First things first, the fifth part of Beyond Ruin is up! Land, Sky, and Knowledge all make appearances, dealing with a new threat that has arisen due to the forces of magic reacting to the beliefs of the people. I mentioned this concept before and wanted to test out how it might apply to folklore.

I’ve been thinking more about it, and I think this sort of mechanic could have a big thematic impact. I feel like I might be getting a better idea of what this novel will be about! (If I ever finish it.) To go with this, I think I might use a different title for the novel. Originally I thought the major question brought up would be “What makes a person strong?”, which is why Divine Strength seemed like a good title. But now, that doesn’t really seem quite as fitting. I’m not 100% sure, but for the time being, the next working title for the novel is Divine Judgment. I’m not going to change the tags on the stories and collection just yet though—it might be confusing and I don’t want to do that until I’m more committed to this title.

On another note, I’ve been thinking more about the Queen of War and…well, I’m wondering if I should call her something else. I guess I’m concerned about what implications people might read into if I have a prominent world leader literally named War, and that might just be me overreacting, but I never am sure about that.

While most of the Queens embody elements, War and Knowledge are more like concepts, but War doesn’t necessarily have to be…well, war. The most basic form of what she represents is “growth through adversity”. You develop, change, and grow stronger by facing and overcoming hardships. War seemed like a natural manifestation of this for a medieval fantasy, and Queen of War just has a nice ring to it, I think, but I want to explore some other options.

Maybe Queen of Adversity? I kind of like that full title, but the shorter version might get weird. (“Adversity drew her sword,” “She turned to Adversity,” “Hey look at what Adversity did can you believe her?”) There was also that short story I did examining her titled Goddess of Evolution, maybe I could use that for her name as well? Queen of Evolution? Hm…Queen of Challenge? Queen of Resilience? I don’t know, I’ll keep thinking about it.

As always suggestions/feedback is appreciated. Hopefully I’ll have another part of Beyond Ruin up for you soon!