I’ve commented elsewhere that the older and more cynical I get, my protagonists become less and less moral paragons. Now, there’s a time and a place for more innocent and upstanding leads, but sometimes you need to get down in the dirt with someone who’s got some grime stuck to him. The general idea for Batista’s look (and the origin of his surname) is Jetstream Sam from Metal Gear Rising. He first appeared in the dream that would become Chapter 1 of CeleKing2. Interestingly enough, I was building a backstory for the character as the dream was ongoing. He was a centurion in the Imperial Guard from a common background who had won his place among the elite through his skill as a warrior. I would later go back and dig up an old idea I had about a society divided between Infernals and Celestials and a fallen Celestial taken in by an Infernal, which would be developed into CeleKing1. I decided that I wanted to introduce Yasuko’s parents and their story before she would take center stage, hence the structure of the CeleKing trilogy being what it is.

We get bits and pieces of Batista’s backstory throughout the trilogy, with an obvious focus in CeleKing1. He was the son of Zacarias Rodrigues, a restaurateur who was a former conscript, one who didn’t fall into banditry after being demobilized like so many others. Zacarias met Batista’s mother Isabella through her brother Jorge Avilar (Tío Jorge), who was in the same unit of conscripts. They settled not too far from where Zacarias was demobilized and Zacarias set up shop in the dusty little town of Ciruela. Taking on the family business was never in the cards for Batista, who was kicked out of the mission school for delinquency and frequently ran away from home. During this time, he’d commit a number of petty crimes and strained the law’s leniency toward minor offenders to its limits in several counties. He had a brief period of stability after Tío Jorge was discharged from the Regulars. He admired his uncle’s military service and started to apprentice in Tío Jorge’s tinker shop. However, there was a bone of contention in the form of Tío Jorge’s pretty young wife Nayeli. What started as an adolescent crush eventually got out of hand and led to a major falling out between Batista and Tío Jorge. Not long thereafter, Batista got his conscription orders. The main reason why he didn’t become a draft dodger was because he was seeking something different for himself far away from both home and his uncle. Though far from a model soldier, he proved to have a high aptitude as a fighter. He wasn’t eligible for enlistment in the Regulars due to his numerous disciplinary infractions, so instead he became a mercenary in the Regimiento de Rionegro. Most of his career as a mercenary was spent fighting in Viet Tay (Xiyue), and his record was a bit of a checkered one. War is never a pretty thing, but some make a dirtier business of it than others. There were few lines he wouldn’t cross and for those that he wouldn’t, he looked the other way while others did on more than one occasion. Although he was mostly aimless, going from one battefield to the next and enjoying what pleasures he could in between, there was a vague sense of planning for his future, even if he didn’t know what that would be. Many soldiers live paycheck to paycheck, but Batista was putting a fair bit back, savings that would be confiscated once he deserted. It was precisely his lack of direction which made it so easy Capitán Trieu to convince him to reup and take the promotion to sargento at the start of CeleKing1. Had Fate not had other plans for him, he would’ve continued on that path until he was either killed in action or too old to keep on fighting.

We’ve established that Batista was hardly hero material when he is introduced and while we later learn that his particular susceptibility to the Mandate of Heaven is a big part of why he rescued Masako from Coronel Obrado, there was also an element of pent-up guilt over all the times he’d turned a blind eye to unpleasant goings-on in the past to make for something of a perfect storm spurring him to action. From there, we have the adventure as you know it, with him struggling to keep both himself and Masako alive and out of enemy hands while trying to ward off the growing attachment to the young princess. Could he have made a clean break from her? It’s unlikely. Despite what his head is telling him, his heart is directed elsewhere, and tied to how the Mandate of Heaven has bound him to Masako, his efforts to maintain his distance most likely would have failed even without the ever increasing extremity of their circumstances. After the events of CeleKing1, he wasn’t able to maintain his professional separation from Masako for long. Due to their difference in station, despite being married, Batista was essentially the male equivalent of a concubine in the eyes of Imperial law. Although Imperial society on Erdi leans toward old-school patriarchy, most women of rank enjoy their gallants just as their male counterparts have their concubines, mistresses and whatnot. Had Masako remained exclusive to Batista, she would have been seen as more of an oddity and their children would have a difficult time inheriting House Suzuki.

