounds, and even the vowels tend to be guttural, and the sorts of sounds that could be made in the back of the throat. On the other hand, Parseltongue is meant to be the language of snakes, so it focuses on “S” and “Th” sounds. Consider what letters you want to make more common in your fictional language to give it the intended feel.

Consider Cultural Implications:

A culture’s language can reveal things about that culture, and it’s important to keep that in mind. One example is the Hawaiian word "aloha." In Hawaiian culture, "aloha" is more than just a greeting or a farewell; it more literally means “love,” “compassion,” “affection,” “peace,” and “mercy.” Similarly, the Hebrew word “Shalom” is used as a greeting but means “Peace.” In German the word for friend is “Freund,” while the German word for joy is “Freude.” These come from the same root words, showing how friends and joy are closely linked in the German mindset. The Rastafarian dialect uses the phrase “I and I” rather than “You and I” or “He and I” because it emphasizes the oneness of all humanity.

So, as you build your language, consider what the meaning of certain words might imply about the culture. In my Third Genesis series, I needed a Fiendish word for the Archons, who are the fiends’ traditional enemies. I had the word for enemy, “Mal,” and the word for sky, “Shah,” so, because archons can usually fly, I created the word “Mal’shah,” literally meaning “Sky Enemy” as the Fiendish word for archons. Similarly, when inventing a language for a culture of robots, I had to consider whether they had a word for “love.” So, as you build your language, consider what words might well have double meanings, or what words you can make minor changes to in order to invent a word with a similar meaning. In a militaristic culture, perhaps the term “friend” and the term “ally” are similar. Little touches like this will make the language seem more “real” and the world feel more lived-in.

Build as You Go:

You might be tempted to build the entire fictional language from the ground up before writing your story. I actually advise against this when you’re using this method for your language building. For one thing, the English language has hundreds of thousands of words. A study conducted by researchers at Ghent University in Belgium estimated that the average English-speaking adult knows around 42,000 words. Honestly, that is simply too many to build ahead of time.

So, write your story, and when you come to a place where characters speak a fictional tongue, stop and translate the specific phrases they are speaking into your fictional language, and build your dictionary over time. Then, as you write more, consult that which you’ve already written to craft conversations in that tongue. If you do it this way, you can even include the dictionary of the fictional language at the back of your book, and dedicated readers can go back and translate the phrases if they want.

The first robots to arrive on Ymir were those sent by Empyrean. They had no intelligence of their own, and operated merely as they were programmed. However, contact with raw, unrefined adonium caused them to gain sentience, and they tried to claim the planet as their own. Admiral Montu wiped them out, leading to the Genesis II Project, as headed by Dr. Nebo.

Some time during the Second Age, humans living on Ymir figured out how to use adonium to create their own automatons to assist in mining adonium. Rather than running on electricity, these automatons ran on the magic of adonium itself. Every automaton has an adonium core, which acts as the seat of its consciousness. However, not every automaton has free will or total consciousness. Many simply behave as their makers programmed them to behave.

Automatons are considered a servant class in human society. Most of them work in the mines, but some assist in day-to-day tasks. Some automatons might be bartenders, lift operators, woodcutters, or even soldiers on occasion.

The lifespans of automatons vary greatly. Some only last a few years before they break down and can no longer function. Others run for hundreds of years. There are even rumors of some who have survived thousands of years. Generally, as long as an automaton’s adonium core is still intact, they are still “alive,” though sometimes the damage to their bodies is so great that new frames need to be built for them.

Since automatons do not need some of the basic creature comforts, such as food and water, those that are paid are usually paid far less than humans. Even so, automatons often seek work because it makes them feel like their lives have purpose.

Sadly, in recent times there are some humans who have grown to resent and even hate automatons. The Skin and Bones society was formed around the basic idea that only beings made of flesh should be considered truly “alive.” Members of the Skin and Bones Society have been known to destroy automatons for the slightest offenses, or simply because of baseless hatred. They often wear parts of automatons they’ve killed as armor, intended to frighten any other automatons they might come across.

Since justice for these murders is hard to come by, some automatons have formed gangs, posses, or militias. This, in turn, has made many of their human neighbors nervous that automatons are about to rise up against them, and driven several right into the arms of the Skin and Bones Society.

Those automatons loyal to Empyrean usually pray to Shun as their patron deity. Since he is believed to be the god of stone and hard labor, their mythology says that he was the first one to create automatons, and has a special interest in their survival.

One of the most common problems that authors, especially new authors, complain about is how difficult it is to come up with good names for their characters. Over my many years of writing, I’ve developed a few ways to name characters in stories. Here are a few. Bear in mind, some of these pieces of advice are genre-specific.

Babynames.com:

The site babynames.com is a great source for names from different countries and cultures. You can also look up name meanings or look up the names by the letters that are in them. In general, I recommend against having two main characters in your novel who have names beginning with the same letter, as this can cause confusion. For instance, you shouldn’t have both a “Robert” and a “Roger” among your main characters, because readers will mix them up. Also, while name meanings can be important, I urge you to consider the other factors as well. How does the name sound when spoken out loud? Does the name have negative connotations because of famous people who shared the name (for instance, the name “Adolph” means “Wolf,” which might be cool for some characters, but I strongly recommend against using that name because of its association with a certain, hated historical figure). Also, consider what nationality a character likely has if they have a certain name. A Caucasian boy living in modern California should not have a name like “Shinji,” unless he happened to be raised by Japanese parents, just as a native Japanese boy living in Tokyo should not be called “Stanley.”

Historical Records:

If you are writing in a certain place and time period, it can be helpful to look up names from that place and time period to create your character names. For example, when I was writing my westerns, sometimes I’d do a Google search for names of people who lived I the Old West. Then, I’d take the first name of one person and the last name of another and put them together. One instance of this would be to take Billy the Kid’s real name (Henry McCarty) and combine it with the name of another Old West outlaw, John Wesley Hardin. Together, we get the names Wesley McCarty and Henry Hardin. If you’re writing a modern story, you can also do this with the names of people you know, or other interesting names you see and hear. When you go to a restaurant to eat, pay attention to the nametags of the people serving you, as you might find a name you really like there.

Mythology:

I recommend only using mythology as a source for names if you are writing fantasy or science fiction stories. If you write a modern murder mystery and your detective’s name is “Thor Odinson,” a lot of readers are going to roll their eyes. I’d also recommend not using terribly well-known mythological names either. Names like Thor, Odin, Apollo, Zeus, Horus, Osirus, Aphrodite, Artemis, Athena, Freya, and Isis are far too well-known to be used, unless you have characters in the setting specifically point out the namesake. Names Fenris, Morrigan, Dorian, and Mordred are also far too common, and their inclusion in fantasy might well pull readers out of the story (again, unless your intention is to specifically invoke parallels to these mythological figures). However, names like Nikke, Selene, Eris, Argus, and Dia are a little more obscure and are less likely to take your reader out of the story. You can also look up the etymology of these names and find alternative ways that they were pronounced and spelled, because names in mythology certainly changed over time.

