Wednesday 7 September 2016

The Tales From Westruna blog is now live

The title says it all, the blog that will be supporting the books is now up. At present it has the Art Gallery, Contact Page, Current Book Progress Tracker and Release Schedule up. 

Also a small preview of the Wanderers Tale is also up, the link to the blog is below:

http://talesfromwestruna.blogspot.co.nz

Monday 29 August 2016

The Book Information Post

There has been some interest in my upcoming book release. So i thought i would put together a post with the aim of providing some general information about the book, the setting and the overall plan. 

The Book
The Book is called the Wander's Tale Esmor, and it is an adventure book. Simiply put it follows two young adults as they try to reach a place called Mymt Lagoon in a Kingdom called Esmor. The reason they are dong this is simply to see the Lagoon. 

Though i am a fan of the Fantasy genre i do get a bit tired of how high the stakes are set in fantasy books. Often main characters have to contend with vast threats, and failure means the end of their world as they know it, and sometimes the literal end of the world.  While i don't mind those kind of stories i feel that for them to be effective readers must be given a reason to care about the world at stake, and given that this is the first book in the setting readers will have no reason to care at all. 

In my previous post about this i mentioned that i was dissatisfied with my current job, and i was able to draw inspiration from that for this book. Esme, a young female mage in training, feels fed up with  being told to constantly study and train in order to become a mage. She has never  set foot outside the city she was born but is told constantly of what lies beyond the city walls, for Esmor (the name of the region) is a vast, mostly unexplored and wild land. One day she decides sod it, she doesn't care about studying any more and decides to go to Mymt Lagoon, a lake in the far east of Esmor. 

This who idea came from my dissatisfaction with my job, and the fact that i can see dense bush, hills, and snow capped mountains from where i work. It wasn't an uncommon desire for me too look out the widow, see those snow capped mountains and wish that i could just get up and walk there. I was able to take this desire and make a book from it, and hopefully in doing so accurately express that desire in a way that is interesting to read. 

The book will be released on Kindle for Ebooks and via a website called Createspace for those who prefer physical copies. Links to both will be posted to this blog on November 21st. 

The Setting
I have mentioned the name "Esmor" and so is should explain the setting. Esmor is the name given to one of the five regions, and the human kingdom located in that region, of a continent called Unith on a planet named Westruna.  The other four regions are called: The Heartward Isles, The Northlands, Rulun and Drackmoor. Unith wont be the only content but i thought it best to start of simple and expand when i need too. The same goes for the races, which are :Humans, Elves, Dwarves and Orcs. 

On top of this there is a place called the Skittering Dark; the name given to the vast network of Tunnels, caves and caverns the run underneath Westruna's surface. The Skittering Dark is not a place anyone of stable sanity would go willingly.

I am hesitant to provide anything more than only the barest of descriptions for the setting, as i prefer people to learn about it from reading the books.  I am not a fan of unnecessary exposition so there is room for readers to figure things out for themselves.

The Plan
I plan on trying to get one book and one short story out per year. The short story will be related too the previous book and will be free, with the aim of building audience goodwill and expanding the setting.

After the Wanders Tale, and the short story Her, will come a book called The First War. While the Wanders Tale is a more light hearted adventure book the First War is a book of war. It covers the first war ever waged on Unith and is already looking to be a far longer book than the Wanders Tale. 

On top of this i have a Blog, Facebook Page and email address set up for the books. None of them are live yet but on release day the Tales From Westruna Facebook Page, Blog and Email address will go live. The FB page and Blog will have information about upcoming books, a release schedule, a progress tracker for the current book and commissioned artwork for the setting to help people get a better idea of what Westruna looks like.

The release schedule and progress tracker are part of my desire to be as transparent as possible. Often you will be waiting for news on upcoming book only to get periodic updates from the author, or you will want to know what comes next after a series has finished only to no announcement on the matter for some time, and the release schedule and progress tracker are my ways of countering this. 

Thats all for now. This blog will remain up through out as my separate Wargames Blog, and i hope to return to doing content for it ASAP.  Until netx time.
Rex


Thursday 25 August 2016

The Dice Odyssey on Hold

There has been a distinct lack of content on this blog for the past few months. This is mainly because i have been diverting all my free time to writing my own series of Fantasy novels.

I have always had a love for the fantasy genre, and after job dissatisfaction reached its limits i decided to start writing my own fantasy books with the aim to one day become a full time author. My first book is nearing completion and i hope to have it published by December 1st this year, with other books to follow.

This is why this blog has been forgotten as of late,  all the time i would spend working it has gone to my book and setting. I hope that, once the first book is published, i will have some time to come back and do more narrative battle reports and similar content, but that wont be until December/January. Until next time.
Rex

Monday 27 June 2016

Final Hour of The Apocalypse Ruins Kickstarter


The Apocalypse Ruins Kickstarter, produced by Printable Scenery, is in its last 60 minutes and has passed 100k. For those who don’t know the Kickstarter gives you files which you can use with your 3d printer to create your own wargaming and Table Top RPG terrain.


While this Kickstarter has already broken every expectation and they could easily reach 103 or even 105K at the rate they are going. If you have ever wanted to back this KS, now is the time, you can find the link to to Kickstarter here



Saturday 18 June 2016

The 9th Age Vs Kings of War: Army Building and Rules at a Glance


While I have yet to play a game of 9th Age i have been looking at it closely to see if it is anything like WHFB 8th edition, a game that i greatly enjoyed. I have however watched a game of 9th Age, and will be playing a game next week, and what i will say is from what i have seen my hopes are high, it looked like 8th edition with tweaks, not the tweaks you would expect from a ETC group either. These tweaks seem to improve the game and make it better. I have had a chance to look at the army lists for many of the races in the game and so the main point of this post is to focus on the army building options of 9th Age and compare them to the main competitor, Kings of War.

I was lucky in that of the two full army books the 9th age team have produced so far one was the Wood Elves, so imagine my surprise and delight when i opened the PDF and saw this.


Sunday 12 June 2016

The (Diverted) Path to Call to Arms: Elf Space Pirates

Progress on the Autumn Elves was non existent this weekend as all my time and effort was diverted to completing my Warhammer 40k Army, Eldar Corsairs. This sudden change was due to me being asked to get the army ready for a show game, and since its mostly done i thought i may as well post the pictures of it for all to see.

The Corsair Prince



Monday 6 June 2016

The Path to Call to Arms: Long Weekend Edtion

Despite having a Four Day Weekend progress on the army was slow, this is solely down to The Witcher 3, a Fantasy RPG video game, getting a new expansion on May 31st, however some work was done. All the Characters for the army are completed and work as been started on the first regiment.