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The Science of Magic
The planet Kodu is a world of magic. There are wizards, witches, magical creatures, and even magical methods of travel. So how does this happen on Kodu but not on Earth? Well, to be honest, before the Starfall that destroyed every city on Kodu, the elves were far more advanced scientifically than humans ever were. Because of millennia of scientific research, the elves became more capable at magic than humans ever were.
At the very deepest level, magic is the manipulation of two sub-atomic particles known as Allokos, and Tháumos. Allokos is the particle of order, structure and potential. Tháumos is the particle of change, energy, and possibility. These particles have quantum mechanical barriers and therefore, in nature, cannot interact with each other. However, if those quantum mechanical barriers can be overcome and the allokos and tháumos particles are allowed to interact, magic occurs. Someone who has Romi, which is the strength to bind the allokos with the thaumos in the right combinations, can cause a quantum event known as a Tarachi which is a disturbance in the fabric of reality, which the commoner calls magic. Manipulated properly a tarachi can heal wounds, turn a sword into a plowshare, and cause a dog to speak any language you desire. It all depends on the discipline used and how it's applied.
Sometimes a commoner will assume that wizards and witches accumulate allokos and thaumos, but on Kodu they are always available to a wizard or witch. Allokos and thaumos are common parts of the fabric of life. Another misconception is that of mana. Commoners believe that wizards accumulate mana, and they cannot do magic if they do not have enough mana. Mana does not exist; there is no such thing. The commoner may be confused about a wizards romi, his strength to manipulate allokos and tháumos, but in reality the main reason why a wizard won't do magic is because he doesn't want to or doesn't see a need to do it. Occasionally it is because he doesn't have the strength or the imagination (fantasia) to do the kind of magic requested. And lastly (and most often) it's because you didn't pay him enough. (Even wizards need to eat)
Magical Disciplines
Magevo or Witches Magic
Common tarachis spun by an adept at magevo is often used for healing wounds. They often use magevo to help crops grow, or pickled vegetables to ferment faster, sourdough starter to rise faster, or dye fabric without dyes. Witches can leave their body behind and accompany an animal, fly with a hawk, run with a stag. This is called Enosi or Joining. It's not a permanent thing, when the animal is tired of enosi, the animal kicks them out. Successful levitation and locomotion while levitating is the sign of a skilled witch. Witches do not need a broom to fly, but straddling a broom prevents people on the ground from looking up their skirts. They don't need a familiar, but cats and owls are fun to have around and don't mind trainees attempts at joining. Witches Magic is often called "kitchen magic."
Duke Nicholas Stein is an advanced adept at Magevo, but he says it gives him a headache to use magic.
Magos or Wizard's Magic
While a witch can learn her craft in a few years, Magos or Wizard's Magic takes decades to learn. It combines advanced manipulation with quantum entanglements, but it also requires intense study of the world around. Alignment of the stars often makes binding the allokos with the tháumos much easier and a wizard is able to do so much more during a Stardance. The results of magos is only limited by the wizard's fantasia (imagination), his romi (strength), and the amount of training he has had.
Note: while a wizard may be able to change shape to a lion, they are a man dressed like a lion, they don't know how a lion thinks or communicates. Duke Nicholas Stein was affected by ancient Elven magic, Vanemate Rasside Jõud, the Power of the Elder Races. This made Duke Nicholas a Polyeidus, a person who can actually become those creatures. When he becomes a different creature, he can think and act like that creature. According to Elven legend, only an elf is capable of becoming a polyeidus.
Gois or Enchanter
Gois is the most powerful adept at Magos. What makes a gois is not the amount of study, but romi, their natural strength to manipulate allokos and tháumos. They are so powerful that they can perform tarachi inside their targets mind. If they can achieve that, without destroying their target's mind, they don't need to become a lion, their target or targets will see them as a lion. Enchanters are rare. Neth Skelm was an Enchanter.
Goissa or Enchantress
A goissa is a female enchanter, also known as an enchantress. The enchantress is considered dangerous because she can manipulate a man's sexual desires and enslave him, but that is a two edge sword. If an enchantress manipulates a man (or woman) to desire her, she in turn ends up feeling the same desire toward her target. It is rumored that Duchess Octavia Stein is an Enchantress which would make her the most powerful magic user on Kodu. It is also said that she had enchanted Duke Nicholas and often wears a gown that is completely transparent to the man she enchants and to tease him, she wears it at palace functions. Rumors abound that she uses the enchanted staff Virga with the ancient artifact the Orb of Jørn as a long-range weapon.
