L.L. Stephens

#WIPSnips The word for October 12 is HOPE

"Hope" is such a powerful word. Finding a use in THE RILL LORD that didn't spoil too much was tricky. But here is one that merely hints. A conversation between Hans and Levyathan, Dorilian's brother/son.
#WritingCommunity #WriteSky #Triempery

Yellow highlighted text on a background of dark brown and autumn trees; text offers a list of daily worldbuilding prompts for writers of fantasy fiction.

#OctoberWorldbuilders 12: Equipment/pieces

Pelekys requires a horse trained for the game; most players (nearly all of whom are noble or rich) will have more than one horse.

The axe used in the game is heavy; it has a stout wooden handle and a stone or metal head.

Riders wear pads.
#epicfantasy

White text on a spooky gray background bordered by ghosts, blood, and ghouls; text offers a list of daily writing prompts for authors of fantasy fiction.

#FantasyIndiesSpooktober 12: What do your MC and villain think of each other?

Nammuor's initial disdain of Dorilian (a "diminution" of Highborn blood) has been replaced by hatred and grudging admiration.

Dorilian's hatred of Nammuor is strong. But he respects Nammuor's ability.

Just before the first snows of Winter, High Priest Abas's Roman spy sent what was expected to be the last report until Spring. There was only one sentence contained in the report. "The Roman Titus Quinctius Flamininus has died, only months before his sixtieth birth day, while enjoying his retirement. " The last Abas had heard of the man, he'd been in Bithynia, sending his men after Hannibal, who'd killed himself rather than be taken captive and paraded in chains in Rome.

List of daily post prompts for indie fantasy authors for October. Today's is: Saturday snippet Hosts: @chesneyinfalt.bsky.social and @lvrussell.bsky.social

Day 11 of #FantasyIndiesSpooktober

Another unedited snippet from my Oracle of Delphi series WIP, Book 7. Flamininus had been a friend to Delphi.

#WritingCommunity

Finished the investigators, finally got the whole box done..
#cthulhu #CDMD #miniatures

#WIPSnips The word for October 11 is WELCOME

What is welcome? What is not? Sometimes it's simply a little human company. And finding out what that company might really be about. (In this case, food.)
#WritingCommunity #WriteSky #Triempery

Yellow highlighted text on a background of dark brown and autumnal trees; text offers a list of daily worldbuilding prompts for writers of fantasy fiction.

#OctoberWorldbuilders 11: Cooperative game/sport

The Highborn play games to develop their gifts. These games sometimes entail a high degree of cooperating because individuals might not be in the same room... or even city.
#epicfantasy

Left side of image is a graphic meme. The body of the meme has white letters on a spooky gray background bordered with ghosts, blood and ghouls. The letters are text offering a list of daily writing prompts for authors of fantasy fiction. The right side of the image is a text excerpt from THE KHELD KING, Book 2 of the Triempery Revelations series by L.L. Stephens. Text shows a malevolent sorcerer, Nammuor, at work in his lab: A drop of sweat trickled onto the upper lashes at the corner of Nammuor’s right eyelid, where it hung for a moment before sliding down into his eye. The resulting sharp sting pricked his awareness and he blinked. His focus wavered. On the verge of completion, the fine blue energy tube he had been creating between a pair of glowing blood crystals failed to stabilize; the thread of incandescence warped, expanded outward and disintegrated altogether. “Imbecile!” Removing his hands from the crystals and the glittering, red-jeweled Diadem on which he had been working, Nammuor turned in rage to confront the quivering acolyte at his feet. A dozen cloud-wort wands tipped with spun cotton dropped from the youth’s shaking hand to spread like accusing fingers on the obsidian floor.

#FantasyIndiesSpooktober 11: Saturday Snippet

Here's a snip to remind readers what kind of person (and villain) Nammuor is. The World has magic in its making, and he's a sorcerer determined to harness those energies. #epicfantasy

FantasyIndiesSpooktober prompts list Day 10: Free Friday or explain your WIP with emojis/gifs

#FantasyIndiesSpooktober 10
Free Friday / Explain your WIP with emojis

Emojis are about my speed today (my insomnia was bad again last night)

My current WIP goes like this so far:
🎨😭🐉 🎨 🙂 📨 😊 👑 🎨

Thank you. But you might be onto something. I mean... yeah. People.