The Bible:

I know, this one is a touchy subject for a lot of people, but bear with me. For one thing, a lot of names in modern America (and in the Western world at large) come from Biblical names. Peter, Matthew, Joshua, Caleb, Paul, Aaron, John, Michael, Luke, Thadeus, and many others all come from the Bible. You don’t need to have Biblical themes in your work in order to use these Biblical names, because a great many people named “Peter” came from secular families who just happened to like the name, or who wanted to honor a loved one who had that name. Also, if you’re looking for names that sound a bit exotic but also feel familiar, the names listed in the various “begat” sections of the Bible (where it’s just one name after another) can be helpful. I’d just recommend looking up what the name means before using it. I made the mistake of not looking up a name meaning once, and named a villain in one of my stories “Zadok,” a name which means “Righteous.” Those who knew the name meaning would likely either laugh at the irony or just consider me ignorant. Thankfully, I never finished or published that story. In any event, the Bible can be a great source of names.

Alter Real Names:

Sometimes when writing something futuristic, you don’t want real names for your characters, either from modern times or earlier, neither will mythological or Biblical names work in your futuristic setting. We can’t all be Frank Herbert, who’s coming up with such names as Muadib, Atreides, Harkonnen, and Feyd-Rautha, or words like Bene Gesserit, Kwisatz-Haderach, Ginaz, and Faufreluches. Some of us are a little too grounded in reality for that, and often overly-complex words and names such as these end up confusing our readers. So, in order to make a futuristic name, perhaps start with a real name that exists today, and then change a few letters. Maybe remove some letters, add others, and rearrange some. Just as popular names in the real world change over time (see the various ways of spelling such names as “Sean” and “Geoff”), so too would futuristic names change over the years. Even so, your main character probably shouldn’t have too exotic of a name. Maybe give the main character a name that’s one, maybe two syllables long, but spelled slightly differently from its modern equivalent. For example, you may want a main character named “Nick,” but in a futuristic story it might be better to spell it “Nyk.” Or perhaps you want to name your character “John,” and a futuristic version of that name might be “Chon” or “Jahnn.” In any event, changing or rearranging letters in an existing name can be a great way to make your character feel more fantastical or futuristic.

Ever since I first created the setting for my series “The Third Genesis” back in my senior year of high school, I have been asking, "How do I choose a genre for my book?" The question has persisted through the twenty years of working on this project, and I’m still not sure I’ve come up with the answer. So, if you’re like me, and you’re trying to figure out into which genre your story fits, maybe we can figure out the answers together.

I first thought of my Third Genesis series as a science fiction story, perhaps even what’s called “Space Opera” (the same genre as “Dune” by Frank Herbert, “Star Wars” by George Lucas, and “Ringworld” by Larry Niven. Like a science fiction or space opera story, it takes place in the distant future and features people from earth traveling to other planets and encountering alien creatures. It also features robotics, genetic engineering, advanced AI, psychics, and holograms.

But as the setting developed, I found that it was far more interesting to tell the stories of the people living on the planet Ymir. The various creatures of the world of Ymir were all genetically engineered by people from Earth, but they live in a primitive society that generally feels somewhere between Medieval and the Victorian Era. The world of Ymir is intentionally anachronistic, full of what the people of the planet call “magic,” and is often a place where swords clash against shields on grand battlefields. For this reason, I decided my book felt more like epic fantasy, battle fantasy, or military fantasy.

Then I had to go and add another wrinkle by adding in another race of beings that live on Ymir: automatons. In short, automatons are robots that are powered by the magical metal “adonium” that exists on that planet. Coupling this with several other magically powered pieces of technology that come up in the setting, I decided that my setting might well be closer to magipunk. I have another blog post helping to define that genre.

Then there are all the Biblical and mythological elements in the story. The archons resemble angels and fulfill a similar, though far more sinister, role in the story. The fiends were genetically engineered to look like various cultures’ ideas of monsters or even demons. Even the seers are, in some ways, similar to the prophets of the Old Testament, whom the people so often sought to put to death. This led me to think The Third Genesis might be Biblical fantasy or faith-based fantasy (as it is in the very name). Certainly, I have worked in lessons about virtue and seeking after goodness, while trying not to sacrifice story for sermon.

“Apostate Prophecy,” the first book in the series, heavily features a romance as part of the main plot, and so I came to think that the series might well count as fantasy romance or romantic fantasy as well.

Finally, I noticed that the overarching story of the setting ultimately reflects hope and a belief in goodness, rather than the despair of an indifferent universe that we so often see in the “Grimdark” genre. Thus, I came to think that The Third Genesis series is a “Noblebright” fantasy. There is a blog on this genre as well.

As of now, I haven’t completely decided what genre The Third Genesis most reflects. Some have suggested to me that it is an entirely new genre altogether. The funny thing is, I can actually think of a series of stories that have all of the elements I’ve listed above: the JRPG genre. Granted, that’s a video game genre, not a book genre, but bear with me. A JRPG, for those who don’t know, is a Japanese Role-Playing Game. Basically, these are video games that are heavy in story elements, usually send the main characters on an epic quest, and aren’t shy about borrowing themes from various religions and mythologies (including the Bible). JRPGs often have some manner of false god as the final, ultimate villain of the game, include a romance for the main character, and love to explore the relationships between different characters in the story. JRPGs also often feature a lot of anachronisms, such as having a main character who wields a gigantic sword, which he uses to cut down robot soldiers armed with machine guns. JRPGs also often feature airships, which similarly exist in the setting of The Third Genesis. JRPGs often have villains who look angelic, but are actually quite sinister (usually because they are not actually angels), and The Third Genesis has the same.

Last night, my wife and I watched the movie Die Hard for the first time. I know, I’m way behind the times. We enjoyed the pacing, the writing, the suspense, and the constant problem-solving exercises throughout the film. As a western author, though, it got me thinking, could it be considered a western?

Warning: There will be spoilers ahead for those few of you who haven’t seen the movie.

Now, I know that it’s missing a lot of hallmarks of the western genre. John McLane does not ride a horse through the whole movie, the film does not take place in an untamed version of the American West, and the time period is the 20th century rather than the 19th century.

