Author: Erin Klitzke

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June gaming element challenge – The Crownblade of Ameth Tren

Item Type: Artifact

This artifact was created over ten thousand years ago by the legendary Dwarven bladesmith Amos the Red and the elven High Mage Trellian Silvermorn and was bound to the now-lost kingdom of Amath Tren.  The blade was carried by every King and Queen Regnant of the realm until its fall almost two thousand years ago.  Legend says that when the time is right, the Crownblade will call the next ruler of Amath Tren and the reclamation and resurrection of the kingdom will begin.

The weapon itself is a longsword crafted of high-quality steel enchanted to prevent weathering or rusting of the blade and its trappings.  The hilt is poured of rose and white gold with a pattern of the moon and starts along the cross-guard.  The grip is wrapped with silver-gray sharkskin and wired in white gold.  A cabochon of polished labradorite caps the pommel. Other enchantments on the blade include a binding to the kingdom of Amath Tren, a binding to the royal bloodline of Amath Tren, and the ability to call a storm of ball lightning in the form of small stars once per day.  The storm will last 2d10 minutes and must be channeled throughout in order to be maintained.  The damage of the ball lightning scales based on the overall skill of the blade’s wielder.

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On nerd loves and challenges

I’d meant to write this post yesterday, but instead here I am, in the post-Kenobi glow, writing it at 6:30 in the morning, halfway through a cup of coffee, listening to birds outside, the traffic on 4 Mile and Alpine, and the morning news. After two days of unseasonable heat, the weather’s broken and if I had the wherewithal, I could clean my patio table and chair and work outside for a bit this morning.

It is wherewithal that I do not think I possess this morning, nor would my cats appreciate it very much, since they’ve grown very used to cuddling me while I work.

None of this is what I intended to write about today, of course.

Anyone who has known me for any span of time knows that I am, at least on some level, a nerd, a geeky girl, however you’d like to describe it. I came to it early (thanks Mom, for some long-forgotten day when there was a Star Trek: The Next Generation marathon on TV and you were doing my hair for something—I don’t know what it was, but it was at the old house and I remember it) and it kind of evolved from there. Star Trek was definitely my first nerd love, but others came behind it—and, in the case of Star Wars, quickly surpassed it.

I don’t remember seeing Star Wars until I was maybe eleven or twelve years old. We got the boxed set of movies at I think Birch Run one year. I remember sitting on the couch in the house I grew up in, watching it for the first time. I was maybe thirteen, maybe a little older. This was before the special editions, before sequels. It was even the early years of the EU—what’s now become the Star Wars Legends line. The first Star Wars book in our house wasn’t even mine, it was allegedly my brother’s, but you can probably guess where that book is now.

That’s right. On my bookshelf, tattered and worn, the blue-covered trade paperback of Heir to the Empire. After the X-Wing novels, the trilogy that started with that book is probably among the most-read books in my collection.

Star Wars is a nerd love that led me to another, one that defines me as equally as several others—it made me a gamer.

Historian. Writer. Gamer.

Yup, that’s me.

Really, this post was meant to be about gaming less than Star Wars, but understanding that nerd love—my many, many nerd loves, but that one in particular—really helps set up the challenge hinted at in this post’s title.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been considering issuing a challenge to myself with regard to blogging. At first, I thought maybe I’d do a month-long run of writing prompts—I did get a new camera, and it could be fun to do interesting image prompts. Slowly, though, as I continued to think, that idea was discarded, at least for now. It’s not to say I might not do it later, I’m just not going to do it right now.

No, I think that this month, in June, I challenge myself in a different way: playing around with something I’d long abandoned, which is developing things for tabletop RPGs. There was barely a night between 2000 and 2005 when I didn’t have a standing game to either run or play—the only nights excluded were either in the summer or reserved for a club meeting (and even then, sometimes there would be a game after a meeting).

I ran a few campaigns myself over the years. One was a large D&D game in my own homebrewed setting, two Forgotten Realms campaigns that became one, and a Star Wars campaign that lasted for more than a year. Those are probably the games I ran that I look back on the most fondly: Forgotten Realms and Star Wars.