Speaking of children, things changed significantly for them after Yasuko was born. An assassination attempt on Masako by remnants of Lord Feng’s faction led to Batista putting Yasuko in Tío Jorge’s care, something Masako was very reluctant to agree to. It drove a bit of a wedge between them, and before it could be resolved, Batista found himself assigned to Prince Wusheng out on the frontier. He could neither lead the hunt for Masako’s enemies, nor go fetch Yasuko once the coast was clear. Part of the reason Batista rose to prominence in the Imperial Guard, rising to centurion and earning the title of “Jiansheng” (“剣聖”, or basically “sword saint”) was because he was trying to earn his ticket back to the Capital. It was quite the stroke of Fate that he would finally return to the Capital at the same time Yasuko launched her infiltration. (You could just blame the contrivance of the author, to which the author might suggest that a certain scheming antagonist may have taken the opportunity to guide the pieces on the board according to his plan.) Naturally, Batista is thrown into confusion by the circumstances of Yasuko’s return and Masako’s new marital situation. However, much as before, he’s given the runaround by his duties to prevent him from taking a more active role in the situation. (Sturla obviously wouldn’t want him too deeply involved while he’s busy grooming Yasuko.) While his relationship with his wife and daughter is left strained and distant, he finds Prince Sturla moving in instead. He resents Sturla for taking his wife but is mindful of not just his political power but also his skill as a swordsman. Sturla being as familiar and flippant as he is only makes things more uncomfortable for Batista. This culminates with Sturla naming him his personal bodyguard after being crowned Emperor. Batista knows he’s being manipulated throughout, but he isn’t really in a position to do anything else but obey… until Yasuko defects to the New Earth Empire, that is.

Naturally, Batista wasn’t acting out of loyalty to Sturla or the Empire when he faced down his daughter. His intention was to stop her before she could attempt a fight she had no chance of winning, and, if possible, get to safety with her mother. He ended up pulling his punches, though, and he underestimated Yasuko’s new enhancements. From there, as you know, he had the choice of letting Sigma stabilize his wounds to give him a chance at survival or make one last effort to save his daughter from her archnemesis. For someone who had often strayed far from the path of a hero in his life, his own flesh and blood being on the line made the decision easy for him. Did he resort to a cheap sneak attack? You bet your buttons he did, because anything else would have almost certainly failed. His training as a knight of the Imperial Guard didn’t change his essential nature as a mercenary who fights to win. He accomplished what he meant to, which isn’t a bad way to go out.

What more is there to say about our boy Batista? He loved and lost, bled and bloodied. Quite a ride for some street punk who didn’t seem like he’d ever amount to anything. Next time, we’ll take a look at his progeny, who inherited a lot of his bad habits. Stay tuned.

Much like Junker Jorg itself, Azuki got her start in a dream. It began with what is now the fight with Dakota and proceeded to Azuki’s rescue of Root. In the process of writing the story, I had to fill in the significant blanks in plot and character. Azuki’s character design was largely inspired by Kagerou from Fire Emblem if, and the shapeshifting was a latter addition as a way to explain how she could cover ground quickly in the harsh arctic environment of the Neveland. Her “Art of the Snow Woman” form was developed as a way to explain how a naked woman (as I rarely let my shapeshifters’ clothes transform with them) could survive in subzero temperatures and provided some striking imagery for the fight scenes. There are elements of both a kunoichi and a matagi in how she operates. Actually, it would have been nice if I had shown of the hunter side of her skillset more.

As far back as that original dream, Azuki’s love for Root had been a central aspect of her character. Besides his usual way with women, as she explained in JJ2, the fact that he was the only person to treat her as a normal human was a big part of the reason why she fell for him. Even in her home village, where skinchangers were rare but not unheard of, the reception she received was complicated. Skinchangers were seen as both blessed and cursed in the folk belief of the villagers, and Azuki struggling with her otherness was a big part of the reason she became a mercenary. Over the course of her travels, she was found useful but never accepted, as a woman, as a foreigner, and of course as a skinchanger. Root was the one exception and that understandably counted for a lot. Add that to them bonding in a high-stress environment, Root defending her during her show trial by the Blackamoors, her “dying” in Root’s arms, etc., and is it any surprise she remained so devoted to his memory? I actually feel bad for her that she spent all her time being used and abused by the Empire holding on to the memory of Root as her sole comfort while Root himself moved on with his life. I’m not blaming Root, mind you, just pointing to the tragedy of her character.

Now, more critical readers are going to point to some values dissonance aspects of her character, namely her racism and patriarchal attitudes, as points against her. While aspects like these may cost her sympathy with some readers, as an author I’m strongly opposed to taking all the warts off a character for the sake of audience appeal, especially an appeal to values that wouldn’t make sense for the character and the setting. I’m reminded of watching an LP of LA Noire and seeing a flashback scene from WWII where Phelps berates his Marines for their bigoted attitudes toward the Japanese. Looks lovely and conciliatory to the modern viewer, but even if you could find many officers with such sentiments on the ground in the Pacific Theater, I can’t imagine them doing their preaching to the grunts if they had any sense of self-preservation. Of course this was done to make Phelps appear more sympathetic to the player, as some of his other displays of sensitivity in the story that are very much at odds with the setting and the sort of attitudes a person would be likely to have in the time period. Just rubs me the wrong way. I don’t want my characters to conform to what I think or what the perceived audience might think. I want the characters to be true to themselves and let the chips fall where they may. In my role as narrator, I try to remain neutral so the audience can form their own opinions without my own biases informing them. If this actually succeeds in making more well-rounded complicated characters, only the reader can say.