Still, even with these common elements missing, Die Hard has a lot of elements one might expect from the western genre.

Let’s start at the beginning. John McLane is a policeman (a lawman) from New York who goes out west (to California) to reunite with his wife who moved out west seeking opportunity. One might say she’s not so different from the prospectors of the Old West, who went to California seeking gold. As western stories are often about redemption, John McLane must redeem himself in his wife’s eyes, making up for the fact that he previously failed to support her in her new career.

Then we’re introduced to the villains and their dastardly plot. They seize Nakatomi Plaza and take hostages, which is not much different from the classic bank robberies we see in so many westerns.

John McLane, therefore, becomes a lone lawman on the scene to fight against the outlaws, thwart their bank robbery, and save his beloved. The movie establishes early on that he cannot rely on the police to solve the problem, which plays into the western theme of being alone, secluded on a sort of “frontier,” where the outlaws have the upper hand. On those occasions when he tries to get the police to show up and help, he refers to them as “The Cavalry,” a clear reference to western tropes.

Of course, one cannot talk about this movie without bringing up the first conversation between John McLane and Hans Gruber over the radio. In it, Gruber accuses McLane of being an American who grew up watching too much television, deluding himself into thinking he’s John Wayne. McLane says he’s more of a Roy Rogers fan. When Gruber calls him a cowboy, McLane answers with the famous catch phrase that everyone knows and loves from this movie, “Yippee Ki Yay, Motherf***er.” While this is played for laughs, it’s also McLane establishing that, yes, he is a bit of a cowboy in this instance. Inspired by western heroes like Roy Rogers, he will stand up against evil even when outnumbered and outgunned.

Many of the best westerns are about what’s commonly called “The Dead Man’s Walk.” The hero knows his days are numbered, and that number may well be up soon, and this forces him to re-think his life choices and remember what’s really important. Similarly, McLane has a moment where he speaks with Sergeant Powell over the radio and tells him, “If I don’t make it out of this, apologize to my wife for me.” While McLane does not die at the end of the film, he is forced to face his mortality, and doing so causes him to grow. Though he comes out alive, he faces his Dead Man’s Walk (though, in the book Die Hard was based on, it’s hinted that the hero did not survive).

At the climax of the film, we even get an old-fashioned quickdraw showdown. Watch the scene where McLane limps into the room to confront Gruber while his wife is being held hostage and play over it the music from any western showdown scene, and you’ll see how well the two fit. We have two villains in the room and one hero. Both villains hold guns. The hero’s hand moves toward his pistol (only instead of it being in a holster at his hip, it’s taped to the back of his neck. In a flash, he outdraws both villains and shoots them before they have a chance to act. Yes, this movie even has a classic western climax.

“As someone who’s gotten sick of Warhammer 40K, this reminds me of what I liked about it when I first got into it.”

One of my fellow authors had this to say about my, The Third Genesis (3G) fantasy series at a writer’s group we both attend. I’ve known the man since college, and I was quite surprised. He was the one who introduced me to Warhammer 40K.

After that, I started thinking about the similarities between 3G and 40K, and was surprised at how many there were.

Both have false deities ruling over mankind in the distant future.

Both blend aspects of science fiction and high fantasy.

Both have seemingly unending conflict for the main characters to deal with.

Both also address such issues as the abuse of religion, inquisitions, and crusades.

The archons of 3G are comparable to the Space Marines and Sisters of Battle in 40K.

However, there is a certain point where the comparisons break down. While 40K is “Grimdark”, 3G is “Noblebright”.

So, for those who don’t know, let’s talk about these genres. Grimdark was a term invented specifically to describe Warhammer 40K. “In the grim darkness of the far future there is only war.” This was the slogan of the 40K setting, and the basic cornerstone upon which they built the rest of the franchise. The genre is based around the idea that, ultimately, there is no hope. In Grimdark, villains can win, heroes can fail despite doing everything right, and there is an overall tone of despair. The genre also often features morally gray (if not outright evil) main characters, with no true “hero” of the story. Some other popular stories that would be considered part of the Grimdark genre would include A Song of Ice and Fire (also known as Game of Thrones) by George R. R. Martin, The Prince of Thorns series by Mark Lawrence, The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie, and The Court of Broken Knives by Anna Smith.

Warhammer 40K exemplifies this genre to the highest degree, as it is clear from the lore that humanity is doomed. The emperor who rules mankind as its god and greatest protector is caught in a perpetual near-death state while seated upon his golden throne, and 1000 psykers (people with psychic powers) are sacrificed per day in order to keep him “alive.” Humanity has also largely forgotten how its spacecraft and other advanced machines work, and the heretical “tech priests” are the last vestiges of any knowledge of how to fix them. Soldiers who join the Imperial Guard are expected to die within the first day of military service, and are considered veterans if they actually survive that first day. In short, this is not sustainable, and the doom of humanity is inevitable in 40K. For this reason, it truly exemplifies the Grimdark genre.

Now, let’s talk about The Third Genesis (3G). The obstacles in the heroes’ path seem truly insurmountable. False gods rule over the world of Ymir, creating all manner of creatures using genetic engineering. These false gods come from Earth, and the story takes place in the distant future. They have abused faith and the concept of religion to enslave the populace and keep them firmly under their thumbs. The world of Ymir is currently in its Fourth Age, and what separates each age from the previous age is that the false gods wipe the slate clean and start again whenever they feel the world of Ymir is getting out of hand. To enforce their will, they have created the archons, genetically engineered winged warriors who put down all resistance, whom the people of Ymir generally revere the same way people from our world would revere angels. The archons have wiped out cities on numerous occasions, and many have survived the various ages of Ymir, and seen the world end multiple times.

Yet, for all this bleakness, there is still hope.

There are people called “seers” in the setting who are capable of seeing the future. These people are considered heretics, and those loyal to the false gods hunt them down, hoping to burn them at the stake. However, these seers have foreseen a time where the false gods will lie defeated, and the people of Ymir will see peace. This day, which lies on the distant horizon, is called “The Third Genesis.” There is hope for the world, an assurance that some day it will all get better. They don’t know when, and they don’t know what they’ll have to go through to get there, but that day is coming.

Couple this with sincerely good-hearted characters who strive to do what’s right, and you have a story that falls squarely in the Noblebright genre.

Noblebright is a genre that has been gaining popularity recently. It is very much the opposite of Grimdark, in that it is full of hope, shows good overcoming evil, and has sincere main characters. That’s not to say that the main characters are perfect, or even that they never make mistakes or do wrong things, but rather there is a general movement toward greater goodness in the setting. Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien is the most classic example of Noblebright. Warprize by Elizabeth Vaughan, The Wizard’s Tale by Kate Busiek, and A Promise of Fire by Amanda Bouchet also fit into this genre. These days, it seems more and more people are getting tired of the Grimdark genre and want to see hope and goodness again.

