J. Maxwell - Author

#NovemberWorldbuilders
9: In Karnassia (co-created with @jmaxwell-author.bsky.social), one figure who stands out as a typical example of evil is Dagal Draesi, whose reign of relative terror started approximately 70 years before most stories started. Due to the chances of royal politics, he became...

#NovemberWorldbuilders

10: In Karnassia (co-created with @jmaxwell-author.bsky.social), Viz'Rah (more often called Vizra now) is the historical figure whose morality is most dependent on whose side you stand on now, particularly when it comes to nation and religion. As the founder of the Vizrani...

#NovemberWorldbuilders
11: As far as the Karnassia stories go (co-authored with @jmaxwell-author.bsky.social), the main characters from the stand alone novels run the gamut, but the main characters in the Rise of Villainy series are, unsurprisingly, ethically compromised in a variety of ways...

#NovemberWorldbuilders
12: In the Rise of Villainy series in Karnassia (co-created with @jmaxwell-author.bsky.social), given the criminal protagonists, many of the antagonists that are outside the group are various members of the law. Mav'Karn Migao, in particular, leads the Vizrani Watch in...

#NovemberWorldbuilders
13: As in all things Karnassia (co-created with @jmaxwell-author.bsky.social), each nation has its own moral authority that selects for particular values (and forbids particular "sins"). Much of the story is set in the Vizrani Empire, where the blended church and state...

#NovemberWolrdbuilders
14: I alluded to a few of these yesterday, but I'll add some more (AND INCLUDE A BONUS POLITICAL SOAPBOX, SO STRAP IN, FOLKS!). In Karnassia (co-created with @jmaxwell-author.bsky.social), morality is a product of culture, which produces a few places where morality differs...

...coming) is that the Atmorals and Vizrani are both racial supremacists (with the former practicing horrific eugenics), which in 2013 when @jmaxwell-author.bsky.social and I started writing this, was correctly known to be an absurd position, but fuck us, right, we now have to outright say this...

#NovemberWorldbuilders
15: In Karnassia (co-created with @jmaxwell-author.bsky.social), Lake Whisper sits on the border of Avenad and Hroth, with the Whispering River that leaves it and heads to the sea crossing over into the Vizrani Empire. Much like Mistwood River to the west and Greytown that...

#NovemberWorldbuilders
16: For Lake Whisper in Karnassia (co-created with @jmaxwell-author.bsky.social), the Hrothian religion actually has a belief about the the lake, built around he idea that the lake was previously much larger and that much of the continent was initially under its water. In...

#NovemberWorldbuilders
17: Lake Whisper in Karnassia (co-created with @jmaxwell-author.bsky.social) is home to a variety of fish, including salmon, several trout, pike, perch, flounder, and powan, which make the lake a contested resource between several nations (in addition to its plentfiul fresh...

#NovemberWorldbuilders
19. Lake Whisper is a point of contention between the nations of Karnassia (co-created with @jmaxwell-author.bsky.social). While the lake is firmly in the borders of the Kingdom of Hroth, its proximity to the Nation of Avenad (and especially the city of Castala) and the...

#NovemberWorldbuilders
20: Given Lake Whisper's position in Karnassia (co-created with @jmaxwell-author.bsky.social), there are two settlements that have peripheries that are on the lake: Hagra in the Kingdom of Hroth, predominantly a mining town but the outer edges of it touch the lake, and..

#NovemberWorldbuilders
21: Despite the contention of Lake Whisper in Karnassia (co-created with @jmaxwell-author.bsky.social) when it comes to borders, the Avendrals of Avenad and Hrothians of Hroth meet annually on the lake to celebrate their alliance and their joint triumph over the Empire of...

#NovemberWorldbuilders
22: The ruins that are scattered across Karnassia (co-created with @jmaxwell-author.bsky.social) are suspected to be former dwellings of the Beadaoga. While they are now confined only to the towns of Rockdale and Stoneburrough, there is some evidence that suggests that they...

#NovemberWorldbuilders
23: Karnassia (co-created with @jmaxwell-author.bsky.social) has a few of these, and while I've talked quite a bit about Viz'Rah (now Vizra), I haven't spoken much about Hroth, the near legendary founder of Hroth. Hroth led a migration of humans (the Melgan at the time) from..

