Saint Erhardt and the Roads of Alkainos
A roadside saint, an abbey with an obligation to strangers, and a reminder that fantasy religion works best when it shapes ordinary life as well as grand theology.
When a Scene Works on Paper but Not in the Room
A week of revising the first Alkainos novel exposed a recurring problem: a scene can make perfect sense in an outline and still feel false once people have to move, speak and react inside it.
When ‘Clever’ Isn’t Enough
Revisiting my first Alkainos stories exposed an uncomfortable problem: they were often clever, but flat. Here’s how that lesson is shaping The Ash Cartographer.
Port Baratka: The Pirate City That Needs Rules
Port Baratka sells something the lawful ports of Alkainos cannot: freedom from other people’s rules. But keeping a pirate city useful requires rules of its own.
Rebuilding Alkainos
Alkainos has been around for a long time. After a quiet spell on the site, I’m returning to the world more systematically — revisiting old ideas, redrawing maps and, most importantly, making the worldbuilding serve fiction.