Magipunk (also called Magepunk, Spellpunk, Aetherpunk, or Dungeonpunk) is a genre of fantasy taking place in a world where all the technology runs on magic. Combustion engines in such a setting may only work because of fire elementals inside, or instead of telephones people may have circlets that allow them to communicate telepathically with someone far away. In such a setting, magic is not some mysterious force, it is a science that has been honed to make life easier.

The roots of magipunk can be traced back to a blend of genres, primarily fantasy, steampunk, and cyberpunk. Elements of high fantasy, such as wizards and magical artifacts, are paired with the gritty, dystopian settings typical of cyberpunk or steampunk. The resulting genre is a captivating fusion of the supernatural and the mechanical.

Like its parent genres, magipunk often explores themes of power, corruption, and the human condition. Characters navigate a world where magic is both a blessing and a curse, where technology brings progress but also danger. Furthermore, such technology often raises questions such as “just what makes us human?” and “Even if someone is not human, can they still be a person?” These themes are often underscored by rich world-building, intricate plots, and captivating character development.

The appeal of magipunk lies in its ability to blend fantastical elements with familiar settings. A wizard may walk with a staff and wear a pointed hat as he walks into a private detective’s office. Lightning elementals powering a city’s grid might cause a major crisis when they go on strike. A dark lord may rise to threaten the world with his army of steam-powered robots. It offers a fresh take on traditional fantasy tropes while exploring themes that resonate with modern audiences.

Some popular books that fall into this genre include “Mistborn” by Brandon Sanderson, “Mage Against the Machine” by Shaun Barger, or “The Iron Druid Chronicles” by Kevin Hearne.

Humans are, by far and away, the most numerous species of the world of Ymir.

Dr. Nebo of Empyrean used cloning and genetic engineering to create the humans of Ymir, a fact that the majority of humankind on that world is unaware. The way most of them understand it, Nyx created them specifically so that they could mine for adonium, with the promise that once they gathered enough adonium they would see an end to all suffering.

Most of the humans of Ymir live in the various nations of the world. While their primary purpose is mining, the majority of humans do not mine, but rather spend their time supporting the mining operations in a number of ways. Some grow food on farms, some cut wood in the forests, others travel across the known world trading goods, etc. Whatever their professions, they are most often paid in seleni coins, of which they are expected to give half to the local temple.

All humans have some ability to sense adonium, though for most it is an unconscious ability. Those who work in the mines hone this ability and use it to find veins of adonium ore. Some miners have also crafted automatons to assist them in their digs. Often when exposed to unrefined adonium, humans will suffer magical maladies and thus become “cursed” in any manner of strange ways.

In addition to the settlements on the surface, some humans have created whole cities underground, which allow them to delve ever deeper into the mines for adonium caches. Often when they dig that deep, they find vast cities under the soil which were built in the previous ages of Ymir. Legends abound of the treasures one can find in these ancient ruins, and some humble miners have become nobility because they uncovered some vault or another.

Those humans loyal to Empyrean often live in fear of the various clans of fiends surrounding their lands, and they look to the archons for protection. Granted, they are often just as fearful of the archons, for while archons are meant to be their protectors, they have also wiped out human villages and even whole cities when they proved impious.

While the primary purpose of humankind is labor, many have also turned to serving the gods in other ways. Some become clergy and direct the others in worship. Others become holy warriors, dedicated to upholding the will of the gods, whether as crusaders, zealots, or ghaji. Then, of course, there are those who govern the various human nations across Ymir, and those dedicated to upholding the law of those governments.

In the hierarchy taught by the priests of Empyrean, humans are considered to be below the archons, but slightly above automatons. Those humans serving in the Rebellion generally do not believe in such a hierarchy.

Of all the species living on Ymir that the false gods of Empyrean created, the fiends have had it the hardest. Though Dr. Nebo created them using genetic engineering, just like he created the archons and the Ymirian humans, the mythology spread around was that they had been created by Sygin, the goddess of darkness. The false gods teach that the fiends are born evil, and for a long time even fiends believed this to be the case. Many still do.

Fiends come in a variety of shapes and sizes. Most have generally human appearances with a few animal features added, such as horns, wings, hooves, antlers, or claws. Their lifespans are roughly twice as long as a human lifespan, and they age at half the rate. This means that fiends are only considered adults when they reach about 40 years of age, and are children well into their twenties.

Generally, fiends live in places where they are shielded from the sky. Many live underground, in dense forests or jungles, or even under the ocean. They have various clans, and there are six fiend nations, each ruled by a fiend king or queen. One such fiendish nation is Strata Citadel, a flying city that was once an archon settlement. There are also the kingdoms of the Obsidian Mountains, the Crystal Caves, the Fae Tribe, and the Yesod Emirate.

Some fiends can blend into human society, remaining undetected. Sangrels look mostly human, except for their snake-like fangs. Deceivers can shapeshift and change their appearances. Dreila appear as if they are made of shadows and have a gift for remaining unseen altogether. However, fiend blood is black instead of red, so even the smallest cut or scrape can give them away. There are also some people who have been trained to detect fiends. Fiend slayers, for example, drink fiend blood for the strength it gives them, and can smell them.

Fiends make up the bulk of the Rebellion’s forces. While in Prometheus City, the various races generally live in harmony, in other lands the fiends tend to mistrust archons they come across. This mistrust is not unfounded, as archons have exterminated fiend settlements time and again.

Most fiends tend to be non-religious, but some seek spirituality and faith to enrich their lives. A minority seek to worship Sygin, as their ancestors did. Many others turn to worship the One, the sun, or certain individuals believed to have achieved “True Enlightenment.”

There are also some fiends who, strangely enough, serve the gods of Empyrean. These “Repentant Ones” will often cut off their own horns or otherwise mar their more “monstrous” features, and fiercely dedicate themselves to the service of Empyrean in the vain hope that they will be forgiven their basic nature.

In our last blog, “How to Put Words in Your Book: 5 Tips to Actually Start Writing”, we discussed a common problem with writers and aspiring authors: the difficulty of actually getting words onto the page. All the methods mentioned in that blog are certainly helpful, but there’s another problem that writers often run into, and that’s losing momentum.

Stories operate on momentum. One event leads to another, which leads to another, and builds to a climax, followed by a resolution. Writing stories operates the same way. For the writer to keep interest in the story, the writer needs to keep up some momentum in its telling. Too often, writers will start off a story which has them excited, only to later run out of ideas or lose interest. Here are some ways to avoid that sort of burnout and keep the momentum going.