Now, as I prepare to possibly run Star Wars for the first time in forever—and trust me, there is so much about my Star Wars gaming experience that didn’t make it into this post (like the 12 years I spent writing Star Wars online with some folks that I appreciate more and more the older I get, especially because they put up with me back in the day)—I’ve decided to also challenge myself to create characters, to create settings, to write adventures and post them for folks to do with what they will. Some of them, of course, will be set in my various writing worlds. Others will simply exist.

So, wish me luck. I’m getting back to my nerd loves, and challenging myself to try something a little new and a little daring and a lot ambitious.

We’ll see how this turns out.

Oh, and by the way. Happy Pride.

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On nerd love and challenges

I’d meant to write this post yesterday, but instead here I am, in the post-Kenobi glow, writing it at 6:30 in the morning, halfway through a cup of coffee, listening to birds outside, the traffic on 4 Mile and Alpine, and the morning news. After two days of unseasonable heat, the weather’s broken and if I had the wherewithal, I could clean my patio table and chair and work outside for a bit this morning.

It is wherewithal that I do not think I possess this morning, nor would my cats appreciate it very much, since they’ve grown very used to cuddling me while I work.

None of this is what I intended to write about today, of course.
Anyone who has known me for any span of time knows that I am, at least on some level, a nerd, a geeky girl, however you’d like to describe it. I came to it early (thanks Mom, for some long-forgotten day when there was a Star Trek: The Next Generation marathon on TV and you were doing my hair for something—I don’t know what it was, but it was at the old house and I remember it) and it kind of evolved from there. Star Trek was definitely my first nerd love, but others came behind it—and, in the case of Star Wars, quickly surpassed it.

I don’t remember seeing Star Wars until I was maybe eleven or twelve years old. We got the boxed set of movies at I think Birch Run one year. I remember sitting on the couch in the house I grew up in, watching it for the first time. I was maybe thirteen, maybe a little older. This was before the special editions, before sequels. It was even the early years of the EU—what’s now become the Star Wars Legends line. The first Star Wars book in our house wasn’t even mine, it was allegedly my brother’s, but you can probably guess where that book is now.
That’s right. On my bookshelf, tattered and worn, the blue-covered trade paperback of Heir to the Empire. After the X-Wing novels, the trilogy that started with that book is probably among the most-read books in my collection.

Star Wars is a nerd love that led me to another, one that defines me as equally as several others—it made me a gamer.

Historian. Writer. Gamer.

Yup, that’s me.

Really, this post was meant to be about gaming less than Star Wars, but understanding that nerd love—my many, many nerd loves, but that one in particular—really helps set up the challenge hinted at in this post’s title.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been considering issuing a challenge to myself with regard to blogging. At first, I thought maybe I’d do a month-long run of writing prompts—I did get a new camera, and it could be fun to do interesting image prompts. Slowly, though, as I continued to think, that idea was discarded, at least for now. It’s not to say I might not do it later, I’m just not going to do it right now.

No, I think that this month, in June, I challenge myself in a different way: playing around with something I’d long abandoned, which is developing things for tabletop RPGs. There was barely a night between 2000 and 2005 when I didn’t have a standing game to either run or play—the only nights excluded were either in the summer or reserved for a club meeting (and even then, sometimes there would be a game after a meeting).

I ran a few campaigns myself over the years. One was a large D&D game in my own homebrewed setting, two Forgotten Realms campaigns that became one, and a Star Wars campaign that lasted for more than a year. Those are probably the games I ran that I look back on the most fondly: Forgotten Realms and Star Wars.

Now, as I prepare to possibly run Star Wars for the first time in forever—and trust me, there is so much about my Star Wars gaming experience that didn’t make it into this post (like the 12 years I spent writing Star Wars online with some folks that I appreciate more and more the older I get, especially because they put up with me back in the day)—I’ve decided to also challenge myself to create characters, to create settings, to write adventures and post them for folks to do with what they will. Some of them, of course, will be set in my various writing worlds. Others will simply exist.

