Oh man if I could relay effectively how much this painting meant to me. In my youth I played on a Neverwinter Nights 2 server in probably 2009-2012. I think it was Dragon Coast, man i can’t believe I forget the name of it. I did a lot of art on the forums, and roleplayed non-stop on that server. I think it made me a much better writer and the interactions i had with other players and the relationships still stick with me. This guy was part of a lawful evil band of blackguards who were sort of anti-heroes and hunted down evil people to enslave as undead soldiers. They owned a castle town called New Haven. Great times. This is Tor’ja in the land of Rhodes, place of great muck and mire. You can tell i was young because of the most random, nonstandard size I made for the painting XD
Anahata, Aasamir Life Cleric Acolyte of Helm of the ‘Lawful Good(?)’ by @deathshead13 @blight-grenade13
I cannot thank Alex enough for another incredible piece of art, this time for my own character in the Storm’s King Thunder game I play in that my fiancee runs for our local gang of geeks that have been roleplaying together for years now, after meeting through Magic: The Gathering at FNM, beginning with Dark Heresy (I shall share Alex’s awesome artworks from that game another time), a tiny bit of Pathfinder, before settling on D&D 5e.
Anahata is such a lovely a devout young lady to the point of naivety and serious anxiety and awkwardness when dealing with the rich and powerful, although she has discovered that she has a penchant for detective work and doing everything she can to keep her allies in ‘The Lawful Good(?)’ on track to avert the disaster her Deva, Galladia, warned her that this ragtag group are the only ones able to save the world from.
I imagine Anahata as the combination of looks and build of Brienne of Tarth from ASOIAF/ GOT and Princess Jasmine from Disney’s Aladdin.
Eyes: Silver Green Languages: Common, Celestial, Elven, Dwarven
Helm symbol birthmark on naval Angelic Guide: Galladia (Kind & Parental)
From: Teziir, Dragon Coast. Grew up in Temple to Helm
My older sister, Camla, who I idolised as a child, died of an influenza not long after I was first cloistered at the temple. My parents and instructors kept this from me for a long time, but as soon as I heard the news I vowed to become a Cleric, stepping away from the path of the Paladin, despite the protestations of my teachers. I retain some of the martial training and use it to defend those with might that I cannot heal with my blessings.
Personality: I can find common ground between the fiercest enemies, empathizing with them and always working toward peace.
Ideal: Aspiration: I seek to prove myself worthy of my God's favor by matching my actions against his teachings, with the dream of one day joining the ranks of the Watchers of the Fallen.
Flaw: My piety sometimes lead me to blindly trust those that profess faith in my God
I was praying in the temple and given my first vision from Galladia, my angelic guide, of a great strife in a land far away, known as the Savage Frontier, that could bring devastation to us all. In the chaos and darkness, there was a small glimmer of light surrounding a party of adventurers and Galladia impressed upon me that I must aid these heroes and ensure their victory. I took mace and shield from the temple’s armoury and left at that moment, without a chance to say goodbye.
The first thing I want to say about these books is: if I’d read them a few weeks earlier I would have nominated them for Yuletide, but I didn’t and nobody else did either so now they are going to be the first entry on the list I started for Things I Will Nominate For Yuletide 2016. This happens every damn year with some book or other so I shouldn’t be surprised, but...sigh. Every year.
Cutting my thoughts for length; I am going to get into spoiler territory but it’s well-signposted. The TL;DR is that if you’re looking for fast-paced fantasy heist stories in an interesting alternate history, I recommend them, just don’t go in expecting lots of character development for the lead(s).
This is an AU fantasy trilogy set in a California where the primary form of magic comes from eating bones - of magical creatures...or other osteomancers. (So big-time warning for body horror and cannibalism in these books, though it never gets too gory or horror-esque.) The AU part stretches credibility somewhat in that despite being a world with a vastly different history from our own - California is two independent kingdoms and L.A. has canals, just for starters - lots of things have the same names and even the same people exist, which is a bit of a cop-out. Otherwise, the magic system and worldbuilding is well-thought out and engaging, and the use of real things like the La Brea Tar Pits filled with the bones of magical creatures is very well-done. The first book starts out as a heist - Daniel Blackland is the son of an osteomancer who was killed and eaten by the Hierarch, the ruler of Southern California. He’s hired to steal something from the Hierarch’s vault. It gets twisty from there, and by the third book, while it never reaches fate-of-the-world levels, the fates of kingdoms are definitely at stake. (Sadly, the setting never leaves California - I would really have liked to see other parts of this world.)
