Flotsam Dreaming (my newest writing project!)
(I'll be tagging all my posting about this project on this blog under the tag #flotsamposting)
It's probably a good time for me to start talking about Flotsam Dreaming, a piece of original fiction I've been working on for the past 4 months, mostly because I'm like 3 planning documents and 30+k words and many many chapters in, and i think I'm in a place where i feel confident enough in what i have to talk about it in public. (the actual writing isn't public juuuuust yet, i would like to have a little more in the tank before i start releasing my chapters somewhere)
So, what's it about? Flotsam Dreaming is a fantasy heist story about a gaggle of the worst mages you know living on a floating city on the seas committing crimes. It's also about how societies change and shift in the wake of world altering events, how individuals position themselves amongst those societies, and how economics grind dreams into dust.
But all that isn't important just yet. Let's meet our first character!
Flotsam, the Floating City of Mages
Wait, the city's a character?
Yeah, it is. Flotsam is the core of the setting of our story, and it's an interesting place to be.
Flotsam's story begins about a century before the narrative present when a gang of court mages, sick of service to a kingdom they don't particularly feel loyal to, steal a massive warship, rename it the Grand Larceny, and flee the nation. When they discover that no other country will take them in and risk starting a war, they predictably turn to piracy to keep themselves alive.
The piracy thing goes pretty well, and now they can start thinking bigger. Their first few permanent home bases get discovered and destroyed, so their leader turns to magic to a new idea: a floating home base that can literally sail away from trouble when it comes looking for them. Using some clever horticulture, they begin cultivating tidehearts, a mangrove tree that can produce waterproof wood, and off to the races they go to build their new base.
Time passes and the base gets built, starting as just a large raft and an anchor. But as the pirate-mages get busy, the base starts to change. It begins growing in size and scope as more runaway mages hear about this mythical place and risk their lives to escape there. Suddenly it's not a base, its a small town, and that town just gets bigger and bigger.
By the time we hit the narrative present, Flotsam is a full-blown city, with multiple districts built from floating platforms, scores of guilds that provide essential services to its residents, fleets full of mercenary mages for hire, and an actual government, the Nest Council, who tries to keep the whole place running.
Using its unique traits and reputation, it builds an economy on trade and magical exports, but is ultimately still extremely reliant on mainland nations for food and building materials, which have become very happy to pay for the unique services that only Flotsam can provide.
In the narrative present, the city's just coming up on its Centennial anniversary. A hundred years is a long time for a city to make it while facing some very real economic and logistical challenges. There's real cause for celebration!
Which is why it's the perfect time for everything to start going wrong.
(Coming soon: the Actual Main Cast of Flotsam Dreaming)
