Category: Articles

The Hungry Nix-Hound

There once was a nix-hound. There once was a patch of ash yams. The ash yams were succulent, but they were also atop a high hill, where none of the animals of the Ashlands could get to them easily.

Meant to be spoken aloud instead of read, this folktale probably grew out of the oral traditions of the Ashlanders. Continue reading “The Hungry Nix-Hound”

The Magicka of a Moons-Dancer

First comes the mastery of the breath.

I’ve always seen Khajiit as an under-developed race with a lot of potential. One of the areas that I felt needed more love is the connection between Magicka, soul, and the Khajiiti martial arts. This post seeks to unite all these things with themes taken from real life kung fu. Continue reading “The Magicka of a Moons-Dancer”

The Peculiar Case of the Murder of Yakum-Fel

General, I write to you now of the peculiar case of the murder of Sedura Yakum-fel of the Bashipal plantation. Most of our inquiries have been into the possibility of whether a slave uprising was the cause of the Dunmer’s death, which is an understandably unpopular notion among the locals.

This story came out of a discussion on how to handle the lore of the Argonians, the Hist, and House Dres in Tamriel Rebuilt. Tamriel Rebuilt has since moved away from this interpretation, but I am still rather fond of this piece. Continue reading “The Peculiar Case of the Murder of Yakum-Fel”

February Update

New Site

First, new site. Yay! If you read my first post on here, you already know what this is all about!

New Story

Second, new story. Yay! I finished a new story today! At 20k words, it probably falls into the category of novella. Just like Hottest Day, I hope to increase this word count to 75k so it can be qualified as a bonafide novel, though that will take some time. I plan to send this around to publications that accept novellas in the meanwhile, to accrue a little more author’s credit under my belt until my big one strikes.

More About the Story:

Like many of my longer stories, it was inspired by roleplay sessions, this time from World of Warcraft. In those sessions, an elf character and a human character fell in love despite the wishes of the elf’s conniving uncle. This is pretty standard fare for roleplay and Warcraft fanfiction, so I went bigger.

In my story, twenty years have gone be, and the elf and the human have indeed married and had themselves a kiddo. Yet, the warring between human- and elf-kind have heated up so much the elf was slain, and the human was forced to give up said kiddo to the conniving uncle, who promised to keep her safe as she grew up. The kiddo had other ideas (as kiddos always do), and sets forth with the intent of discovering the true history of her family and to stop the war–much to the displeasure of the uncle. There are some other twists and turns in there (they are obligatory where this particular uncle is concerned), but that is the gist.

To tie in better to the storylines and world of Hottest Day, yes, the Shadow plays a role in the story, and the akor’mari are mentioned, but I also brought in the Light, and the elf-flavored race of the day are the wuyon’mari, a Light-aligned posh society based in the northern Shey Lands.

Unfortunately, I haven’t come up with a name for this story except the working title of “The Half-Blood”. (This is better than usual, as most of the stories in my writing file are named after their main characters.) If anyone has an idea of what to call this story, please leave a comment below about what you think!

Hottest Day of the Year

Speaking of Hottest Day, I have gotten my third rejection for this novel. I am not letting this live me down and am still in the process of sending it out. No news is sad news, but I will continue until I get good news, or make my own!

A Warcraft Experiment

February also brings with it an experiment. I am edging into the business of selling used books on Amazon. Currently these books are just out of my (and my family’s) collection, but I eventually intend to become a book hawker and go around scrounging unwanted books to add to my inventory. To sharpen my accounting and business skills, I am going to experiment in doing the same in World of Warcraft’s economy.

I have rolled up a new character on a new server, and given her 2 gold to start her Auction House empire with. This isn’t a lot, but then, I’m not starting with a lot either! After a few months of playing the Auction House and recording my doings, I will go over the data and see what worked and what didn’t.

The only rules:

  1. No gold from outside sources, whether that means from questing, loot, donations, or my other characters. This is to simulate what it would be like to have no other income coming in besides that from my used book sales. (Gulp!)
  2. No “farming” for things to sell. The only materials I can sell are the ones my character started with and what I can nab from the Auction House at a cheap price. This is to simulate that the only books I will be able to get are ones bought from elsewhere, whether the Dollar Store, the local bookshop, the library, or garage sales.

Other than that, anything goes, and I will let you know how it goes…

New Site, New Start!

Due to some recent controversy over Patreon, as well as the desire to have better control over my own creative work in general, I have decided to open up a new blog under my own name. (Yay!) Unfortunately, as Patreon is still one of the places I send prospective publishers to preview my work, my account will remain open there a little longer. (Aw.) This said, I plan to differently arrange how I do payments, access, and sharing.

Other Handles

Though this may change as I figure out the whole blog thing, below are my plans for tying my various internet haunts together.

Reddit: Fiction based on the Elder Scrolls universe will often appear here, in a little place we call /teslore/. Be warned: it’s a jungle out there.

Patreon: Though I am still considering this, most of my work will be pulled off Patreon at this point. At the very least I will move off of a subscription based model: I’ve never been fan of pay-gating anything, and I will instead add donation buttons to my blog here for those of you who are thus inclined.

DeviantArt: Yes, I also art! Any illustrations will be cross-posted to DeviantArt.

“Payment”

I don’t believe in paywalls. Everything on this blog will be free to peruse. (Which I will note, is much different than USE–please contact me if you wish to USE anything on this blog, including the images and the writing!) I will of course always accept donations. If you don’t wish to spend your hard-earned cash or otherwise can’t afford it, please instead consider spreading the word and sharing any posts or shorts that you like with your friends!