1 - Make Playlists:

In the previous blog I mentioned listening to music as a means to gain inspiration. While this is helpful, it can be more helpful if it’s music that you’re returning to repeatedly. Make playlists on Youtube, Spotify, or even on a burned CD, if you’re old-fashioned. There should be lists of songs for specific characters, specific kinds of scenes, and for specific settings. Going back to those songs can then bring you back into the mindset you were in when you wrote the previous scenes, and thus help you to come up with ideas for what comes next.

2 - Set a Minimum Word Count Average Per Day:

This one is not as easy as the first suggestion. It requires a great deal of self-discipline. What we need to understand is that Stephen King, one of the most successful authors of the last one-hundred years, writes an average of 2,000 words a day. While this may seem unattainable to some writers, please note that Ernest Hemingway wrote an average of 500 words a day. Sometimes when I’m having trouble with a novel, I’ll make that my minimum average word count. Granted, there are some days where we cannot write because life gets in the way, and that’s understandable, but on those days that we can write, we need to set minimums for ourselves. If 500 is too much for you right now, I would suggest making it at least 100, and seeing how you can build up to it. Alternatively, you can also set aside a specific amount of time each day to sit down and write.

3 - Reward Yourself for Writing:

Whether writing your book is your job or your hobby, there’s no denying that it’s work. It’s work to write a book. You must think hard about what happens next in the story, what words to use, and what dialogue makes sense for the characters. Then there’s all the research you need to do, often on the fly, to make it feel realistic. It’s important to reward yourself for a job well done. That reward may take any number of different forms. Maybe the reward will be food, like a sandwich or some ice cream. Maybe it will be playing a video game, watching a movie, or reading a book. Maybe it’s just spending time with loved ones for a while afterwards. The point is, create a reward for yourself, and keep in mind that you are working toward that.

4 - Outline Your Plot:

This one works best when you do it from the beginning. When you start your project, it’s good to map out what you want to happen through the course of the story. That way, you’re never left thinking, “What will happen next?” Now, this outline can be as specific or vague as it needs to be. I understand some writers are “gardeners,” who just sort of let the story take on a life of its own as they go, and other writers are “architects,” who have to plan out every little detail ahead of time. That’s fine. The former category benefits from vague plot outlines while the latter benefits from more specific ones. The point is to have a plan, and to know what steps you are trying to reach. The best news is you don’t need to come up with the structure of your outline wholesale. You can use the Hero’s Journey as a basic guide. The Maiden’s Method is also helpful in that regard.

5 - When Stuck, Talk to a Friend:

Most writers have artistic or creative friends of some sort. If you don’t have any friends like that, I recommend finding some friends who are fellow storytellers. Iron sharpens iron. When you get to a place where you’re not sure what the very next step in a story is, talk to your friends about it. Bear in mind that the more this friend knows about your story the better, but they don’t necessarily need to be skilled in your particular genre. If you’re writing a fantasy novel, sometimes it helps to get the perspective of someone who writes murder mysteries or romance novels, just to get an outsider’s perspective. This can help the ideas feel fresh and new, as all too often writers feel like they’re just repeating what everyone else has done.

These are just a few things that can keep the creative juices flowing. All of them have certainly worked for me, and you can check out just how many novels I’ve written via this link.

The world known as Ymir has gone through many different changes over its several thousand years of history. Some parts of that history have been lost entirely, and some have become legend. Because the false gods of Empyrean have wiped the slate clean multiple times, periods of thousands of years between each Apocalypse are referred to as “Ages.”

The Vernert Age:

Before Empyrean discovered the planet of Ymir, a species of arthropods dominated the world. These creatures came to be known as the “vernert.” It’s unknown how long these creatures reigned over Ymir, or if they actually came from the planet or from some other place. Their constant contact with the raw, unrefined adonium of Ymir gave them all manner of strange abilities, including teleportation, time travel, and self-duplication. When Empyrean first decided to take the adonium for themselves, Admiral Montu wiped most of them out, driving the survivors deep underground and even across time itself.

The Robot Age:

Before the Genesis II Project and the official “First Age” of Ymir, Empyrean tried to employ robotic workers to mine adonium for them. This age was fairly short, as contact with raw adonium caused the robots to gain sapience, and they decided to keep the precious resource for themselves. Like the vernert before them, they were exterminated. Unlike the vernert, as far as Empyrean knows, there were no survivors. This age lasted only fifty years.

The First Age:

The Genesis II Project started the official First Age of the history of Ymir. At that time, Seth had not yet started the rebellion, and the fiends were divided up into several savage clans, which fought amongst themselves as much as with humans and archons. While the false gods oversaw the world overall, they appointed a king to rule the world on their behalf, an archon named Lugal. Lugal was a special kind of archon that has not been recreated since: a Titan. Through him, all the false gods spoke to the other archons, and through them they spoke to the common people.

It was in this time that the mysterious Cult of the One was formed, the true history of which has been lost to time.

During this first age, a man named Rossum created the first automatons, as well as a language by which he could communicate with them. There were also some fiends who gained masses of human followers, starting cults of their own. Eventually, Lugal himself decided he could do the same, and called upon those under his command to treat him as another member of the pantheon, before eventually declaring himself Enlil’s Heir. As the people of Ymir paid their tithes to him instead of to the gods of Empyrean, this led to the end of the First Age in another Apocalypse. The First Age lasted roughly 3,000 years.

The Second Age:

The first century of the Second Age saw the birth of Seth’s Rebellion. Disgusted by everything he saw at the end of the First Age, Seth decided that he could no longer take part in Empyrean’s wickedness. He gave sigils of power to six worthy fiend warlords, who became the kings and queens of fiendkind. It was during this age that he built Prometheus City in a secret location. Even those living there do not truly know where the city is, only how to get there.

The false gods of Emyprean decided that the best way to respond to this threat was to get the people of Ymir more personally invested in the conflict. They learned of a young man named Will who’d grown up in a farming village and had lost his family in a fiend attack. They sent an archon named Samesh to tell him that the gods had anointed him for the purpose of destroying all evil and bringing about an age of peace. For this purpose, Will took his plowshare to a smith to be turned into a sword, and Samesh imbued the blade with powerful enchantments. Little did Will know, he was not, in fact, to be the hero that Samesh told him he would be. Once he’d gained a great enough following, the Samesh delivered Will to the fiends to be killed.