I don’t go into any great detail about Azuki’s time in the Empire between JJ1 and JJ2, but throughout the Cross Arc we learn more and more about what it means to be one of their little projects. Bioethics aren’t exactly the Empire’s strong suit. The price of her second lease on life was extensive experimentation to test the limits of her abilities and to expand them, and also to breed those traits into a new strain of operatives. Depending on your perspective, it may or may not be much comfort that her children were artificially gestated so that she could remain on active duty. And then there’s the whole deal with the conditioning she was put through to make her an obedient daughter of the Father of All Humanity. It was a long ten years (Miravellan years, that is; in Earth years it was closer to 15 years).

While there’s a chance of things working out halfway decently for Root, realistically there’s no such prospects for poor Azuki. The best she can hope for is to serve out her time until she’s eligible for retirement. Yes, retirement is actually an option for her, albeit on some sort of preserve for Imperial experiments, effectively a sort of benign prison so long as she doesn’t act up. Not a great way to go out, but I suppose it could be worse.

For our next feature, I’m thinking about hopping series to cover some Celestial Kingdom characters, definitely Batista and Yasuko, maybe Masako and Sturla as well Stay tuned.

I’ve been rereading JJ2 recently and that got me thinking that covering our pal Root would be a fine way to bring back the Character Spotlight feature. Now, I believe I told you all about how Junker Jorg got its start as a dream I had and how Chapter 1 is an almost shot-for-shot recreation of that dream. In other words, the original concept for Root didn’t come from any conscious effort of my own. I had the idea of someone who was a bit of a slacker at first glance but could carry himself as a proper soldier when the situation called for it. His background in the Foreign Legion served as a helpful explanation of why he had a little extra grit to him and also explained why he was as cynical as he was. From there, I developed the personable front he uses to navigate most social situations, due to the influence of his salesman father as he would claim. He was made an ex-sniper to give him the skills he’d need for the action scenes. I’m pretty sure I’d already decided to make Faustman a sniper, so the pieces were coming together for Root’s background to take the shape they needed. As a side note, while Root is pretty good as a sniper, he’s wildly outclassed by Faustman as a matter of sheer skill, but an element of luck definitely factors into combat.

While Root was mischievous as most boys when he was young, he never got into any major trouble. He was a decent student but never showed any signs of excellence. He was rather directionless, which led him to the Foreign Legion. Being a native Byrandian, he was tapped for officer training and was the titular leader of a scout platoon, but this was mostly a formality as the Legion requires native Byrandian officers. Because of his talent as a sniper, he was more often operating separately with his spotter while his platoon sergeant actually ran the platoon. In Byrandia, the Foreign Legion gets deployed for action while the Colonial Troops mostly serve as the garrison for Byrandia’s overseas holdings. As Root noted in a conversation with Trish, the Colos are more deeply resented by the locals than the Legionnaires, but that doesn’t mean things were much better. You get a couple of his horror stories over the course of the books and there’s plenty more than he didn’t mention. Even from that inkling, you can see why he chose to ride out his career in peaceful obscurity out in the hinterlands. Of course, Fate had other plans for him.

I do feel that the duology tells enough of the story, it might be interesting to peek into his life after he was sent to the Capital. In JJ2 we often see in the narration that even years later, palace life was about the last thing he wanted. Having the patronage of the King itself was quite the shield but it also painted a target on him as an object of jealousy and suspicion. Perhaps if Root had been more ambitious as a social climber, he would’ve gotten tangled up more in the webs of court intrigue, but he mostly tried to keep his head down and attempted the same effort at obscurity as before. As a result, he largely fell off the radar of the plotters and schemers until he rose to prominence after the arrival of the Imperials.

Although Root had slowed down considerably by the start of the first book, he was quite the womanizer and clearly has the ability to draw women to him even if he’s not actively trying to pursue them. This of course becomes a problem in the second book. Let’s take a look at his relationships with some of the significant women in his life.