#NovemberWorldbuilders
25: Jumped the gun a little on this one, but in the Karnassia stories (co-authored with @jmaxwell-author.bsky.social) all take place during the century aftermath of the War of the Elven Throne, which took place when Dagal Draesi (generally shitty dude) took the thrones of...

#NovemberWorldbuilders
26: A general theme of Karnassia (co-created with @jmaxwell-author.bsky.social) is that history is told from a viewpoint, and so many historical events have different perspectives on it, depending on which side of a conflict the person recounting it is on. We extend this...

#NovemberWorldbuilders
27: Karnassia's history (co-created with @jmaxwell-author.bsky.social) has a number of various cataclysms (with the most recent being the four stand alones before the Rise of Villainy series: The Grey Plague, The Great Famine, The Second War, and The Rippling Cataclysm), but..

#NovemberWorldbuilders
28: For Karnassia stories (co-authorted with @jmaxwell-author.bsky.social), recent history is mostly covered in the previous stand alones (The Grey Plague, The Great Famine, The Second War, and The Rippling Cataclysm), which cover a period of about 55 years before the Rise...

#AwesomeCharacters

Jumping into this one a bit late, but Zri'Denn (the closest thing to a main character in the Karnassia stories co-authored with @jmaxwell-author.bsky.social) has what at a glance appears to be a metal wristband but is actually a small, concealable crossbow. It is his "element...

#NovemberWorldbuilders
29: The plus side of having worked on Karnassia for so long with @jmaxwell-author.bsky.social (over 10 years at this point) is that a lot of little for fun things have piled up. In addition to the presence of various megafauna and random "look at this cool animal, let's put...

#AwesomeCharacters

For the Karnassia stories (co-created with @jmaxwell-author.bsky.social), most of the characters in the Rise of Villainy series have navy colored armor in the beginning for practical purposes as they are all members of the same guild of thieves. When the guild schisms, half of...

#NovemberWorldbuilders
30: In the world of Karnassia (co-created with @jmaxwell-author.bsky.social), research about different types of megafauna has been the most frequent recurring rabbit hole, leading to the continent being populated by giant sloths, giant beavers, several different varieties of..

#AwesomeCharacters

In Karnassia (co-created with @jmaxwell-author.bsky.social), most characters walk the vast majority of time, though horses and ships (water) are available. A fun aside is that every book I write has at least one character who shares my hatred of boats (Morella, Sri'Mirr, and...

#DecemberWorldbuilders
1: In Karnassia (co-created with @jmaxwell-author.bsky.social), most scientific research is restricted to scholars studying at the Universities of Atmoriel and Freeport, with the fruits of such research rather unevenly distributed from those societies over to the...

#DecemberWorldbuilders
2: The last bit best describes all the people of Karnassia (co-created with @jmaxwell-author.bsky.social): no one has progressed enough in their understanding of the natural world to know where they come from in that kind of sense. Given the continent of Karnassia is mostly...

#DecemberWorldbuilders
3: In Karnassia (co-created with @jmaxwell-author.bsky.social), alchemy as it's called is more of a proto-chemistry and mostly works by trying to create products that amplify, purify, or otherwise extract useful properties from natural materials. In the first stand alone...

#DecemberWorldbuilders
4: On the whole, Karnassia (co-created with @jmaxwell-author.bsky.social) is a low-tech fantasy with a bit of splintering between just how "low" various nations are. The Empire of Atmoriel and the Republic of Freeport are both the most "advanced," both being on the cusp of...

#DecemberWorldbuilders
5: The first Karnassia stand alone is The Grey Plague (co-authored with @jmaxwell-author.bsky.social) and obviously focuses extensively on this. The overall arc of the story is the emergence of a bubonic plague-like disease and its rippling aftermath across the continent...

#DecemberWorldbuilders
6: There are numerous symbiotic and parasitic creatures in Karnassia (co-created with @jmaxwell-author.bsky.social) that live in the megafauna (especially various types of bugs), though the primary parasite is probably my manipulative MC Zri'Denn, who mostly uses people...