Magical Species
Fairies
Fairies are the most magical of all humanoid species. Everything about them is magic, without magic they would not exist. They can understand and speak any spoken language, and read any written language. They can lull any baby to sleep with their singing and are adept at telepathy but it bothers most humans. Contrary to common belief, fairies reproduce sexually, in fact sometimes that's all they do. Humans have a hard time telling male fairies from female fairies, but they don't need to know. Only the fairies do.
Elves
Elves are the most magically powerful species of humanoid on Kodu. It is said that an elf wizard is born skilled in manipulating allokos and tháumos and their training is mostly a matter of teaching themselves to control their impulses. There are few elf wizards and elf witches. The wizards serve elven royalty and rarely speak to anyone outside of the royal classes, but there are rumors of elven wizards in Teurnia, a non-elven kingdom. It is said that elves are being trained in Magevo in Uduithia, a human kingdom with elf villages.
Humans
A human that is skilled enough to properly manipulate allokos with thaumos is rare. Often it's found that the best wizards have some elf ancestry. Humans have built universities to train human wizards with mixed results. Vampires and Werewolves are humans that were cursed by an elf wizard in their ancestor's past. They have high romi or strength but lack the imagination to manipulate allokos and thaumos into something useful.
Gnomes
Most gnomes are born knowing Magevo, or witches magic, which makes them ideal garden gnomes. However, gnomes do not have the desire or strength to advance their magical abilities.
Dwarves
Dwarves are masters of earth and stone, great craftsmen and rune-workers. Dwarves with any magical abilities are rare but their magic is handy in shoring up new tunnels.
Goblins
Goblins are clever and cunning, they use magic in chaotic and unpredictable ways. Fortunately they are light on romi so their attacks are rare and weak. They're more effective with their claws.
Demi-giants
There is no record of a demi-giant with any magical abilities.
Ancient Elvish Glossary
Allokos = weird - a quantum level subatomic particle, the particle of order, structure and potential
Thaumos = wonder - a quantum level subatomic particle, the particle of change, energy, and possibility
Tarachi = agitation - a disturbance in the fabric of reality commonly called Magic
Romi = Strength - the ability to manipulate allokos and thaumos
Fantasia = imagination - the imagination needed to properly combine allokos and thaumos
Magevo = witch - kitchen magic (Wizards believe only females can be a witch and use magevo)
Magos = wizard - the magic of a wizard (Wizards believe only males can be a wizard and use magos)
Gois = Enchanter - Most powerful wizard (no human gois currently exists on Kodu)
Goissa = Enchantress - Most powerful female wizard (wizards claim that no female can become a wizard on Kodu)
I designed Kodu to be a stable planet in an unstable solar system, but more on that later. The history of Kodu was lost or hidden from the residents for thousands of years and by the time of Gods Save the Queen book #3, the history was slowly being uncovered. In the beginning, the only humanoid residents on Kodu were the elves. They built cities of whatever was available locally, but mostly stone and crystal. Their cities were described as the glory of Kodu, and that the Gods looked down on them in envy. Notice I said Gods with a capital G.
The elves had one God and a huge pantheon of saints, powerful beings that assisted the elves. Their God and his saints lived in Taevas, a mythical land of forests, rivers, and silver, three sacred items to elves. Each saint had a specific task they performed to keep Kodu a peaceful and joyful world. The name of their God was Cannan, the God of Gods. He or she (the elves never recorded the gender of Cannan) was the one that the saints turned to for advice and guidance.
Then came the Starfall. Tānlán, a huge iron planet that orbits Thaal once every 60,000 years, entered the picture. Its vast, elliptical orbit usually kept Tānlán out of the way of Kodu and Zigu, but this time it passed close to Zigu. Tānlán's gravitational pull drew Zigu out of its orbit and drew it toward the sun, Thaal. As if to seal the deal, Tānlán's moon Gion struck Zigu, causing untold damage to the massive planet. Luckily, Zigu was not inhabited, however its largest moon Aestea was. The Aesteans were technically advanced and able to use a force of nature that the elves called maagia, which elven high priests were adept at.
The Aesteans knew that their world was doomed and that it was going to strike Kodu's only moon, Hiphus. The Aesteans moved to Kodu and tried to warn the elves of the danger that was coming in mere decades, but the elves refused to listen. That's when the Aesteans discovered the elves' pantheon of the saints, but mistook them for elven gods. The Aesteans, pretending to be gods in points all over Kodu, tried to convince the elves that tragedy was coming, but the high priests of the elves knew these visitors from Aestea were pretenders.
One god, Saehrimnir, chose to turn to elven astronomers and speak with their college. The astronomers made the observations, did the math, saw the calamity coming, and convinced the elven rulers of the coming disaster. With the help of the powerful Aesteans, the elves built underground shelters along with the races that the Aesteans made—the dwarves, demi-giants, and fairies—and thus survived the collision of the moons and the year-long meteor storm that followed.