1. Trish isn’t the kind of girl Root would ordinarily go after, but working together in HQ led to them naturally coming closer. While he didn’t take their relationship that seriously during the first book, he wasn’t playing the field once they started dating, and the fact that she cared about him a lot more than he cared about her gave their relationship the momentum that led them into marriage. He did learn to love her more the longer they were together. It wasn’t burning passion but a comfortable sort of affection that goes well with someone looking to slow things down. Too bad things in his life started speeding up, but we’ll get to that in a minute. In case you’re inclined toward an uncharitable reading of Root’s character, his regret over cheating on her isn’t just because of the consequences. His sense of obligation to her as her husband was genuine, which is a large part of the reason why he just passively took his lumps even though, by Byrandian law, Trish would have been at highly disadvantageous position. I haven’t decided if those two will reconcile, but Trish isn’t the sort to let go easily and Root doesn’t have the fire in him to pursue her more aggressively to win her over.

2. In so many ways, Azuki is the opposite of Trish and that has no small impact on different his love for her is. Whereas Trish represents a safe and stable if not especially exciting sort of love, Azuki represents a deeply passionate but also dangerous sort of romance. On Root’s part, you might dismiss how he feels as simple physical attraction with a little suspension bridge effect to make it stick, but while they didn’t really connect on an intellectual level, the bond formed from risking their lives together made their short time together unforgettable for both of them. There’s more emotional meat on Azuki’s side, but there was still a lasting impression she left on Root that stuck with him until they were reunited. I’d actually envisioned the “after action” scene with them before anything else in JJ2 and a lot of the events of the story were in service of making this scene come together. The chemistry was there, of course, but Root was too dedicated of a husband to cheat on his wife unless there were extreme circumstances. Cue the messy rescue of Princess Anne and the others being held by the South Malvinans. Root/Azuki shippers out there are probably disappointed with the results, but unfortunately, their romance was always a doomed one. Now, the question is whether or not Root would’ve tried to stay with Azuki if he’d been given the chance. He would be tempted, surely, especially after Trish walked out on him. Even if the Empire permitted them to be together, its demands on her would ensure that they’d never be able to enjoy a proper relationship, so it may have been a mercy for things to have been broken off the way they were.

3. With the Japanese love of age-gap romances, it gets me thinking about the dynamics of such a relationship and that leads us to Princess Anne. While Root frequently invokes the age difference to ward her off, he never really thought of her from a paternal perspective. While Anne was rather young when they first met, they nevertheless formed something of a friendship of equals despite the differences in their age and status. Both of them were unwitting prisoners of the strictures of courtly society, kindred spirits who shared a strong bond of trust. It’s little surprise that as Anne would mature, she’d start to develop romantic feelings for him, especially because few young men of society would be as robust as her father, the first and primary object of her love and respect. They say women are looking for their fathers just as they say men are looking for their mothers in a mate, but of course in this case it’s a little too close to the mark. Now, based on the societal norms of Byrandia at the time, age would be less of a point of objection than the class difference, but Byrandia in general is getting to the point where big age differences aren’t looked upon so favorably, especially among the bourgeoisie, hence Root himself and Lieutenant Juliard being the main people to voice objections. Root does love Anne but not romantically, even though there is some physical desire there. Could something work out between them if we set aside class differences? Possibly, but it would be difficult. Honestly, the trauma of Anne’s escape from captivity put a bit of a wedge between them and pretty well stunted Anne’s romantic aspirations. Probably for the best, but it’s a shame it had to happen that way.

4. Adding Lieutenant Juliard into the mix did honestly feel like a bit of a step too far, but it’s an easy one to make when you’ve got a girl with a serious tsuntsun dynamic going on and I did want to illustrate how women are naturally drawn to Root. To be fair, Root does have a lot of admirable qualities and it’s not too hard to imagine someone starting to feel something after seeing him in action. In his more carefree and unattached days, he would’ve easily started up something with her. I considered having her failed overture be the end of it, but I decided the lure was more than a single rejection could sink. I was channeling a bit of Raiders of the Lost Ark with the way she meets up with him at the end of JJ2. Is there anything there? I can’t see them forming a long-lasting relationship, but a fling is entirely possible. (We can only hope for the sake of everyone involved that Trish never finds out.) It might be interesting to see Root start up a new franchise with her, but it would definitely be settling compared to other options out there. Sorry, Yvette.

5. When Root was sowing his wild oats, Scarlet was just one among many prostitutes he’d frequented, but he did favor her a bit over the others available in Bernecita. That being said, she was more attached to him than him to her. It’s hard to blame her. Hooking up with an officer would be a fine way to get out of the life and would give her son a shot at a decent upbringing. Under other circumstances, maybe something could have happened, but she couldn’t beat out Trish and definitely stood no chance compared to Azuki.

Like so many of my characters, I couldn’t give him a happily ever after. You’d think my own life is far more dysfunctional than it is based on how messy the past, present and future of my characters are. I guess I’m addicted to leaving my readers with a bittersweet taste on the best of days. As of now, I haven’t settled on what happens to Root after the end of JJ2, so feel free to imagine whatever you like for him. Maybe it all works out for him in the end. Who knows?

