Monday, October 12, 2020

TBS1 Audiobook Preorder!

For those who haven't been following along, Podium picked up The Brightest Shadow and the audiobook is coming soon! Feel free to check it out via this country-specific link, or directly at Audible.com.



They also created this animated cover, which I certainly couldn't have made! At 33+ hours, I think TBS is a good value for your Audible credit, so please take a look if you're interested. There will be more about it on the release date, of course. ^-^

Saturday, March 21, 2020

The Brightest Shadow: Sein

(This is the third in my series of worldbuilding posts for The Brightest Shadow.)

If you ask one warrior about sein, they will give you a confident answer about what exactly it is. Ask one from another culture and you'll get another answer. Sein involves power, but warriors can't even agree on exactly what kind of power. Some focus on their bodies, some on their natural energy, some on arts that even sein-trained warriors consider mystical.

Most agree on the basics: sein is the strength of a warrior's beliefs and experiences. Though it can be used to fuel many abilities, it cannot be exchanged because sein is always unique to the individual. Its character varies from person to person and even year to year within one person. Some plants and animals possess sein, but their alien natures render it unusable to humans or mansthein (though derivatives are potentially useful).

Though sein flows through everyone, perceiving it is neither natural nor easy. For that reason, gaining awareness of sein is a common early form of training in nearly every tradition.


Most people gain an awareness of sein through a single sense: it might taste like mint, sound like the wind, or smell like their home. Once this awareness is consistent, they can use it to control and increase the flow of sein within themselves, granting access to abilities that would otherwise be impossible. This is only the first step along the path, however.

As warriors gain a deeper understanding of themselves, they achieve a richer perception of sein. Though total quantity of sein does increase, in early development it is more important to increase awareness to access sein that already exists. Most cultures on the Chorhan Expanse have a concept of five senses, and this does cover a large portion of sein, but it's not comprehensive. Almost all traditions say that the final stage of sein awareness is incomparable to any normal sense.

Though sein can be inefficiently drawn to increase strength or speed, effective use recognizes differences between different senses. Tasting sein is commonly associated with techniques of speed, for example. So a warrior that can smell and feel sein will be very different from one who can taste and hear it.

A wider understanding of sein is less about increased power than increased flexibility. Masters draw on not a single flow of power, but weave together many disparate elements. Exactly how accurate any given system of categorizing it is a matter of much debate.


Sein is not a single path and cannot be reduced to universal stages, but it is possible to speak in general terms. One culture uses the concept of the "mountains of mastery" that divides development into four broad stages.

Trained fighters know how to use their equipment, have basic discipline, and possess a limited awareness of sein. They may use sein subconsciously to slightly boost their strength, or they might know a trick or two. A trained warrior would usually defeat an untrained warrior in a fight, but they're not a decisive force on a battlefield.
  • All sentient life possesses sein regardless of awareness of it, and it does have a lesser impact subconsciously. Depending on culture and traditions, it is possible for warriors who haven't trained in sein itself to equal lower "trained" levels of strength or speed.
Warriors have a solid awareness of their own sein developed into a set of basic techniques. Exactly what these techniques are varies from culture to culture, but the end result is unquestionable superiority to those with untrained sein. Warriors can potentially face many untrained soldiers or several trained fighters at once.
  • The standard Towd Catai form grants abilities that are near the peak of the warrior path, thus rendering them invulnerable to most lesser warriors. They don't equal the expert path, though of course any individual Catai could have developed further.
  • Characters like Tani and Slaten are near the beginning of the warrior path as of the first book. Veron is near the peak, but held back by uneven training.
Experts understand their sein on a deep level and have polished many techniques. Whereas warriors might lack abilities in certain areas, experts usually have a comprehensive set of skills and significant experience. Ascending the expert path involves coming up against limits of physics instead of sein, so experts must fundamentally transform themselves both physically and spiritually.
  • Teralanth divides the scale differently, categorizing warriors into a new tier when they become strong enough to serve as individuals instead of in a military unit. Terms like Bastion and Cyclone are roles instead of ranks, but they'd generally be categorized as higher warriors or lower experts.
  • "Master" is a common term of respect in many cultures for those who teach, but most would be categorized as experts on this scale.
Masters have reached the end of all rigid paths. Their development may reshape what previous stages consider to be rules, delving deeper into themselves in complex ways. Though everyone acknowledges sein to be a natural part of life, masters possess strength that even trained warriors might call superhuman.

Sein is deeper and stranger than most are aware. For example...


Voidlinks are a form of technology with unclear origins, impacting sein despite being inanimate objects. Someone who breaks a voidlink can move between two points nearly instantly, as trained Voidwalkers can, but this process cannot be done safely without prepared sein in the individual as well. Many cultures lack a theory of sein that can explain this at all.