#WIPSnips The word for October 10 is PRIZE

The "prize" of this snip is the Triempery itself, in particular the throne of Essera. Emyli has many regrets, among which failing her father is the most painful. She doesn't regret rejecting Deben.
#WritingCommunity #WriteSky #Triempery

Yellow highlighted text on a background of dark brown and autumn trees; text offers a list of daily worldbuilding prompts for writers of fantasy fiction.

#OctoberWorldbuilders 10: Competitive game/sport

Pelekys is played on horseback by riders vying for a heavy (dull but still deadly) axe. Teams must have at least five riders to contend. First team to score three cracks of the axe against the opposing team's goal post wins. Wagers add excitement.

White text on a spooky background bordered by ghosts, blood, and ghouls; text offers a list of daily writing prompts for authors of fantasy fiction.

#FantasyIndiesSpooktober 10: Explain your WIP with emojis

THE RILL LORD: 🏡 🏰/👻🫡 🥣🧸🪄 🔥🎇 🤕😭🔎🩸🌨️❄️📚 ⛰️⚠️ 🔥🪄☠️ 😭🌥️🌟

Ta-Dah!

Cover for The Wish and the Demon, book one in the Half Swallowed by Shadows duology, by Rebecca Crunden. Cover shows three men's silhouettes standing in the middle of a road in winter. There's dark red trees and snow on the ground. One figure is approaching the other two, surrounded by shadows.

📝 400+ pages
🥀 urban fantasy
🌃 set in washington state
🔥 slow burn
🤍 romance and angst
🗡️ demons and vampires
📕 first in a duology

🔖 universal link: mybook.to/D3rL5
💌 itch.io link: rebecca-crunden.itch.io/the-wish-and...
📖 goodreads: www.goodreads.com/book/show/23...

Signed & numbered editions of The Return of the Knights and The Fall of the Giants — my first two novels — are available now from @TheBrokenBinding.

Each set is hand-signed, individually numbered, and limited to just 100 bundles(link in first comment).

Pre-orders are open!!!

An image of the front cover of Wooing the Witch Queen shows a sinister witch queen in a spectacular beaded dress embracing her handsome and adoring new librarian (in a black wizard's robe) inside a library of magic filled with crows and masks and flying books. Above and beside it is this snippet from the book: Felix had never been more grateful for his concealing mask and cloak than when he'd emerged onto the tower roof to find Queen Saskia with her head thrown back, lips parted, a cloud of crows swirling around her and energy crackling so intensely through the air that it lifted the hair at the back of his neck. It should have been a terrifying sight: the wicked witch of Kitvaria no doubt summoning a terrible storm of magic to rain down upon her enemies. But it had stopped his breath for quite a different reason.

This week's Thursday snippet comes from Wooing the Witch Queen, which is on sale in the UK this month for only 99p! Snap up my sweet, nerdy hero and the terrifying witch queen he falls for: stephanieburgis.com/books/wooing-the-witch-queen

#romancelandia

#WIPSnips The word for October 9th is BATTERY

There are battery equivalents in the Triempery universe, but not one use of the word "battery." However, so I found this snip in THE RILL LORD in which Emyli tells why her feelings toward Dorilian are so hardened.
#WritingCommunity #WriteSky

Yellow highlighted text on a background of brown and autumn trees; text offers a list of daily worldbuilding prompts for writers of fantasy fiction.

#OctoberWorldbuilders 9: Board games in my book's world?

Readers can follow a chess game (yes, a single game) through the entire series. The game is begun by two characters and moves continue to be made by others, mirroring aspects of the plot.

I had a lot of fun with it. ♟️

White text on a dark spooky background bordered by ghosts, blood, and ghouls; text offers a list of daily writing prompts for authors of fantasy fiction.