Since I’ve started with Root, I think I might cover Azuki in the next Character Spotlight. Stay tuned.

To my knowledge, Akasame’s origins date back to Version 2, which should surprise few people familiar with the origins of the story as there’s not a whole lot that survived from Version 1 (thank you, adolescent fit of pique). Physically, I was imagining something along the lines of Toshiro Mifune (as in Throne of Blood), but while my mind goes to Sengoku Jidai samurai, the equivalent time period for the story would actually set the characters back in the Yamato Jidai, which I’m far less familiar with (and you don’t see nearly as often in pop culture depictions as the Sengoku and Edo Jidai). Originally, I imagined Akasame as a daimyo, but that wouldn’t have fit, so I used the less specific “warlord” title. I was inspired in part by Makoto Shishio of Rurouni Kenshin for the whole “the flesh of the weak is the food of the strong (弱肉強食)” philosophy taken to its literal extremes. He is without a doubt the most unambiguously evil of all the lead characters in TTWC3. He has almost no redeeming qualities whatsoever except for an appreciation for subordinates who are both competent and loyal. As a result, there’s not that much depth to his character and his section of the story mostly serves to demonstrate how his hubris continually makes his situation worse.

Much as with Carpos, only as I was writing his end did he manage to pull a surprise turn. I hadn’t originally planned for him to turn into a youkai in his dying moments, but it seemed entirely appropriate. And, in case you were wondering, his head doesn’t die and it’s left sealed away in Castle Notos until it can be revived. (Whether I tell that story or not remains to be seen, but that strikes me as a good twist to pull if I ever tell the tale of what happens when Scipio’s seal on the Darklands fails.) I don’t know why I give some of my worst characters better ends than they deserve, but there you go. I suppose if they were too pitiful going out, you might feel some sympathy for them or, worse, think I’m sympathetic toward them.

And this does it for the 24 lead characters of The Trident War Chronicles. There are plenty of other characters throughout my canon who warrant spotlight features like this, but many of them still have a lot of their story left to tell. I suppose I could always talk about characters up to the point they’ve been featured and make additional posts later. We’ll see. I’d say doing a spotlight a month isn’t a bad idea. Let’s make it happen. Stay tuned.

I don’t believe Mab was part of the original prototype for the story, but when I revised the concept, she was added in to be a counterbalance to Corona on Zephyr’s side. (This makes her a “rook” character in the series’ chess conceit.) My primary influences for the character and scenario were Gargoyles, the 1998 TV mini-series Merlin and Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. I would imagine Mab’s role as the primary antagonist in Merlin inspired me to use her over Titania. I’m more liable to associate Titania with the role of Oberon’s Queen, but I realized there was no reason not to have both, which served as an excellent source of conflict. While neither Oberon nor Mab were strictly monogamous prior, Oberon never elevated any of his flings to equal standing with Mab. That’s the main thing that sticks in her craw. It also doesn’t help that she had grown complacent in their marriage and stopped going out of her way specifically to please her husband, something Titania (at the point we’re introduced to her, at least) is very adept at. Now, Oberon is a terrible person, short-tempered, faithless and cruel, but there aren’t many Fae in the upper echelons of their society that embody many virtues we recognize. Think of decadent aristocracy at its most detached and you get a decent feel for Oberon’s court. While I’d like to think Mab elicits some sympathy, it should be noted that she’s not that admirable of a character. It’s just that she’s on the receiving end of the kind of cruelty she would regularly dish out herself and is never fully cured of her haughtiness and vindictiveness.

Now let’s dive right into the likely controversy that may be sparked around her section of the story. Let’s make no bones about it. Rowland raped her and there’s no excusing it. I wanted Rowland to sire Puck via Mab and I envisioned her trying to seduce him in a ploy to be free of her chains, and that ploy failing because, honestly, Rowland isn’t dumb enough to release an extremely dangerous High Faerie who has repeatedly expressed her intention to kill him just so he can have a supposedly transcendental sexual encounter. I found myself stuck, though, as I realized that this would destroy just about any sympathy Rowland might have as a character. (He’s got plenty of bad points, but it’s not like he’s without redeeming value.) This led me to come up with the idea of the madness that took hold of Mab, both a natural side-effect of her imprisonment and also a metaphysical thing due to the Fae’s reliance on the natural spirits to sustain them. (Things like cut stone and wood lose their vital essence, for instance, making human settlements basically dead zones for the Fae.) This drove her to desperation and I wanted to establish a certain closeness between her and Rowland that ends up being exploited. Yes, she did solicit him initially, but she didn’t consent under the circumstances that followed. I then wanted to have Rowland show indirect signs of guilt after the fact but I also thought Mab showing her utter contempt for him was important too. And, yes, in case you were wondering, all this was allowed to happen according to Oberon’s design. While Rowland deserves guilt for raping Mab, Oberon is vastly worse for orchestrating the circumstances for his wife to be enslaved and raped just to teach her a lesson. Yeah, he’s a real scumbag.