Instantaneous travel is one of the core strengths upon which the mansthein empire is built, allowing for the coordination of large armies over multiple continents. They do not have a monopoly on voidlinks, however, and there are other ancient technologies of which they are completely unaware.

This has been a brief introduction to sein. There are cultures that ignore internal awareness to focus on the body, some that forge themselves into material objects, and others with stranger views yet...

Saturday, March 14, 2020

The Brightest Shadow: Corans

(This is the second in my series of worldbuilding posts for The Brightest Shadow.)

Few groups are native to the vast grasslands of the Chorhan Expanse, but many cultures live on its edges. One of the largest is the Corans, who hail from a broken kingdom to the south but live in the Expanse in large numbers.
Many Corans struggle to eke out an existence in semi-arid parts of the continent, but they are also very common as travelers and merchants. Coran culture generally believes that women should be in the home or the fields, but they don't ignore anyone with talent for sein. There are few social mores that won't bend if someone has enough strength or money.

Corans living on the Expanse have relatively primitive levels of technology, and they're much poorer than those living in their home nation of Corah. Though broken into three nations for generations, they still view their homeland as unified.
East and West Corah possess some of the only fortification and siegecraft technology in central Breilin. South Corah is the strongest economic power, though they usually trade with the nations to the south instead of in the Expanse.

Corans forge the majority of the steel found in the Expanse, though it isn't as high quality as steel from northern Breilin or other continents. They are also one of the only groups in the region to fight with heavy armor, though the raw heat prevents them from engaging in extended campaigns to the north.






Coran food is heavy on starches, and meat for those who can afford it. Their cuisine is not well-regarded by many other cultures in the region, while Corans are known to refuse to eat unfamiliar foods.












Though most Coran warriors favor the spear or sword and shield, they use a wide variety of weapons in many styles.








Corans refer to sein as simply "strength" in their language. Though some outsiders view them as brutish, those who have fought them know how dangerous their strength and offensive power can be. In addition to a tradition of wrestling, many Corans train by carrying heavy stone rings for set distances.

The tradition harkens back to a legend about one of the founders of Corah, who allegedly carried all the stones for his castle himself. Some Corans still train with stones or crudely carved rings, but many use formal rings crafted from rarer and heavier stone. In the southern kingdoms, they have similar training goals but more elaborate methods, such as stone bangles. Since these need to be fitted, they are beyond the means of most poor Corans.

Though Corans are known to play a wide variety of games, one that's characteristic of them is Jabble. The pieces and form are actually adapted from a different game in the Nol region, where it is a more complex strategy game.

By contrast, Coran Jabble is a hand-based gambling game. Players place tiles into the central region in an effort to complete patterns. The highest scoring pattern wins the money for a given round, then the next round begins without clearing the board, allowing for new patterns to be built on top of previous ones. As such, each hand is increasingly likely to contain surprises and high-scoring patterns. Play requires four people, so the game can end when one player gives up, runs out of money, or becomes too drunk to continue.

Jabble is commonly played in bars and gambling houses that rent out a set of tiles, since the full set is unwieldy to carry. Cheaper sets are made of stone or sometimes wood, while more expensive sets are crafted from ivory or marble.

Friday, March 6, 2020

The Brightest Shadow: Introduction

(This is the first in my series of worldbuilding posts for The Brightest Shadow.)

The world of Myros is choking on anticipation. Its many cultures have vastly different beliefs and stories, but they all tell one Legend. One prophecy, varying in the details but familiar across the entire world. Whether the Legend promises heroism or genocide depends on where you stand.

Two sentient races live on Myros: humans and mansthein. Both are complex groups that sometimes live in harmony, sometimes fight among themselves, and sometimes go to war with one another. As an expansionist mansthein empire begins to conquer human lands, some begin to ask if the conflict is really so complex. Because the Legend speaks of Deathspawn - foul monsters that seek to destroy all life - and in the right light, the mansthein fit the part...


All across the globe, this conflict plays out in different ways, from the relatively primitive cultures in central Breilin to the highly developed nations of Eltar Trathe to the mostly forgotten continent of Onel Chaentan. The story begins at the center, a vast grassland called the Chorhan Expanse.


Few live in the heart of the Chorhan Expanse, but many cultures must pass through it. There has been tenuous peace between them for nearly a century, but the arrival of mansthein armies has threatened to provoke another war between both sides. In the center of that complex conflict, rumors about a Hero of Legend grow more seductive, promising a righteous war that can be won forever.

The Brightest Shadow begins here, on quiet grasslands. They have been stained by blood in the past, but the stories promise so much more...

Tuesday, March 3, 2020

The Brightest Shadow

The Brightest Shadow will be released on March 6, available here:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0856ZMG9Z/

If you were coming back for the worldbuilding posts, sorry, the preview is over! The posts will be going up for real following the release of the book.