With their hopes for a peaceful future dashed, the people of Ymir rose up in a holy war greater than anything the world had seen before. Millions of fiends, humans, and automatons fell in the battles that followed. This was when the Crusader, Ghaji, and Pandava orders began. For proving his loyalty through this plot, Samesh became known as Helios, and was appointed as Nyx’s Grand Archon.

A thousand years after the death of the first Anointed One, political turmoil swept the lands of Ymir. Nations and tribes fought each other over land and wealth. To unite the people and put a stop to these wars, the archons selected a young woman named Odelle as their “Scion.” They raised her up from the surface world to live in the heavenly cities for a time, before returning her to the surface with a promise that they would support her in a bid to become empress of all Ymir. With their help, she united Ymir for a time, but when this once lowly peasant woman gained a taste for power she became a tyrant.

By the time Empress Odelle saw her first gray hair, countless citizens of her empire had turned to the Rebellion. Within a few years, her empire crumbled, and the false gods of Ymir initiated another Apocalypse. The Second Age lasted around 4,000 years.

The Third Age:

Despite the false gods’ best efforts to destroy the Rebellion, Prometheus City and the six fiend kingdoms survived. The mere fact of the previous Apocalypse emboldened the Rebellion’s forces, but they knew they had to lay low until they had the best opportunity to strike. Most of their efforts to defeat the false gods were conducted in secret. They recruited whomever they could, rescuing people from Inquisition dungeons or slaver prisons.

In time, Seth revealed to those in the Rebellion a device called The Aegis: an invention he’d created which would protect the skies over Ymir and prevent the false gods from bombarding the planet from. The problem was that the Aegis’ reach was relatively local. It could not protect the whole planet at once but could only shield certain areas. Thus, it became the mission of the Rebellion to convince the nations of Ymir to accept having an Aegis built in their lands to protect them from another Apocalypse.

A young king named Sulaiman, who frequently prayed to Anu for wisdom, worked with gifted enchanters to invent new ways to combat evil. In time, they created rings which could capture fiends within a red gemstone, allowing them to later be called out from those stones and forced to do the wearer’s bidding. With these enchanted rings, King Sulaiman’s armies conquered all of Ymir and destroyed the Aegis that had been erected in various nations. At the height of his power, the Rebellion forces rarely left their homes, and King Sulaiman was the richest king who ever lived. In time, the people of Ymir began to give all the adonium they mined to this new protector rather than to the temples.

All this wealth and power caused hubris to grow in Sulaiman’s heart, and he declared himself the Son of Anu, a demi-god. The Grand Archon of Anu went to confront him about this lie, and Sulaiman responded, “I have brought peace and prosperity to all of Ymir. Through my wit and wisdom, I have defeated all evil. Not even the gods have managed that. If I am not a demi-god, then I am something more.”

As they had done many times before, the false gods caused another Apocalypse. Legions of archons waged war on King Sulaiman’s kingdom. Seth managed to protect a few regions with the Aegis, but everything else was destroyed when the false gods bombarded the planet from space. The Third Age lasted for 1,000 years.

The Fourth Age:

Axtin Seth, who had long been a judge in the Empyrean Corporation’s courts, became the “God of Justice” over the world of Ymir at the start of the Genesis II project. Despite Seth’s personal spiritual beliefs, his friend Dr. Nebo convinced him that doing so would allow him to guide the people of Ymir to a bright future. “Just think of what you could do with so many minds to mold! You know what justice is. To them, you truly will be as a higher being imparting your knowledge to them. Would you not call that divine?”

With this and similar arguments in mind, Seth presided over the courthouses of Ymir for thousands of years in the First Age. It was during that time that he became romantically involved with Lady Jynna Ashtoreth, who had been made Emyprean’s “Goddess of Love.” Many heroic souls of Ymir dedicated themselves to Seth’s service and passed on the teachings of his holy texts.

However, over the course of those millennia, he started to take issue with certain aspects of the project. During one of several purges of fiend settlements, he witnessed a mother fiend shielding an infant with her own body. At first, he thought this a fluke, and second-guessed what he saw. Unable to rest, he sent his avatar, disguised as a fiend, to spend some time among the lowly creatures. Through this, he discovered that these creatures were capable of compassion and morality.

With this information in mind, he confronted Dr. Nebo, demanding to know why the genetic engineer had not made the fiends as monsters of pure evil. Dr. Nebo responded that he knew of no genetic code that could make any creation wholly wicked. This caused a major crisis of conscience for Seth, who barely ate or slept for weeks. Even Lady Ashtoreth was not able to improve his mood.

During that first age, a certain archon named Lugal became the object of worship by many people on Ymir. This archon had declared himself Enlil’s Heir, destined to take up the mantle of the Father of All. Countless multitudes from among the people of Ymir, and even many of the other archons, flocked to his new temple to worship him. Many declared that he was Enlil come back from the dead. Most of the adonium that had once been paid to the gods went to Lugal instead. From these new stores, he had his faithful construct the Everlasting Tower. This twisting spire was not merely a testament to his power, but rather made him formidable even to the gods of Empyrean.

For stealing their followers and their precious adonium, the false gods led an attack on Lugal and his faithful. Their starships unleashed such firepower on the world of Ymir that by the time it was done, only a tenth of the world’s population remained. The “Everlasting Tower,” it seemed, would not live up to its name, and Lugal was lost in the apocalyptic fires.

Following the planet-wide massacre, Dr. Nyx assigned Dr. Nebo to immediately begin replenishing the population. This was the last straw for Seth. In his mind, the project was a failure, and they should have cut their losses. Instead, they were doubling down. This time, he confronted Dr. Nyx.

“After all that we’ve done, all that we’ve seen, how can we continue to pretend to be gods to these people?” Seth asked.

Dr. Nyx smirked at him. “Pretend? Axtin, haven’t you realized by now? We created them and crafted their world. When they prayed to us, we answered their prayers. And when they turned on us, we ended their world. My friend, we’re not pretending at all. We are their gods!”

Only the strongest willpower that Seth could muster prevented him from attacking his employer in that moment. He left that day knowing what he had to do. He had to tell the people of Ymir the truth.

Yet, by the time Seth traveled to the surface in person, the other gods had already spread word of a betrayal. The people ran and hid at his presence, for they had been told he was a fallen deity. A god of chaos.

Unable to convince the human population of Ymir that he was not the enemy, and with only a third of the archons under his command ready to join his side, he turned to the fiends. It was for their sake, after all, that he’d first begin to question what Empyrean was doing. Having long been told that they were simply born wicked, and that their creator was dead, the fiends were all too ready to believe something else.

The archons are those creatures genetically engineered to act as servants, messengers, and warriors of the false gods. By those loyal to Empyrean, they are considered above humans but below the gods in the hierarchy. Each of the false gods has a High Archon or a Grand Archon who leads the others.