I did like contrasting Mab with Simona. Here you have two women in Rowland’s service, both far more long-lived and powerful to justify serving under him, one who despises him and the other who loves him to the point of fanaticism. In the end, though, it’s the one who hates him who bears him a son, even if he never knows the son in question. (Though as noted in the text, Rowland did regret never consummating his relationship with Simona after she was gone. It was purely for political concerns that he kept his hands off her and you might argue that his pent-up unresolved feelings for Simona got displaced onto Mab when she tried to seduce him.) For Rowland’s part, he cared for both of them in his own clumsy way. I’m sure you can sympathize with the poor mortal woman who found herself being stacked against those two.

I’m not entirely sure I did full justice to the character of Mab in the brief seven chapters I gave myself to work with, but it was an interesting effort all the same. Next time we’ll be looking at our final lead in TTWC3, the red warlord Akasame. Stay tuned.

Stock fantasy races like Orcs, Goblins and Trolls tend fit the Always Chaotic Evil mold, no doubt in part as an easy way to have them slaughtered en masse without triggering any moral compunction. Some more recent authors go to great pains to avert the stereotype. I don’t set out explicitly to upend what you think about when you hear the word “Goblin”, but my two Goblin leads in the Trident War Chronicles are among the more sympathetic, so you could be forgiven for thinking that was specifically my objective. No, I just develop characters in ways I find interesting.

Actually, Urgill was more of a stock Goblin character in earlier incarnations. Only as I tried to make her more interesting did she become a more rounded character (and in many ways more upstanding than a lot of my human leads). Her tragic infatuation with Rowland was an early development, but as she became a consecrated warrior maiden kept from fulfilling the traditional female role in her society, that infatuation took on grander proportions. You can imagine the fantasy that took shape in her mind, her returning to her homeland in triumph with her otherworldly prince to liberate her people from the Monarch Lich. Of course, even if Rowland had any intention of helping her, even if he loved her the way she wanted to be loved, that dream would’ve been doomed to failure. Her ultimate fate was almost a mercy.

Originally Urgill went to Notos entirely of her own volition, a terribly ill-thought out bit of teen rebellion. Now it’s part of a plot by her father that’s still ill-thought out, but has a little more credibility to it (if you ignore the overwhelming power of the Monarch Lich, which is something no one who hasn’t faced him directly has a good handle on). You feel more of a touch of destiny in Urgill’s mission, even if she was destined for failure.

It might’ve been fun to have more scenes of Urgill’s rivalry with Simona, but I think I had just the right amount. If I showed too much of Simona’s merciless contempt for Urgill, there wouldn’t be much audience sympathy left for her. I did like the juxtaposition, Urgill who was elevated in the eyes of her people contrasted with the debased Simona (not so much in Rowland’s service, but definitely in her old life as a comfort woman). Both of them had their unrequited love for Rowland, though as we learned, under different circumstances Rowland might have actually responded to Simona’s feelings. I still feel a bit sorry for Urgill getting hooked on someone way out of her league.

If she had the resources for it, it might have been interesting to see Urgill found a community south of the River. It definitely would’ve sown the seeds of future conflict, but Rowland’s ruthlessness put an end to that possibility well before it could present an actual threat.

And I guess that does it for Urgill. Next time we’ll deal with Mab, a character who developed in some interesting ways that I look forward to discussing. Stay tuned.

Scipio is definitely the token good teammate on the Alliance side. I mean, they’re mostly varying shades of grey (except the unambiguously evil Akasame), but they tend to be on the darker side of the spectrum. I liked the idea of giving the Alliance a “conscience”, though his advice isn’t always followed. How much of a difference he made, it’s hard to say, but it’s more than what he would’ve accomplished if he stayed in that tower.

It was a newer development to have him infiltrate the mage conscripts. In an older version, he avoided conscription by casting a spell on the mages in question. In retrospect, even if this worked as well as I originally wrote it, there were bound to be problems later. Also, for his part in the capture of Castle Notos, it would be a lot more effective from the inside. Since we already had the precedent of Rowland infiltrating the militia, it fit with the MO of an Alliance operative. A much better solution if you ask me (probably why it’s the version I went with).