So, wish me luck. I’m getting back to my nerd loves, and challenging myself to try something a little new and a little daring and a lot ambitious.

We’ll see how this turns out.

Oh, by the way. Happy Pride.

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Of Starships and Intergalactic Wars

Probably ten years ago, when the Internet was a younger space and podcasting and the concepts of web fiction and indie e-publishing were young, I ended up guesting on a podcast dedicated to web fiction, talking about Awakenings initially. The conversation with the host eventually drifted to my recently released book, Broken Stars, about which the host was duly enthused.

The universe of Broken Stars is in some ways more optimistic than the world of Awakenings—sure, the human race still has problems but the actual apocalypse hasn’t happened and hey, we’re in space. Sure, Earth is held by a galactic state that stands in opposition to our heroes in Broken Stars and there’s definitely a simmering conflict there, but we’ve managed to survive two wars of annihilation and enslavement by an alien race to get there.

More on that in a second.

The question—in the midst of this long-ago interview—that came up from the host, something that is probably the only thing that I remember from the whole interview, was the question whether or not Broken Stars would ever be released as web fiction, if anything in that universe would be released online as web fiction. I remember laughing and saying that I wasn’t sure it quite felt right to do it that way, that the format might not be right.

Fast forward to a pandemic, to another bachelor’s degree, to a much different point in my life than where I was in the days of that interview.

There has been an idea rolling around in my head for a little while now, suggesting that in addition to getting back to both Awakenings and at least the world of the Legacies of Lost Earth, perhaps there was hope for a web-facing taste of the Epsilon universe—of which Broken Stars is a major part.

The Preytax Wars are a historical event that takes place in the Epsilon universe, an event that planted the seeds for the status quo that exists in Broken Stars. Taking place in the 22nd century, several decades after humanity has made its way deeper and deeper into the stars (thanks to a bit of help from a few friendly alien races that made first contact in the later 21st century), the Preytax Wars represent humanity’s first encounter with a hostile alien race and two major conflicts with that race—both of which are generally characterized as life or death for humanity and human society on the whole.

Humanity won, but not without cost and not necessarily as decisively as anyone characterizing it as an existential conflict might have hoped—but no one actually thinks they’ll come back, right?

More on that to come in the future.

I have never been sure if I would actually write a full-blown book in the era of the Preytax Wars—I would have to write several, in fact, due to knowing who some of the important macro and micro stories live with. Something that I have been playing with is putting together a site that gathers fictional news reports, journal entries, sequences, etc. that would tell at least part of the story of the Preytax Wars. It’s been an idea that’s simmered for a little while now.

I suppose we’ll see what happens next.

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Processing

Sometimes inspiration comes from dark places.

As I imagine many writers–especially writers of speculative fiction–do, often I use my writing as a tool to process and cope with things in the world beyond my control.  As a trained social scientist with degrees in history, anthropology, and political science, I view the world through a unique lens, one even further shaped and refracted by my identity as a writer, by my gender and my sexuality, by my sociopolitical and spiritual beliefs, by my morality and my upbringing.  Each of us carry these things as we approach the world.

I’m going to talk about Skypoint here, but there are themes woven into most of what I’ve written that draw from my perception of and reaction to the world around me.  In a lot of scenarios, some of those themes are not terribly hard to find and in others they’re more subtle.

Skypoint, as I am currently envisioning it as I work through the writing of the first draft, is one of those works that draws on a lot of darker inspirations.  Spoiler warning, if you don’t want to know what I’m planning for the book in either vague or precise terminology, stop now and move on.

Still here?  Okay.