Most archons live in cities that float in the skies above Ymir. The cities are made to be beautiful, often made of marble and decorated with gold. Some also have gardens, parks, and even vast forests in their midst. From these cities, they enforce the will of the false gods, whom they believe to be truly divine.

While most archons look like humans with feathered wings, they have a variety of other appearances as well. The ookami are a type of archon that resemble wolves with gleaming white fur. Ursarths are archons that resemble bears that walk upright like men and have brass or golden colored fur. Houri resemble women with gazelle horns and bewitching eyes. Ryu have long, serpentine bodies and are covered in metallic scales. Apkallu often have the head and talons of a bird, in addition to the wings, on an otherwise human body. Chayot are the strangest looking archons of all, for they have the head of a lion, the horns of a ram, a human torso, wings like an eagle, and a lower body like that of a lion, with all four legs.

In addition, there are some types of archons who have more than just two wings. The seraphim, for example, have six wings with eyes on them. Fravashi only have two wings, but also have tail feathers. The muut, who are natural-born assassins and are also called “Archons of Death,” have four wings, usually with black feathers.

Rather than live birth, archons hatch from eggs. The eggs start out small, but as the infant archon within the egg grows, the eggs get bigger, and eventually hatch.

When Nebo created the archons, he knew that if he made them ageless and gave them the same fertility rate as humans, this would cause them to overpopulate Ymir within a few generations. So, he made it so that roughly one out of every one-hundred archons would be fertile.

Since a fertile archon is not always fit to raise their own children, archons do not have the same family structures as humans do. When an egg hatches, the child is placed in the care of what is called a “memitz,” which translates to “mentor” from the Archonic tongue. One memitz may raise up to ten children at a time, and each memitz is specifically trained to raise children and be a good teacher to them. Occasionally, two or three mentors will work together to raise a group of children, but usually they work alone.

All of this is true in the archon cities, where they are loyal to the false gods, but those archons who have joined Seth’s Rebellion are not bound by so many rules. In Prometheus City, the capital of the Rebellion, there are archons who do raise their own children. There have been several instances where an archon mother has realized she was with child, and rather than give up her egg to be raised by someone else, she has fled to join the Rebellion specifically so that she could raise the child herself. Sometimes, this happens for couples, with both the mother and father joining the Rebellion together for the sake of being a united family.

There is a problem among a great many writers and aspiring authors: so many of us never actually put any words into a Word document. Some writers will spend years developing a story idea. They’ll think of everything; the world-building, the characters, moving scenes, but never actually sit down to write the story.

Sometimes this comes from a lack of confidence. Writers think, “What if my story isn’t good enough?” These writers need to realize that the only thing worse than a bad story is the story that’s never written at all. For other writers, the reason why they can’t seem to actually get anything written is because while they know where the story has to go, they don’t know how to start. For still others, the problem is simply a matter of motivation.

Here are five tips to help you get your story rolling:

1 - Read the Opening of Someone Else’s Novel.

Sometimes, it can be hard to know what sorts of details to introduce first in your story. Do you start with a physical description of the character? A quote? A scene with characters in peril? Seeing how other authors started off their books can be helpful in this regard. I’d recommend reading the opening of a novel in a different genre from the one you’re writing. That way, you aren’t tempted to borrow too heavily, and can focus on putting out your own material.

2 - Listen to Music.

My wife and I developed this game that we sometimes play that utilizes her skills as a musician and mine as an author. I’ll sit or lie down on the couch with my eyes closed, and she’ll start playing an original, improvised piece of music on the piano. As I listen to the tune, I’ll start to describe a scene that the music brings to mind and tell a short story. Similarly, whenever I sit down to write one of my books, I listen to instrumental music that’s appropriate to the story I’m working on. I recommend that if you choose to use music to inspire your writing, you make sure it has no lyrics, as your writing may start to reflect the words you hear. I also recommend not using music that you associate with a particular scene. For example, when I tried writing while listening to “The Barber of Seville,” all I could see when I closed my eyes was Bugs Bunny shaving Elmer Fudd. You want music into which you can put your own meaning.

3 - If You are Spiritual, Pray or Meditate.

This piece of advice is pretty simple. If you are a spiritual or religious person, then before you write take a moment to stop and either pray or meditate. There’s a reason the Greeks thought goddesses called “muses” inspired art. The right side of the brain is associated with creativity, intuition, and spirituality. So, activate that side of your brain by doing something spiritual. Personally, when I was writing the first novel in my Third Genesis fantasy series, I prayed every time that “words would flow from my fingers to the page.” Most days, I wrote around 3,000 words in that book.

4 - When Stuck, Get Up and Walk.

You’d be surprised what even the tiniest amount of exercise can do for you. Do you have stairs in your home? Walk up and down a few times. Do you have a stationary bike? Ride it a little. Any form of exercise, however small, can get your mind going.

5 - Act Out the Scene.

Do you know your characters well enough to know how they speak to each other, what their goals are, and what they want out of life? Then play pretend for a bit, as you might well have done when you were a child. Improvise the scene, and pretend that you are all of the characters in the scene engaged in a discussion or struggle. You may find that you’re not good at improvising their dialogue, but that’s alright. When you say it out loud, you’ll get a better idea of what’s natural conversation. You’ll also gain some insights into what the characters would or wouldn’t do, based on what they want.

Dr. Jaleah Liita of the Empyrean Corporation once said that she could study adonium for 20,000 years and never fully understand all its strange properties and secrets. The metal is only found either on Ymir or otherwise in its specific solar system. Some of the asteroids, comets, moons, and dwarf planets in the system contain it, but it’s most highly concentrated on Ymir.

Despite constant mining for thousands of years, the supply of the metal has not depleted, or even diminished, which led Liita to believe that the planet is somehow replenishing this resource.

In its raw form, adonium is chaotic and unpredictable. Its effects can cause strange transformations and maladies, and even warp the landscape in strange ways. However, once refined, adonium conforms to the will of the one wielding it and can be used to alter the material world. The mortals living on Ymir call this “magic,” and the use of adonium “spells.”

The automatons living on Ymir all run on adonium cores, to which their souls are bound. An automaton can suffer terrible damage, but as long as the adonium core remains they can still be repaired. Rakos has said that this ability of adonium to retain souls means that it can be used to cheat death.

In its most natural form, adonium has a pewter color, but is surrounded by a blue or violet glow. Once refined, it resembles the purest silver, and the glow is a lighter shade of blue.

