Cheklov's Stuff

Magic! Ah, magic. Always a pain in the ass. Magic is broken up into a few subcategaories. Racial Magic: Racial magic is magic that is innate to all members of a species. Very few races have magic common to every member of a species – a good example would be harpies; every member of their species has racial magic enabling them to actually fly. Dwarves, too – they have sort of an earth sense. Personal Magic: Personal magic is magic that is innate to a certain person; they are born with the innate ability. This one is a bit odd – for example, 90% of all non-Covah humans are born with magic that makes them highly adaptable; that 10% means it’s not racial. Most people have two, maybe three gifts like this, and half the time, they don’t precisely seem like “magic”. For example, the naga in my NaNo – her special talent, in addition to the human adaptability, is a gift for languages – it takes her very little time to be able to be fully fluent in a new language. The dwarf, ...

Welp, my world is huge. The funny part is, for the most part, I'm only going to be focusing in on one tiny little piece, that bit in the top right corner.  Specifically, the island there, the big one. That is where the majority of the action is going to be. Let's get a little more detailed: The salmon-colored continent is where the first two arcs of the story take place. The gray area hemmed in by mountains is the black desert where the last arc will take place. That little continent is called Covah by the inhabitants, and Tirlar by the rest of the world. The reason behind the two names? People on the outside don't realize it's actually inhabited, and most people on the inside are taught that the rest of the world is a blasted godless wasteland, and thus have their own language. Quick note on languages: There was one original language, and all the others are the result of a couple millennium worth of language breaking down and reforming. Covah a...

Chimera is the working, maybe permanent, title for this year's NaNo. Oddly enough, there actually isn't (to my knowledge - who knows what will actually happen) actually a chimera in the story. No, we're using it the way it was used in Fullmetal Alchemist - a creature that is fused from two or more others. Warning: The following won't make sense to anyone but me. Now, chimeras are made by one of the five orders inhabiting this closed off little nation - we'll call their order the Blue order for now. Yeah, look at them alchemical symbols that have nothing to do with the order other than looking awesome. These folks are, to the common man, healers. A major ability they have to be taken for this order is that they can more or less shape flesh. They take a lot of biology, anatomy, etc classes as acolytes, but their magic makes a huuuuuge percentage of their actual success. They more or less can reform and adjust a body as they will - it's really an actually...

 So, I'm at this point completely resigned to the fact that I am incapable of maintaining a blog. So. Yeah. Just gonna post whatever, whenever from now on. Now: NaNo stuff, since it's that time of year - in this case, it's the covers for all the NaNos that I bothered making covers for. Fancy! The exception being this year's, which just links to my profile on the forums - and has the cover image there. 2012 - Chimera (Fantasy) 2011 – Scrimshaw , Winner (Fantasy) 2010 – Fingerprints in the Dust , Winner (Science Fiction/ Fantasy) 2009 – Until Sunrise , Winner (Fantasy) 2008 – Deus Ex Machina , Winner (Urban/Superhero Fantasy) 2007 – Dance of Ashes {Obligatory Zombie Apocalypse NaNo} 2006 – Shifter {Obligatory Shapeshifter/Lycanthrope NaNo} 2005 – A Month Spent Drunk; How I Lost NaNoWriMo {Utter Crack} 2004 – {Pitiful Nameless Novel} That is a lot of words, you guys. This is my ninth year of NaNo. Nine years of committing my November to massive angsty...