Skypoint delves into themes around bodily autonomy, secrets, conspiracy, and war–it addresses the lengths governments will go to to protect secrets and to gain the upper hand in conflict, the lies that are sometimes told to justify actions, and who has the right to do certain things.  In the book as I’m writing it now, and the wider world surrounding it (currently planned to adjust some of the history of Legacies of the Lost Earth while telling at least part of the story of how Earth was lost in the first place), there’s a question of  who has the right to make decisions for another individual about their mind and health, about their very bodily autonomy and agency.  This is mostly depicted through the handling of people with psychic gifts (a theme that I obviously play with fairly often), but anyone who’s read the Legacies so far knows that it goes further and deeper than that–Alana Chase of the Legacies being a prime example.  David Lésarte and Hunter Drake are further examples in Skypoint, as both were offered very limited options when it came to their futures–at varying points in their lives, both before and after we meet them in the story.

So, too, does the question of justification for war and how they happen come up in the world.  Sometimes there are secrets that are kept so conflict can continue to be justified–and sometimes, as a pretext for conflict in the first place.  Admittedly, when I began working on Skypoint, there 2022 invasion of Ukraine by Russia hadn’t started, though there was still the memory of 2014 and Crimea.  Neither of these were on my mind at the time, though, but simmering geopolitical tensions certainly were, as was my own memory of the events that led up to the US-led invasion of Iraq two decades ago.  These are the things that inspire and the things that you wrestle with and sometimes, they become useful inspiration and the act of writing becomes cathartic and a mechanism of processing all of the craziness of the world.

Works like Skypoint and the Legacies and all of my other projects have a hint of this to it, except for maybe Magic Crystal Justice Squad which is definitely half tumblr-born dare and maybe half escapism born of a global pandemic.

So I guess, in a way, even that’s a coping mechanism.

Inspiration can come from dark places and dark things, but harnessing that inspiration can help a writer–or any artist–produce something beautiful and lasting, in spite of or perhaps because of its roots.  Every work is the product of the time, circumstances, and influences of its creation.

Especially mine.

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UNSETIC Files – background snaps – CampNaNoWriMo April 2022

As promised, the scene that I’d started in this image.

There isn’t much that’s been revealed about the Order, their secrets, or some of their leading figures in the UNSETIC universe yet.  There is one family of mages, though, that connects more of the Order than anyone suspects–and it’s not the Knight family, either.

Enjoy the scene of twin brothers whose hands are in more than a few things.

“Cay, this has to stop.”

Ezacaius closed his eyes, exhaling a silent sigh, listening to the familiar cadence of his brother’s footsteps as Harrison approached him from behind. He knew his brother’s tread intimately, and that knowledge had saved Harrison more than once from the more unpleasant consequences of sneaking up behind him. Occasionally, though, he wished that propriety and filial affection didn’t prevent him from meting out some of those consequences—especially when his twin adopted the particular tone he’d just used. “And which particular ‘this’ are you referring to, Harry? I have a lot of irons that I’m watching in the fire.”

“For the love of god, Cay, please do not play games today. You know what I’m talking about.” Harrison’s hand closed on his shoulder and yanked, hard, as if he was trying to spin his brother to face him. Ezacaius pivoted easily, opening his eyes as he spun a hundred and eighty degrees to face his twin. Every cutting, biting, clever remark that he’d martialed died on his tongue as he took in Harrison’s haggard appearance, his bloodshot eyes and the dark shadows beneath them.

“Hell, Harry. What is it? What happened?”

Harrison laughed. It was a bitter sound, harsh, almost but not quite grating. “I’ve been trying to put out the fires you’ve been ignoring, that’s what. Do you have any idea what a hornet’s nest you’ve kicked with all of your little experiments?”

“They’re not experiments,” Ezacaius murmured, shaking his head. “And you know that. It’s adapting to changing times and situations.”

“Cay.”

“I’m not having this old argument again,” he whispered. “We’re beyond that, Harry. At least I thought we were.”

“We never settled anything,” Harrison said, sounding tired. “We only stopped talking about it.”

“Then what’s changed now?” Ezacaius took his brother gently by the arm, drawing him toward a chair by the fireplace. The lodge was cozy enough for a retreat, with its wood floors and overstuffed chairs, though it tended to remind him of things that were sometimes best left forgotten, if only to spare himself the pain of the memory.