I think RoL fans would enjoy the worldbuilding and the sense of place - it’s very grounded in California, mostly the L.A. area but other parts as well as the series goes on. The plot is smart and fast-paced for the most part, although a little mechanistic; some characters and scenes clearly exist to get the main characters where they need to go when they need to be there, rather than feeling organic. That extends a little to the main characters in general. Daniel, who remains a PoV character through the entire trilogy, never engaged me much as a person until the very last pages. A lot of the other characters are thumbnail sketches rather than personalities with depth. But, apart from the first half of the second book, the plot is interesting enough that you can get by even so - and we’re not talking Stephen Baxter or Isaac Asimov levels of characterisation; they’re good thumbnail sketches. Some secondary characters - particularly Gabriel Argent, a very smart bureaucrat, Cassandra, Daniel’s ex, and a whole lot of people in the third book when Daniel goes to That Place for Spoiler Reasons - rise above that to be genuinely engaging.
The books also reflect the diversity of the real California fairly well, again in a sort of thumbnail way - plenty of characters (including Daniel) are PoC, but the plot rarely has time to concern itself with this in any deeper way than their names. There are a lot of women, but the ones who get serious screentime are all romantic interests or family members of the narrating characters (all men). You’ve got to do a lot of your own filling in the blanks here.
And I think that’s why I want fanfic of these so much; there’s a lot that could be done with this world and the other characters, if we weren’t spending time with Daniel. Sorry, Daniel. The Hierarch might be obsessed with eating you, but I don’t care that much about you personally. Good thing you get into interesting trouble with interesting people.
(SPOILERS FROM HERE AND THINGS THAT ASSUME YOU’VE READ THE BOOKS. SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS.)
In particular, I would give a lot for some Gabriel/Max fanfic, because after the second I was thinking “I would really like a story where those two and maybe Cassandra and an Emma went off and did stuff” and then lo and behold the third book delivered this with bonus hand-holding and crying and Being The Most Important Person In Each Others’ Lives and yeah, I’m easy. Give me someone being rescued from an awful fate by someone else who keeps telling himself he’s doing it for utility, and then like ten years of being loyal to each other and saving each others’ lives a lot and Gabriel scowling and correcting everyone who keeps calling Max his hound and Max wanting Gabriel to be a better person, and then, you know, everything in the third book, and then the final post Max-shooting-Gabriel scene where they are ALIVE and TOGETHER and BEING CONCERNED ABOUT EACH OTHER because Max just SHOT GABRIEL IN THE HEAD FOR HIS OWN GOOD I am 100% sold. I was almost convinced the book was going to go there at some points (mostly the “Max might be dying and Gabriel is refusing to leave his side and holding his hand” point, c’mon, c’mon), and it didn’t, but...it could have. I mean, yay Moth and his boyfriend, but one brief note of queer representation in a whole trilogy is not that much to get excited about.
And instead the main focus of the books is Daniel (and Sam, who...is a very believable teenage boy and a nice kid but not very interesting). The problem is that Sam’s main interest is finding a girl to go on a date with and having a normal life, and Daniel’s main interest is Running The Fuck Away, and Gabriel’s main interest is trying to be a good person who runs a good country in a world where powerful people literally eat each other, while having neither the aptitude nor the desire to be a hero. And Max’s main interest is keeping Gabriel on the straight and narrow. Guess which of these things has my attention. Guess.
Read an excerpt from Dragon Coast, the sequel to Greg Van Eekhout’s California Bones and Pacific Fire, in which Daniel Blackland must pull off the most improbable theft of all.
Daniel's adopted son Sam, made from the magical essence of the tyrannical Hierarch of Southern California whom Daniel overthrew and killed, is lost-consumed by the great Pacific firedrake secretly assembled by Daniel's half-brother, Paul.
But Sam is still alive and aware, in magical form, trapped inside the dragon as it rampages around Los Angeles, periodically torching a neighborhood or two.
Daniel has a plan to rescue Sam. It will involve the rarest of substances, axis mundi, pieces of the bones of the great dragon at the center of the Earth. Daniel will have to go to the kingdom of Northern California, boldly posing as his half-brother, come to claim his place in the competition to be appointed Lord High Osteomancer of the Northern Kingdom. Only when the Northern Hierarch, in her throne room at Golden Gate Park, raises her scepter to confirm Daniel in his position will he have an opportunity to steal the axis mundi-under the gaze of the Hierarch herself.