Every living thing on Ymir has some amount of adonium in their blood and otherwise as part of their being. For this reason, they can use their own blood to cast spells, but this process is painful, dangerous, and forbidden in all societies loyal to the false gods. Some people have even figured out how to make “mana pendants” out of adonium, which store up to 24 spells in them. These, too, are forbidden in societies loyal to the false gods.

The false gods insist that anyone who wishes to use magic must do so through the use of seleni coins, which the archons and the clergy mint. Seleni coins are made from a combination of silver and adonium, and would each be worth around $100 in today’s money. When a caster uses a seleni coin for a spell, the coin dissipates into dust, and the adonium flies off to be gathered as payment to Liita for her role as the goddess of magic. Some casters who are loyal to the false gods believe that Liita is the one who grants the spells, but most casters know better.

Adonium can also be used to enchant items and give them magical properties. In “Apostate Prophecy,” Emblyn’s sword, The Plow, is able to heal her wounds in an instant because of the adonium runes on the blade.

While the false gods claim that adonium is the blood of Enlil, the first god, who was slain by the goddess of darkness, the truth is that no one truly knows where it came from. The false gods have long taught the people of Ymir that once they have enough adonium, they can resurrect Enlil, and he will bring an age of no more strife, suffering, or hardship.

To build their pantheon of false gods, the people of the Empyrean Corporation selected the best, brightest, and otherwise most important from among them. Here is a list of the various members of the pantheon and their roles in the Genesis II project.

Nyx:

Known among the others as “Dr. Gabriel Nyx,” the de facto leader of the corporation, Nyx took the mantle of the “God of Light,” and first-born son of the first god. Nyx is the overseer of the others, and his followers worship him as the creator of all light, warmth, and goodness. Out of all the false gods, he is the least directly involved in the project. The mythology surrounding him says that he created the archons from the sun’s rays, which is why their blood is golden in color.

Enlil:

This ancient deity is a pure myth invented by Empyrean. Supposedly, he was the first god to come into existence, the “Father of All.” He, then, created two other gods, Nyx and Sygin. All of existence would have continued in perfect harmony, had Sygin not murdered him. The false gods of Empyrean teach that one day he will return, and when he does all will be made right once more. This, they claim, is why it’s important that the mortals mine adonium, because the adonium is his blood, and they need it to resurrect him. All of this, though, is a lie, and Enlil never existed. As far as the false gods know, anyway.

Sygin:

Like Enlil, this deity too is pure myth invented by Empyrean. Just as Nyx is supposedly the god of light, so too is she the fabled “Goddess of Darkness.” In her boundless and baseless hatred, she slew Enlil, subsequently creating fiends to help in her fight against the other gods. Though all of this is false, there are still many fiends, even within the Rebellion, who believe in Sygin and say their prayers to her.

Nebo:

Also known as “Dr. Adryan Nebo,” he is the most gifted of all their genetic engineers, and the supposed “God of Science and Knowledge.” Despite the commonly accepted mythology on Ymir, it was Nebo who created the archons, humans, and fiends of the world, using genetic engineering. He has always had a love for mythology, mysticism, and religion, and it shows in his work.

Liita:

Dr. Jaleah Liita is the physicist who first discovered how to refine adonium so that it can be used. Thus, she became known as the “Goddess of Magic.” She set up a system on Ymir by which the people of the planet could cast spells and otherwise use the world-changing capabilities of adonium, but each time they do they have to spend a seleni coin. Seleni coins are made up of a combination of adonium and silver, and each time someone casts a spell using these coins they pay her for the magic.

Seth:

Also known as “The Honorable Judge Axtin Seth,” he has resided over countless cases, deciding how to interpret the law. His desire for righteous law is why he became the “God of Justice” over Ymir. He wrote many books on morality and ethical philosophy. At the end of the First Age of Ymir, when the false gods of Empyrean decided to wipe out all that they had created and start anew, Seth had a crisis of conscience that ultimately led him to start the Rebellion. After that, all the books he wrote were declared heretical, and the other false gods claimed he had become the “God of Chaos.”

Montu:

Admiral Jastin Montu loves warfare the way most people love music. From childhood he was fascinated with every aspect of war; from strategy, to inspiring the troops, to weaponry, to basic combat. He won many battles for Empyrean and quickly rose up the ranks, becoming the scourge of many throughout the galaxy. For this, when the Genesis II project began he was made the “God of War.”

Shun:

Bentom Shun is the chief of robotics in the Empyrean Corporation. He also knows ways to motivate workers, and thus has been made the “God of Stone and Labors,” as well as the patron deity of automatons.

Anu:

Dr. Atticas Anu specializes in studying strange weather patterns. He has often made machines that can alter the weather. When the Genesis II project started, Empyrean encountered some odd storms caused by adonium, and Anu stepped in to solve the problem. For this, they made him the “God of the Sky,” but, being an avid philosopher, he requested that they make him the “God of Wisdom” as well.

Ashtoreth:

Lady Jynna Ashtoreth is a member of a noble house that is respected by many throughout Empyrean’s territory. Her family rules countless planets and brings immeasurable wealth to Empyrean. When she caught wind of the Genesis II project, she insisted on being allowed to be a part of it. Given her breath-taking beauty and talent for making people love her, she was made the “Goddess of Love.”

Kernun:

Dr. Erock Kernun is one of Empyrean’s top Xenobotanists. Several times, he has successfully cross-bred plants from completely different planets. The false gods feared that if they allowed the people of Ymir to thrive too much, they might eventually make the world uninhabitable, as had happened to Earth. So, Kernun was called in to be the “God of the Wilds,” to ensure that the people of Ymir had a respect for nature.

Rakos:

Dr. Erisha Rakos has long specialized in finding new ways to cheat death through science. While advances in medicine had already ensured that the people of Empyrean would no longer age, she was not satisfied with this. She discovered ways to digitally store human consciousness so that people could live on in machines, and later have their consciousnesses put into new, biological bodies. The discovery of adonium on Ymir has intrigued her, and she immediately requested to be placed on the Genesis II project so that she could develop new paths to immortality that adonium offered. Fittingly, she was made the “Goddess of Death,” and patron goddess of the faithful undead of Ymir.

Chronos:

No record of anyone named “Chronos” exists anywhere in Empyrean’s archives. Even so, a man named Chronos has been with the false gods since the Genesis II project began. Every time one of the other false gods gets it in their mind to investigate Chronos or call him out on this, they forget all about it shortly thereafter. Often, they even forget he was ever there, and sometimes even those on Ymir who are loyal to the false gods forget that Chronos exists. None of his temples, shrines, or chapels can be found on any Ymirian map, yet his priests always insist that they have visited these holy places recently. A true enigma.