Harrison dropped heavily into the offered chair, his gaze fixed on the flickering flames of the hearth. “Don’t lie to me, Cay.  It’s all beyond your ability to control now, isn’t it? It’s grown too big. Your hands aren’t holding the reins tight anymore. It isn’t like you promised it would be.”

“What do you mean?” He circled the chair, crouched at his brother’s knee so he could look up into Harrison’s face. The shadows and light of the fireplace made his brother seem older, more tired and careworn. It made him ache. “Harry, which part of all of it are you talking about?”

“Adam Ford came to me today. He’s beside himself. Can’t convince his latest student when to leave well enough alone. She’s joined one of your organizations, Cay. Even over his objections, she did it. Now she’s demanding answers he can’t give her because they’re secrets twelve feet above her ass. Why didn’t you tell me, Cay? Why didn’t you tell me that magi were going across? We swore—”

“You swore,” Ezacaius said quietly. “I never made that promise, harry, and you know why I couldn’t.”

“Her sacrifice—”

Pain spiked, a fist wrapping around his heart and squeezing. “Was for us—for Moyra. I know. I should have gone with her. Maybe if I had, this would be over.”

“Is that why? Is that why you’ve allowed magi across? To end it?”

Ezacaius took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. He’d expected rage to bubble up, but instead he was only tired, almost empty. “There are exactly two magi in my employ that have ever gone across since the foundation of the Corps, Harry. Caitlin’s daughter doesn’t do it on the regular and I’m guessing Alisa is the one that Adam’s all bent out of shape about.”

Harrison blinked, staring at him for a few seconds in what at least appeared to be stunned silence. “How—”

“How much has Adam told you about her?” Ezacaius sat back against his heels. “Does he even know the whole of the story? Do you?”

“She was one of his students,” Harrison said slowly. “One of his protégés. They teach together now in Chicago—when she’s not working for you, crossing over and doing god knows what on the other side. Probably drawing attention back to us.”

“Harry, that war never ended, no matter how much we hoped that we’d somehow broken the cycle. They just rewrote the rulebook without our consent. They’ve never forgotten and our resistance to their demands just made them turn to other methods. That’s part of why the Corps exists and and why the parent organization is so damn important.”

“What are you talking about?” The suspicion was heavy in Harrison’s voice, in the frowning furrow of his brow. He was curious, though. That, too, was in his voice, and the familiar glint was in his eye. That gave his brother hope that maybe, just maybe, they would end up seeing eye to eye on this one rather than letting yet another disagreement fester.

“They’re still coming, Harry. The Cabal is still coming here and instead of abiding by the agreement, they’re just taking whoever they can get their hands on. One of those people is Alisa’s brother. Another was her fiancé.”

Harrison went very still, blinking at him. Slowly, his hands curled into fists against his knees. “Why—”

“Why didn’t I tell you?” Ezacaius sighed. “Would you have believed me? Would you have listened? Oh, Harry. It was just one of those things that you don’t talk about until you have a handle on what to say. I’m still trying to get a feel for the numbers.”

“Who else knows? How long has this been going on?”

“You and I. I imagine Adam thinks the incident was isolated. Caitlin Knight and her daughter.”

“And Lawrence?”

“Probably more than we suspect he does but let’s be honest. He knows more secrets than most and he’s got no use for the politics of any of it, now does he? Whatever he knows, he’ll do what’s necessary when he decides the time’s right.”

“That line was always so damned sharp. It’s a shame he’s the last.”

“Last of the name, maybe, but not last of the blood. Bryn’s gifts may be more in line with Caitlin’s, but she has a son and I imagine there’ll be more children soon enough.” Ezacaius shook his head. “We’re getting off-track.”

“Are we?”

“A bit.” He smiled wryly. “As I said. I’m still trying to get a good feel for the numbers. But the incident where Alisa McConaway’s brother and fiancé were taken was not an isolated one, no matter what Adam might believe. There have been others.” He paused. “Including one of Moyra’s great-grandchildren. From her relationship with Andrew.”

