Hello. C J here. I’ve got some plans for the month ahead to share today. Just about every project I’ve started over the last few years has reduced down to three categories. Category one is novels. I’m working on the long term planning for the Prince of Hearts novel and its sequels. The series now has a name and I’ve got enough plans for about eight novels in it. The name is The Relic Wars. I’m going to write all eight as a batch and then print and release them at conventions as a single hardcover luxury volume. The digital versions will be free when the whole batch is done.
The novel will be funded by the Patreon when I get that set up. Patreon provides the option to have monthly recurring donations rather than single-use ones and this means I know how much I will make a month in advance of making it. Money though is not and never had been a main concern of mine. This blog here is free software, the software I use for every job I do was selected because it’s all free and I handle money well when I actually need to buy something for myself. I run this job on a high end gaming laptop, a normal Android phone and a lot of pens from the dollar store. I also have a large and very supportive family. We cooperate in these matters at all times. They are very fond of my humanoid pikachu art.
The Relic Wars is my answer to the action genre. It’s an all fantasy race cast and will involve all 20 characters I have as Ascala Hero cards in the free Quantum samples I have. The plot will involve the entirety of Ascala to the point that once I get comfortable with the Eternity setting I’m going to need to return to designing the modern day setting region. Eternity is my main focus for now though simply because I need a break from modern day as a genre.
The theme of the book has been picked and for once I’m willing to tell people about it in advance. I can write a good novel or short story without a theme but this series seems to want one. I’m going to explain it by giving a quote from my plans for the final book in the cycle, The Walk of Kings.
The Chief of Security was at a loss. “What do we do?”
Ivy fitted another magazine into her rifle.
Blue buckled up his spell canister belt around his waist.
Benjamin slotted another charge capsule into his gauntlet and closed the compartment.
William tightened his sword belts around his torso.
“We.”
“Walk.”
“Through.”
“It.”
Azkail opened his mouth for a moment, then closed it.
The pilot spoke up. “We’re landing now. Go!”
Azkail finally spoke. “Then give them Hell.”
“On it.”
And, all at once, the world was a hail of gunfire and steel.
Teamwork solves problems. All four of my main Ascala characters can fight and if all four of them are in a fight together then no one but them is going to survive for more than a couple seconds. Individually these four Ascala characters are potent. Together they’re a hurricane.
That’s category one. Category two is card games. I have a lot of plans for the free print your own card game Quantum and I am doing them in order. First though I need to plan and draw background elements for them. I’m including in this post an example of a background I’ve drawn. There is a logic to how I build these and I’m working very slowly to build that logic for all of the biomes in Quantum. Each biome needs its own set of materials and resources like stalactites and walls. This might take a year and it’s being done as slowly as possible because it could burn me out easily if done too quickly. Once that’s done I’ll return to writing card text and then making the final cards.
Category three is video games. As of now all five of my main video game projects, my goal to design anthro and fantasy art generation software and my goal to present the setting’s lore in an easy to use form are now all incorporated into Dragon Engine. I have a page about Dragon Engine if you’re wondering what it is. I am adding a Lore mode where you can access the setting’s entire history in text format on the app and I’m also including this text as collectible in game books for the Story mode. The Lore mode is designed to help build settings for resale and Story mode contains all five of the planned video games as separate campaigns. This is where these projects are for now.
C J Mcpherson
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