I’ll be doing my best this week to keep the posts rolling, but I’m in the middle of moving from Wiesbaden to Kaiserslautern. I’ll still have possibly up to a month and a half of driving back to Wiesbaden until my organization moves, but even though my commute will be taking an additional two hours out of my day, I will be in a much better place to write. Yet even with everything happening in my personal and work life, I am still working on the story line to complete the last quarter of Destiny, Book Two.

By the way, I’m listening to some Warpaint while I write. I heard this song https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bVwOMFrvJI “Love Is To Die” Sunday night when my wife and I were finishing up watching the “True Blood” series. We both really enjoyed the story. A friend I met from writing suggested I check out the “Elf Child” and how they aged for some ideas for Frostbrand and Starfire. Definitely gave me some good ideas I’m still formulating for the story. I’ve been listening to some of Warpaint’s other songs and I’m loving them. Some really good music with hauntingly beautiful melodies.  

I had an interesting review today. Even though it was only a three star review due to my grammar and need for a professional editor, the reviewer was honest enough to say that he still thoroughly enjoyed the story, which is high praise from a reader who finds such errors difficult to cope with. Not that I disagree with the comments on grammar/editing, but I’ve done the best I could with the limited budget I had available for the project. I can only do my best to make this better for Book two. I’d like to address one of the last comments the reader left here, because I think it could be on multiple readers’ minds.

 Why didn’t Startüm Ironwolf transform into a Werewolf for the final battle between him and the Pit Demon? I thought this was a really good question. Although it seems like it would have been a perfect spot for Startüm to transform, I’m saving this for bigger and badder monsters. The “Destroyer” in Book One is actually only a Demon Knight within the echelon of Demon society. In the stories to come there will be more for of a need for this and a reason as Startüm learns to embrace his Werewolf’s Bloodline. This will actually occur on his eighteenth birthday (calculated by Irlendria time). I will say this transition is coming, along with several others, but I wanted to make sure it was at the correct spot within the story arc in an appropriate climatic scene. I needed room for Startüm to grow into his power.

Some people have commented that Startüm is overpowered, but in actuality he is not in comparison to the Paladins that came before him, and he will need everything he has and more for the enemy he will be facing in the future. During the Great War against the Tuonellian’s, the armies of the Alliance of Aurenko were only able to stand against the Hordes attacking their World by the power of the Klavikian Paladins. Only thirteen in number, these holy warriors of Ukko were able to resist the Demonic Evil that the Priestess of Loviatar wielded and keep the Alliance Armies alive to stop the overwhelming forces sent against them. Now with the Klavikains destroyed, Startüm is the only Paladin left to hold back the new Tuonellian invasion that now threatens Irlendria.  

Lastly, the Winter Gaming group has started a little earlier than expected. Although the start date is still November 15th, there are a number of us that have started playing. I’ve actually leveled my first character in years to 15 in preparation. Of course it’s a Paladin =D If you’re playing, you can shoot me a message on Darknovia on Hyjal Server. I’m only play around two days a week, due to the need to get Book Two out, but I’ll be playing for a couple hours in the evenings on Tuesday and Thursday. You can join the online guild here: http://www.audiovideodisco.org/

When I started writing Book One of the Last Paladin Series, I was really having difficulties deciding where to start the story at. Since the world of Irlendria has so much history there were many places I could start the story from, but I wanted an Urban Fantasy novel that mixed in Real World and a Magical World. That desire to have both made me decide to start Flight with Startüm on Earth.

I’ve received some criticism on how quickly I started the story out. While the story if fast paced and fun, there were people who wished for a little more back story on Startüm, and rightly so. To be honest, in a way I look at Flight as being the “Star War’s” of my series in the sense of how you are introduced to everything going on in the middle of Startüm’s story.

With Book Two, this will be a lot different. Partly this is because my writing ability is that much better and I am more confident in keeping the action flowing, while giving readers a deeper appreciation of the characters and their cultures. While Flight was about fun and action, Book Two has those same characteristics and much more. I really love the depth of the story.

A good example of this is with the new species and characters being introduced into the story. Legatus Tiberius Decius Lupus, prince of the Minotaurs of the Imperium is a prime example of this. I really wanted to make his culture come alive and give you a depth of his honorable character that is so much more than the beasts so many people think of when they hear the word “Minotaur”.

Nessa Manitou, Centaur of the Great Plains, is her own person with a very distinctive culture. Her people are very different then the Minotaurs of the Imperium. Her beliefs, magic, culture and viewpoint of life come to life. She is much more than just a traditional Centaur from Greek Mythology. The pains of her heart and her loves have a suffering that I believe many readers will be able to identify with.

Also, the Elves in Book Two are similar yet different to the Fantasy we all know and love. Growing up on stories and concepts of D&D and Lord of The Rings, Elves for me had a spectrum of flavors. Wild, Forest, Gray (High) Elves were distinctive and unique in their own ways. I’ve added my own twist to their cultures and story, but without a doubt my past influences flavor their cultures strongly. Lúthien Narmolanya, Enelya Tasartir, Warden Morwen Telemnar and others are distinctly  different between one another, but at the same time very Elven.

Just thinking about the story and talking about it here gets me excited all over again, so back to writing.         

I'm trying to get back to doing two updates a week again on the blog. Preferably I would like to get back to three updates a week, but between work, family, writing and life I’m not sure if that’s possible. But it’s always good to have goals, right =D

Here are two characters that I’ve had a lot of fun with and have pictured from the very beginning of the story. I hope you like the brief history of the Elven Races on Irlendria that comes with them: 


On Irlendria there are three distinctive groups of Elves that make up the Elven Kingdom that resides within the Great Forest. Although they all live the same general domain, they live separately from one another, internally dividing themselves into Clans: Gray Elves, Forest Elves and Wild Elves. Albeit when referring to themselves, most Gray Elves consider themselves High Elves, a title of pride left over from the Great War. Because it was Daeron Fortress, the Gray Elf ancient home, that stopped the invaders when the Tuonellians sent their hordes to destroy the Elven Race over forty-seven years ago. 

While both Gray and Forest Elves are xenophobic to the other races of Irlendria in the extreme, they respect one another and work closely together due to their mutually shared philosophical perspectives on the evolution of the Elven Race. Unfortunately, this commensal relationship does not extend to the Wild Elf Clan. While the Gray and Forest Elves did work closely with the Klavikians at the onset of the War and even altered their metaphysical beliefs to stand against the Tuonellians, the Wild Elves have never left the core values that their race was founded upon. This adherence to the old ways greatly weakened the Wild Elf Clan’s effectiveness during the Great War and caused a rift between them and the other Clans.   

This brief history of the Elven people I thought was somewhat necessary to explain my next characters from Book Two, Enelya Tasartir and her soulmate Argus. Enelya is a Spirit Shaman from the Wild Elf Clan. She has an animal companion named Argus, which she calls her soulmate due to the spirit-link they share. While the spirit-link enhances them both, their lives are linked together from this bond. If one dies, so then does the other.

Argus is from a race known as the Wenci, which are apex predators within the Great Forest. The Wenci families are formed into Packs that hunt and live together in small communities with the Wild Elves. Although their bodies are long and slender with short legs, they are large enough to act as temporary mounts for their Elven Companions. The Wenci naturally have incredible dexterity and are armed with long claws and sharp fangs with hides that are protected by thick fur coats that combine to make them tough aggressive fighters.