This blog very quickly became a personal blog, which is not something I am interested in doing so let’s get back to what it was meant for! In getting back to focusing this platform on my books and the world I have created, I thought it would be fitting to start at as good of as place as any: the beginning.
Above is the map that some of you may already be familiar with as it is the one on my website, sunandmoonnovels.com, and it is the one I have shared on Facebook. This is the original map and setting for the Sun and Moon novels. I spent a great deal of time pouring in love and effort to this world. I came up with a number of cultures that you will meet throughout the Marked Soul Series and beyond. At the end of the day, I am really happy and really proud of this little world I have made. I am looking forward to exploring more of the original twelve cultures throughout a number of books I have planned.
As I pondered more and more of the world I had created, I started to think about what may be beyond the Sun and Moon Isles. How was the world created? What is the origin of magic in this setting and how does that inform how the people interact with it? Suffice to say I have some exciting ideas that I have landed on that I don’t want to spoil as they will be revealed throughout Chase’s journey, but I can share some of what I have come up with here with you now.
Enter Rhy’lar, the Shattered World. Rhy’lar is the name for the planet on which the Sun and Moon Isles reside. Dragons being some of the oldest creatures to exist in the world, Rhy’lar comes from an old draconic word for “home.” Long ago, well before the recorded history of Rhy’lar, the world looked much different than you may think. A Pangea-like super continent dominated the planet, void of magic of any kind. Even the dragons themselves were more bestial, lacking higher thought or any of their trademark magical abilities such as their elemental breath. In an event that I will affectionately refer to as the burst, a primordial force unleashed raw magic energy into Rhy’lar known as taan’sir at the location that would later be known as Dragonstone.
The sheer power of such a force caused an explosion of energy that rippled out throughout the world with Dragonstone at it’s epicenter. The taan’sir forced its way out on the world, ripping apart the landscape as it flowed out onto the land. In a single moment, the continent on Rhy’lar shattered into what it looks like today.
The explosion that shaped the world was one of raw magical energy, and as such it manifested in unexpected ways. As it flowed out through the land, the taan’sir deposited itself in the world, infusing itself within nearly everything. Since Dragonstone was at the center of the explosion, it was infused with an enormous amount of energy, granting the dragons their abilities to tap into the magic energy. The Sun and Moon Isles absorbed a fair amount of the energy as it rushed outward, but the rest of the world was affected much differently.
A strange dead zone was left behind in the great expanse of ocean that isolated the Sun and Moon Isles from the rest of Rhy’lar. It is devoid of much of the taan’sir save for some pockets of energy that deposited during the burst. However, as the taan’sir moved further outward beyond that dead zone, it’s energy amplified leading to continents and islands that contain even more infused magic than Dragonstone itself.
The peoples of Rhy’lar were forever changed by the burst, physically and mentally, but as they discovered the taan’sir that had infused itself in the world, their abilities to tap into the power began to vary. More information about how humans and dragons interact with taan’sir will be revealed in the Marked Soul Series sooner than you may think, but I have to admit that I am very excited about the prospects of what this means for my world.
For now I will leave you all with a hint that humans and dragons cannot access all of taan’sir. They can only reach certain parts of the power, and most can only ever find a tiny fraction of it based on their which bloodline their race can trace back to the first humans of Rhy’lar.
I have some really great plans for the future. Most of my focus will remain on the Sun and Moon Isles as there are many stories to tell on those three tiny islands, but I do have some things planned to explore those more magically attuned lands beyond the expanse.
For now, I’ll get back to working on book 3. This sort of article is what you can expect of future blog posts. I want this to be a place where people interested in my works can learn more and stay up to date on the status of my current works. If you made it this far, thank you very much for reading and I hope you find this enlightening.