Scipio is pretty much the only person in the Alliance with an eye on the greater scope of things. Rowland’s only really interested in Notos, Simona only cares about what Rowland wants, Carpos is using the Alliance as a stepping stone for his own ambitions, Garm thinks of nothing but getting his people home, and though we haven’t gotten to them yet, Urgill has her own mission, Mab is simply biding her time until she can be free, and Akasame like Carpos is using the Alliance for the sake of his own ambition (and for the opportunity to kill people). He’s the only one to gives credence to the threat of the Darklands (except for Urgill, of course, given that she’s from there–Simona doesn’t count because due to her three hundred-year absence, she wasn’t quite up to date on current events over there), though he is somewhat skeptical. Had Rowland launched further attacks after the Battle of Kalonis, it’s likely that Aristides would’ve pushed for stomping the Alliance. Oh, the Alliance might have survived and carried on guerrilla attacks until the Zephyrians withdrew, but they wouldn’t be in any shape to form a government as quickly as they did and waylaying the Zephyrians may well have resulted in the Dominion being that much better positioned to receive them. Considering all this and factoring in the seal on the Darklands, it wouldn’t be incorrect to characterize Scipio as having saved the world. Things definitely would’ve been much worse without his hand in world events. Not a bad bit of work for a former hermit.

There’s an order of mages that’s founded after his death calling itself the Scions of Scipio that serves Notos for nearly six hundred years. It goes a long way toward keeping his name alive. It actually outlives the republic Rowland founded, though not by too much. That’s a story for another day, however.

And that does it for Old Scipio. Next time we’ll be discussing poor Urgill, who has the uncanny Goblin knack for getting the short end of the stick. Stay tuned.

The problem with writing Dwarves, at least for me, is that it seems very easy–far more so than with Elves–to fall into the stock character tropes and never really write the characters as individuals. I tried to avert this somewhat with Garm. In many ways, he is the stereotypical Dwarf warrior, but I made some effort to play with the formula a bit. Garm realizes that being nothing more than dumb muscle brimming with valor and bloodlust isn’t enough to win wars, at least not against an opponent that not only has numerical superiority but also uses its dang head to win battles.

One of the key elements of Garm’s character is his struggle with his upbringing with all its focus on pride and personal honor versus the necessarily underhanded approach he needs to take if he wants his people to actually succeed. I drew a lot of inspiration from Viking culture, where victory by craft is supposedly as valued as victory by might. How true this was in practice is up for grabs, but I used it as a starting point for Garm. The Dwarves lack the might to beat the humans outright, so he had to start using his noodle.

His arrangement with the Church of Holy Light is a relatively recent development. I started thinking about how the Army of Light could actually beat Xorgoth’s flight and I knew that just throwing meat into the grinder wasn’t going to do it. As I’d developed the repeating ballista to neutralize the advantage Corona provided at Kalonis, I had my answer. And by making this arrangement, I also gave a justification for why the notoriously anti-nonhuman Church would allow the Dwarves to return to their mountains. After all, even diminished from the Darklands campaign and dealing with an insurgency by loyalists to Daphne, the Army of Light would’ve had no problem mopping the floor with Garm’s forces.

I’m sure the attentive readers are left to wonder what the Dwarves’ reaction will be when they find that their cities have been plundered in their absence. That does take some of the joy out of their homecoming. There will be consequences, naturally.

It wasn’t until the latest version of the story that I developed any supporting characters for him. I particularly like contrasting the younger, more idealistic Burkur with Garm just to show how bitter and jaded he has become. He’s a man (or Dwerkh, I suppose) who’s lost everything and the only thing that keeps him going is the drive to get his people home and see them flourish once more. Anything that doesn’t directly contribute to this goal goes to the wayside, as seen with his callous treatment of the Dwerkhar who fell during the purge of Urgill’s forces.

Well, I guess that does it for him. We’ll be back in several weeks to tackle Scipio (not literally, mind, as he’s an old man and terribly fragile). Stay tuned.

In his original conception, Carpos was named Clement, which was supposed to be a joke because his personality was the exact opposite of his name. However, as I started to develop the backstory further, I decided that Solon would name his firstborn after his late brother, the one who was supposed to inherit the throne in his place. He was actually a fairly flat character until more recent iterations. Assigning him a “pawn” (remember that the characters are loosely based on chess pieces) in the form of Patrocles helped a little. And, yes, I’m consciously invoking the the subtext between the literary Achilles and Patrocles when I chose the name. I’ll leave the extent of their relationship to your imagination.

It’s helpful to compare and contrast Carpos with his sister Daphne. Whereas Daphne tried to find balance and harmony with her human and Elven halves, Carpos always hated his Elven side for setting him apart. He knew he could never be truly accepted by either community and reconciling with the Church to improve his political standing was a non-starter, being an ungodly abomination and all. While his powers were weaker than Daphne’s, he never made an effort to cultivate them either. He could have become a decent magic user and a slightly below average psychic, but as you see in his epilogue, it’s only at the end of his life that he realizes what he’s been missing out on. I would wager if he was at his full potential, he’d be an inferior magic user to Simona but a more powerful psychic. It probably wouldn’t have saved him, but he would’ve been much more formidable.