“What? Does she know?”

“No,” Ezacaius said. “Honestly, I don’t think she wants to. She lives in the now. What’s past is in the past. I almost feel bad for her.”

“Her husband is a piece of work. Dangerous.”

“He’s her damned good reason to break form the Order for good,” Ezacaius said, then sighed. “She’s given up her magic, Harry. I didn’t believe her when she said she was going to do it, but it seems that’s the case.”

“I don’t know why you didn’t believe her. I did. I believed it the minute I met that fire and brimstone bastard she married.”

“At least we know she’ll be left well out of whatever happens next,” Ezacaius said. “That was always a concern where the Cabal was involved.”

“Only because of the agreement.”

“Which they’re violating. Which we shoved down their throat two generations ago.” He shook his head. “They will always be a threat, Harry. They’re going to be a threat until they’re stopped once and for all. Given what they’ve taken from her, I can’t ask Alisa to stop. That’s what Adam wants, isn’t it? For her to stop?”

“Adam knows some about why the Portals are dangerous,” Harrison said. “He knows about the Cabal.”

“But not all of it.”

“No. Not all of it.”

Ezacaius sighed. “All of the Order’s secrets to consider and sometimes it feels the secret about this war is the biggest and most troublesome—and the one that maybe we shouldn’t have kept.”

“Aye, but we don’t have a choice now, do we? It has to be kept. At least for now and for the foreseeable future.”

“Aye,” Ezacaius said softly, feeling hollow. “For now, that’s the way it must be.”

“Cay.”

“I agreed with you, brother,” he said, then smiled wryly. “Don’t press your luck.”

Harrison choked on a laugh, leaning forward to pull him into a hug. “I worry about you, you know. You carry too much.”

“We both do, Harry,” Ezacaius said as he wrapped his arms around his twin, squeezing the other man tight. “I fear that’s the path fate wrote for us.”

Harrison’s arms loosened for a moment and he leaned back to look Ezacaius in the eye. “Do you think she’ll come back to it?”

“Moyra? No. No, I don’t think so. I thought maybe she would eventually for a while, but then everything with her children happened and I—no, Harry. No, she’ll never come back to it. Her husband’s made certain of that.”

“He’s a right bastard.”

“He is,” Ezacaius agreed softly. “But we weren’t the ones that chose, nor would she have ever stood for us being the ones to do the choosing.”

“Sometimes, I think if she hadn’t lost Andrew…”

“But she did. But I think you’re right. That was the beginning.”

“Damned shame.”

“A lot of things are, Harry.” Ezacaius squeezed him one more time, then let go, sitting back against his heels again. “So it’s as it’s always been. Left to us to sort through the pieces.”

“Do you think you’ve made the right choice? With the organizations?”

“I think it’s the only way,” Ezacaius admitted. “The world’s changing, Harry. Secrets won’t stay secret forever, but until the world’s ready, something has to be done.”

“There were already mechanisms in place for that.”

One corner of his mouth kicked into a smile as he stood up, stretching. “Aye, there were—and are. But for all of our sakes, more safety nets might be useful. The world’s getting too big, too complicated. At some point, we’ll miss something. All of us will miss something. Then it’s game over for all of us.”

“You sound certain of that.”

“You were, too, when we had the original conversation.” Ezacaius smiled. “This isn’t just on me, Harry. You know that.”

For a second, Harrison glared up at him, but the glare was short-lived, chased away by a rueful smile. “I hate it when you’re right, you know.”

“Then it’s a good thing that doesn’t happen very often.” He offered him his hand. “Come on. Let’s go get something to eat and let the nonsense settle for a little while.”

Harrison grinned, letting his brother pull him to his feet. “Aye, and then you’re going to tell me more about what you know about Adam’s protégé.”

Ezacaius laughed, throwing his arm around Harrison’s shoulders. “Whatever you want, brother. Whatever the hell you want.”