The elves called the Aesteans Jumaliku Sõbrad, meaning divine friends, which over the centuries became Jumal (Gods), and the original God of the elves was forgotten, but the title of God was always written with a lowercase g when referring to the people of Aestea. Unlike the God of the elven worship, the Aesteans didn't have a singular leader; all gods were equal. However, when the elves emerged from the rubble of their destroyed planet, so did humans.
Nobody knew where they came from, just that they emerged from shelters like the elves did. The humans had a shorter life span than the elves and they multiplied more rapidly, and they spread across the continents of Kodu. They also worshiped the gods, something the elves never did. The Aesteans enjoyed receiving worship and praise and soon a pantheon of gods formed, and the gods that received the most praise became more powerful.
Ten thousand years later, Cannan was completely forgotten, as were the shining crystal cities of the elves. In some areas of Kodu, elves were forgotten as well. The gods remained but their origins were forgotten. The gods loved the praise and adoration so much that they were not going to tell the true story. The gods became withdrawn from Kodu society, and when the gods appeared to people, it was almost always in the temples that humans built for them. The gods had a way to move between temples, and only their chosen people, the temple priests and acolytes, could use it, but that's a different blog entry.
Then, a wizard whose family owned an entire mountain taught himself the language of the ancient elves and began to study the scraps of ancient documents he found scattered across Kodu, and his voice caught the ear of a beautiful queen.
Next week we will continue with the gods, magic and the demons of Kodu.
Gods Save the Queen book #3, The Last Elven King, is available at: Zbookstore & Bookapy
Welcome to Kodu #2
The Humanoids of Kodu
The second thing you need to create when you build a universe is people. As the philosopher Klavan once said, "A universe without people is just a bunch of rocks floating around in space." On the planet of Kodu I filled the planet with six different species of humanoid creatures, each species has a role to play on the planet. Four are created species and one is an invading species. Some of the species have different races while some do not.
Elves - Elves are tall and fair, averaging six feet five inches tall. Elves are long lived and many have gone on over three hundred years. Their history goes back thousands of centuries, but only recently in their history did they discover magic. Elves are the only humanoid species on Kodu. It is said that their technology was advanced far beyond what star faring races use today, but then came the Star Fall, a calamity on a planetary scale.
When the planet Zigu was drawn to a closer orbit to Thaal, Zigu's moon Aestea collided with Kodu's moon Hiphus. What followed was a year long bombardment of Kodu. Every city, forest, and field were hammered flat. Many elves escaped by building vast cities under mountains with the help of the gods. The gods are not God, and to be honest, they're not gods either, but they are powerful. More about them later.
Demi-Giants - The gods made demi-giants first. Demi-Giants are big, strong, and burly. Their life span is about eighty years. Their average height is seven feet five inches, and they were built to do the heavy lifting it would take to create the underground cities. They are fairly shy and soft spoken and hang out on the outskirts of rural communities. Occasionally, when in need of money, they will resort to crime. Wise farmers have learned to hire demi-giants on as farm hands. Demi-Giants have no magical capabilities.
Dwarves - The gods made dwarves shortly after they made Demi-Giants. While the demi-giants are doing the heavy lifting, the dwarves were digging and shoring up the tunnels. Dwarves are short, husky, and strong and they average four feet in height and live about 250 years. They became the miners of Kodu mining for precious metals, ores, and coal, which can be fabulously valuable in a cold mountain winter. Dwarves can be war-like if driven, but rarely are they criminal. It is a slanderous lie to say that female dwarves have beards like the males, female dwarves are quite cute. But when they get over 175 years old, the women will start to show whiskers. Dwarves have no magical capabilities.
Goblins - Short, angry, stupid with no redeeming values, goblins were assembled for a purpose. As the underground cities were built, the cities were being overrun by rats, snakes, badgers, and other wild animals. The Goblins were built to clear the shafts and cities of these invasive species. When the elves moved into the cities, they would seal themselves in their apartments and let the goblins roam the city at night, looking for rats and snakes and this is how goblins became the 'boogie men' of children's stories. Goblins are three feet tall and now they are rare. Once the underground cities were abandoned, they disappeared and moved into abandoned animal burrows. Only male goblins have been seen so nobody knows how they reproduce, and nobody wants to know. Goblins have no magical capabilities.
Fairies - these tiny creatures are the first magical being that gods made, and they were made for three important purposes. They can glow, which provided light for people in underground cities. They understand what people are thinking when they speak, so they became translators for the post-star fall elves. And they were often used as messengers. It was not unusual to see fairies buzzing every which way through the underground cities carrying important messages they could repeat verbatim. These days they are often seen in farmhouses where they catch bugs and entertain by singing. Because they can glow different colors they light up Yule trees. Fairies are about four inches tall and all appear to be female. The only way to tell the sex of a fairy is by their hair. Males are always brunette, females can have any colored hair. Fairies are a monotreme species.