Before I started serializing his section, I half-jokingly compared him to Viserys Targaryen. His character was pretty well set long before I first saw Game of Thrones or read the book, but the similarities are rather interesting. Two petulant pretenders to the throne who abuse their sisters as a matter of course. Related to the Targaryens is the whole incest angle. In Carpos’ case, it’s less a matter of any actual attraction to Daphne as it is a realization that his prospects for a mate are rather limited. He would much rather secure a political marriage to strengthen his standing, but pretty much no noble house would be willing to give one of their daughters over to him. Besides personal prejudice against him as a Half Elf, there’s also the matter of the Church’s disapproval. Squicky though it is, his decision to focus on Daphne makes some measure of sense. Also, until she started to assert herself as Princess Regent, Carpos was fairly confident in his ability to control her, which was another big plus in his book.

From a certain point of view, Carpos’ treason almost appears justified. If you discount the legitimate threat posed by the Darklands (which he and many others did), then Solon’s call to war was a ridiculous expenditure of blood and treasure. Even taking into account the validity of the Darklands campaign, it crippled the kingdom economically and militarily. If Daphne hadn’t raided the Dwarven cities in the mountains, Zephyr would never have been able to afford the grain it needed to feed the people in light of the famine that struck while the expeditionary forces were away. Even if the Monarch Lich launched his assault westward, it’s likely that his body would’ve failed him early in the campaign. (Trueborn Liches in my canon ultimately destroy their physical bodies with their ever-growing power, even after a considerable share of that power gets passed on to the new generation.) The Spider Lich (the Monarch Lich and Arachne’s offspring) had been transported halfway around the world for safekeeping and wouldn’t be mature enough to lead the Chaos Dominion for years. Ultimately, it would’ve amounted to little more than postponing the fight for a generation (and a human generation is a little thing for someone with even a half measure of Elven blood), but it would’ve made Carpos look good in the short term. However, more than likely, even without the Darklands campaign to raise its name and martial standing, the Church probably would’ve still tried to overthrow Carpos as it did with Daphne, so it all becomes a moot point.

The original plan was to give Carpos a suitably pathetic end for such a big scumbag, but as I was writing the epilogue, his little turnabout took shape. I already had him scheduled to die about a week after his capture, but I knew Simona wouldn’t want him to die so quickly. (Think along the lines of what the King of Midland had in mind for Griffith in Berserk, then stretch that over the centuries.) As I had him realizing just how long the torture could last, the only answer was to provoke Simona into killing him. It lets him go out on something of a victorious note, which he really doesn’t deserve, but one of the running themes of the series is that, good or bad, you don’t always get what you deserve.

And I think that’ll do it for know. We’ll be back in several weeks to cover the far less scummy Dwarven warlord Garm. Until then. Stay tuned.

I’m rather fond of Simona and not just for the fanservice factor she provides. Her basic concept was inspired heavily by Pirotess from Record of Lodoss War (and you can draw parallels between Simona’s relationship with Rowland and Pirotess’ with Ashram). She was originally a comfort woman brought over to service the upper echelons of King Zanil’s forces during the Chaos Dominion’s invasion of Notos. When the Darklander advance was turned back by the Zephyrian legions, she was captured by Clovin the Knight Champion of Notos, who led the Notian remnant. It’s hard to say why he spared her, but she agreed to serving Clovin’s bloodline in exchange for her life. As mentioned in the story proper, the generations to come varied in quality, but Rowland was the first to truly earn a full measure of her devotion.

It’s rather obvious that Simona is madly in love with Rowland. She had shades of infatuation with a few of her prior masters, but it never amounted to anything. Of course, even if she had lived, the best she could’ve hoped for was to be some sort of mistress on the side. Maybe that would’ve been enough for her. Maybe not. It wasn’t until after she died that Rowland was willing to admit any mutual feeling, so it’s not certain if he would’ve stopped holding her at arm’s length. Ah, tragic romance…

If you compare and contrast the human-nonhuman pairings in the series, Simona doesn’t have the same leverage over her partner as you see with Solon and Xanthe or Ionathas and Corona. Maybe it has something to do with her being raised as a servant and spending her entire life in that capacity. It certainly doesn’t look good for her own will to be subjugated to that of her master, but she’s never known anything else and she’s too strictly bound to her own code of honor to go back on her oath no matter how bad things get.

It might have been fun to tell the story of Rowland’s trade negotiations with Daphne from her perspective. Needless to say, his flirting with a half-Alari Zephyrian hits just about every sore spot she has. Hard to say who was more jealous, Simona or Uriel. ^o^

I guess that’ll do for now. In seven weeks I’ll be back to cover Carpos. What a piece of work that guy is. Stay tuned.