#FantasyIndiesSpooktober 9: Favorite paranormal creatures

Well, unicorns. Of course. Because magical horse.
And I'm rather partial to basilisks. 😉

The amaru of Inca legend is awesome, dragon-like and mysterious. But not as fun as a unicorn.

Not done a #WIPSnips in a while, but we just happen to have a couple of dungeons in the end game 😂

Darkspire Reaches Amazon.com: Darkspire Reaches eBook : Lesley, C.N.: Kindle Store

Kindle and Kindle Unlimited on all Amazons. Paranormal Romance with a twist.. Who is good and who is not? Will the seemingly evil kill? Or will the apparently good? One path leads to life, but which? www.amazon.com/gp/product/B...

By the events of the final book readers witness the world's most disastrous arranged marriage, genocide, sorcery unleashed against cities and armies, and some affirming romances and friendships. One friendship changes Dorilian forever... and maybe it will be enough to save the Second Creation. Fin.

Dorilian starts the series as a teen but grows into a man. His life sees the crumbling of a great empire--the Triempery--and the rise of a malevolent Aryati-imprisoned god. Along this path emerge other characters, evil Rill-obsessed cartels, a Time-spanning Wall (another of the Three), and trouble.

Leur and a human, Amynas, sought to grow the Leur godhead by creating a human-god hybrid, the Highborn. Dorilian is a descendant of that effort. The Highborn have gifts tied to the original hybrids, the Three. Dorilian's bloodline ties him to the Rill, a god-machine inhabited by one of the Three.

The series starts in Sordan, one of the Five Cities. Only three Cities are left. They were created by Leur, the Creation god, for an extinct race, the Aryati. The Aryati got too big for their britches age ago and destroyed the Creation. Leur sacrificed much of its godhood to create a Second World.

The main character of the series is Dorilian Sordaneon. The story follows him from his mother's murder (which he witnesses) when he is seven. Dorilian is... unusual. He is godborn, not completely human. But he is a little human and maybe human enough to not become a tyrant-god.

Sorry to get to this late. I could not imagine doing this on a phone.

My WIP is the Triempery series. Five books published (and you've been there for most of that journey) and the sixth book will be published in April. I'm wrapping things up!

After you look it up--it's quite a fascinating sport--take a look at the novel THE HORSEMEN, by Joseph Kessel. That book is the source inspiration (for me) for this game. I read the book as a teen and it left quite an impression!

Left side of image is book cover of SORDANEON, Book 1 of the Triempery Revelations series by L.L. Stephens. Cover shows a small lone figure facing a golden, fantastic city with a core of shining power. Left side is a text excerpt from SORDANEON, showing a scene between Dorilian, the young MC, and older, wiser Marc Frederick: “You are crueler than any blade to deliver hope only when hope is gone. He would have ruled this land in a way I never could, been truly just in a way I never could be. He would not have had to fight the way I did.” When Dorilian looked away, Marc Frederick laughed hollowly in recognition of the reason. “Oh, you think I fought because I wanted to, don’t you? You would think that, given your history. But think again—and take a good, long look at yourself when you do. Because you are less like him than you want to believe, and much—much—more like me. You fight because you can, because you are strong and tough and have the stomach for battle that others do not. Because others will look to you to fight their battles for them—and you will do it, because they will have convinced you that you must. You will fight until you have killed or enslaved or silenced them all, every perceived enemy, every people that does not speak and think and act as you think they should—and then you will step back one day and see what you have wrought. You will see that you are alone. You will have wanted to create a world for people like you, only to find that there are no others like you and never will be. But then it will be too late. You will have destroyed even hope.”

It's Book Quote Wednesday and the word is STRONG

Below is a key scene from SORDANEON, first book of the Triempery Revelations series. In it, Marc Frederick--a man Dorilian has considered an enemy--counsels him about strength and its price.

#WritingCommunity #WriteSky #Sordaneon #bookqw

#WIPSnips The word for October 8 is DUNGEON

"Dungeons" come up a few times in the series but just this once in THE RILL LORD. Interestingly, Dorilian has not yet ended up in a dungeon--though he's often threatened with being tossed into one. As is recalled here...
#WritingCommunity #WriteSky