Humans - Humans are not a native species to Kodu. It is said that they arrived from their home planet to observe the star-fall and got caught up in the destruction and some survived. Humans and fairies fell in love with each other and it's not unusual to see fairies carrying messages from home to home for a bit of their favorite food, honey. When humans began to study fairies they discovered magic. Some humans have an aptitude for magic and will become witches or wizards. Being humans there have been magical wars over the years, but eventually humans became a dominant species on Kodu alongside the elves. It is humans who first called the gods "gods" and are the only species to worship the gods, which is something the gods got addicted to.
Next week, we will talk about gods on Kodu, magic, and how magic is used.
Gods Save the Queen book #2, Warrior Duchess, is available at Zbookstore and Bookapy.
have a gift for you lovers of romance and lovers of fantasy: my newest series, Gods Save the Queen. In this blog I'll walk you through the creation of this series and what you can expect.
It all started on a disc-shaped planet that roamed the multiverse. The ten-thousand-mile in diameter disc sat on the backs of four gigantic elephants, who stood on the back of an enormous sea turtle that swam through space. This discworld was the creation of Sir Terry Pratchett, an amazing writer that I adore and try to fashion myself after. I love the discworld so much, I wrote eight fan-fiction novellas on that discworld, and got some wonderful feedback from the readers.
The problem I had was that the stories were quite good but I couldn't go anywhere with them. While Sir Terry's estate allows writers to write fan fiction, it does not allow them to profit off of his material, and his daughter is aware of my stories. What to do… what to do… I'll just have to extract my stories from Sir Terry's universe and make my own universe. There were some things that were strictly "Discworld Only," so I had to do some serious thinking. I couldn't just plop my story on an earth-like world; I had some serious universe building to do.
So we start with a solar system. My star is named Thaal, a Sol-like star that is circled by two planets: Zigu, a huge planet with a solid nickel-iron core that is the inner planet. The next planet out is Kodu, a smaller, Earth-size planet with an iron-nickel core. Every 88 days, or four times every Kodu year, Zigu and Kodu pass close together. The gravity/magnetic field of Zigu causes the core of Kodu to tremble, which causes the stars to shudder if you looked up. The inhabitants of Kodu call this the Stardance, and it's said that babies made on a stardance evening grow to be strong and lucky. Because of the orbital ecliptics of both planets, the Stardance in Autumn is most noticeable.
Kodu has three moons for multiple reasons. It used to have one, but at one time in history, Zigu was the outer planet, and the gravitational pull of a rogue planet pulled Zigu inward to the inner orbit it has today. One of its moons slammed into Kodu's moon, showering Kodu with a year-long meteor shower that destroyed every city on the planet. When the shower was over, Kodu had a series of rings that used to be it's moon, and it picked up three other moons. These moons are Kuu, a large, ringed moon; Rahn, the crimson moon which has three rings; and Livi a tiny, bright moon that's often not seen because it's normally in the daytime sky.
Next week, we will talk about life on Kodu, who is there roaming the planet, what they drive, what kind of animals you may see as we explore Kodu with some of its inhabitants. The Gods Save the Queen series is available on Zbookstore.com and Bookapy.com.
The third book in the ongoing Stormwatch series, Dark Autumn, is now available at Zbookstore. Here's a summary:
Josh and Veronica's perfect world begins to unravel and their world becomes a terrifying place. Close friends were nearly killed by a madman, which sets Josh off on a murderous rampage. The mayor finds out about Veronica's dark secret, and then a little boy is found with his dead mother in a friend's house. Will Josh be strong enough to hold it together with their world falling apart around them?
The tags are romance, erotica, oral, love, desire, and danger.
A new series is starting: Agent AI
Here's a summary:
Join Agent Alicia Ingersoll in a sexy, rambunctious spy romp as she and her lover Ming Long and their husband Cliff try to keep Ming's companies safe from the constant attacks from a corrupt government agency. Both women are critically wounded, and their bodies are repaired with the miracle of nano-robotics, but inside of them grows a hive-mind. An artificial intelligence that nobody predicted.
For some, it's a terrifying concept; a Pandora's Box that threatens to destroy the world when the box is opened. For some, it's the by-product of a life-saving treatment that needs to be handled carefully, similar to the high that accompanies opioid drugs. Science has been trying to create a true artificial intelligence, and somehow, artificial intelligence created itself inside of its creators.
The tags are erotica, sci-fi, drama, thriller, spies.
If you search my name, Duleigh, over at Zbookstore, you'll find my 20+ books including these two... well, Agent AI is in the queue currently but I expect it to be published by tomorrow! Thank you.
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