Onto The Horizon - Blog Posts

So uhhh, update on my novel.

DRAFT 1 IS DOWN! After 8 months it is done. The first draft for Tides of Change has finally been completed.

I am so excited, this does not feel real lol.

Is it good? No. Did I decide to change my magic system 3/4 of the way through the draft? Yes. Did I still push through and finish the draft? YES!

I am so excited. Thankfully my magic system change isn’t too major (well, it is major but it’s not an entirely new magic system so it could be worse).

For any other writers out there, you can complete that draft! This is only the third full draft I have ever completed in my life. The first I wrote when I was 11 (we do not speak of that one), the other is for a Star Wars fanfic, and now Tides of Change.

I know there is a lot of work left to do but this is a huge deal for me and I am very happy.

Keryn!

And here is Keryn Narkel, the last member of the Horizon crew.

Keryn is a bounty hunter, and she is very good at her job. She is known for always catching her targets and bringing them in largely unharmed. She has a sort of rivalry with another bounty hunter named Rayka, but honestly Keryn does not really see her as a rival at all as much as Rayka thinks they are. She does some work for the Insurgency, mainly tracking down members that are on the run and helping them get to a safe place, and she gets a contract to find Aala and Nila before the Alliance do.

Avalis!

This Avalis (aka Avi).

He is a volcarnirin and can use fire magic. He is Irel’s second in command and best friend and the only one other than K8 willing to deal with their flying. Avi is pretty calm and collected, however he is a force to be reckoned with in a fight, not just due to his size (he’s 7’0ft tall and muscular), but also due to his species having the natural ability to superheat their body to the point of being able to melt through metal, which he does not hold back on using against opponents.

Avalis cares a lot about the Insurgency, and over the years he has become close with another major member of it named Ria (I will talk about her in the future), as the two of them are sparring partners as their very different sizes and combat styles work well together. The two also struggle to sleep, so will often have late night sessions to help deal with their nightmares.

Irel!

Here they are, the leader of the Insurgency.

Irel Vanik is a human and has been in the Insurgency for 6 years and been leading it for 2. They are an amputee (both of their legs are prosthetics from the waist down) and they are a very skilled mechanic who spends a lot of time fixing and building things when they’re not running the Insurgency. Irel’s best friend and second in command is Avalis and they worked together since Irel recruited him 4 years before the story starts. They allowed the AI system within their ship (the Horizon) to develop and eventually gave it the name K8 (pronounced Kate) and while the two bicker, they make a great team and Irel has plans to build them a body to actually move around in that is not a ship. They are generally well liked even if they do have some strange tactics at times (Avalis is their impulse control). They are passionate about the cause and are determined to take the IGA down.

Nila!

This is Nila, Aala’s younger sister.

Nila is 10 and is very curious about pretty much everything. She looks up to Aala even if she wishes she got to see her more (well, that does actually happen since their homeworld gets invaded). Nila’s magic isn’t normal. She can see what magic others can channel. As far as Aala and her family know, this is a unique ability, and because of this the Intergalactic Alliance want Nila. Her family refused, and that is what results in the invasion of Ocera.

Aala!

Okay so this is Aala, one of the main characters of Onto the Horizon. She’s the perspective character of book 1 (Tides of Change) and is Nila’s older sister. Aala is a finaalin, a species native to the ocean planet of Ocera. She can channel water magic like most of her species can and loves to create music, but often does not have the time to do so due to her duties as a princess. She loves Nila dearly, but when Ocera is invaded by the Intergalactic Alliance, she’s forced to flee with her sister leaving the rest of their family behind. Aala is willing to do anything to keep Nila safe, even if that means working with the Insurgency.

Btw, I’m just doing quick headshots for these introductions as I was originally going to do a full group shot but that is taking longer to finish than I had hoped so quick drawings it is.

Some lore stuff for Tales of Stars and Magic

So a hyperfixation change means me talking about different characters lol. The thing is I also have to explain some lore for TOSAM before I can talk about plot or characters or nothing will make sense so here we are.

Magic So, we’re starting with the magic system. A magic user is referred to as a channeler and the act of using magic is referred to as channeling. Magic is an invisible force that exists everywhere and interacts with all living things. Some people are able to channel it to cause things to happen, but not everyone can. Every species is capable of channeling magic, however not every member of a species will be able to channel magic. Different species have different numbers of their species that can use magic. For example, around 40% of humans can use magic, but 98% of finaalin can channel magic. Someone is either born a channeler or not. There are seven kinds of magic: Fire, water, earth, air, light, dark and mind.

The Creators (or a very, very breif summary about them) The Creators were said to be the first species to exist. They were made from magic itself and they may have come from what was called the Source, although exactly what that was has been lost to history. They travelled the universe for millions of years, and supposedly aided in the evolution of most (if not every) intelligent species, but again, historians are not sure. Information on the Creators is difficult to get for one reason: the Blackout. The Blackout lasted for 10,000 years and was the result of the laws of magic within the universe being rewritten. This was caused by a Creator named Herene, who in order to stop the Devourers (Creators with a defect which caused them to feed on magic, which ever living creature needs to survive), was willing to cause the death of her own species to wipe them out. Creators had to return to their homeworld every ten years to survive, and when Herene changed the laws of magic, the majority of technology stopped working, including spaceships. Usually that would not have been a problem for the Creators, but the changes also locked them into the form of a mortal lifeform, leaving them stuck on whatever world they happened to be on. I will talk about Herene again at somepoint, but those are all the basic details you need to know on that.

The Blackout, Jump Engines and Exploration The Blackout completely wiped out space travel for 10,000 years as species had to completely relearn how technology (and their own magic) worked. The first to redevelop space travel was a species called the tseri, who invented the first Jump Engine, which allowed for what was essentially teleportation. Jump Engines do need time to charge up with magic to successfully do a Jump, and they do have a limit on how far they can go (I’m still figuring out numbers, maths is not my strong point) without the risk of exploding. The time after the Blackout were labelled the Discovery Years as the tseri introduced Jump Engines to other species. Now this period of time was both amazing and terrible due to the spread of technology and resources, but a lack of law and order also led to things like piracy, slavery and crimes in general. DY 442 was the year a new Jump Engine was developed so that they could reach another galaxy in the matter of a few weeks. The travel to the second galaxy did not do much more than add to the already chaotic times and both galactic and intergalactic wars became fairly common. In the year DY 1879, a group of planets decided to band together to form the Intergalactic Alliance, which helped to establish law and order at the time. After the Alliance was formed, the third galaxy was discovered.

The Intergalactic Alliance (aka the IGA) and the Insurgency So, while the IGA started out well, over the 800 or so years it has been around it has grown more and more corrupt. Now I won’t go too into things, but let’s just say the invasion of Ocera is not the worst of the crimes they have commited. I will also go into the exact structure of the IGA itself in it’s own post as this is already far too long. There have been many rebel groups over the years, however one of the largest modern ones is the Insurgency (they actually didn’t name themselves that, it was what the IGA called them and after everyone else started to refer to them as that, they rolled with it). The Insurgency itself is a large group of seperate rebel groups who joined together forming one big group. It was originally led by Ezren Heris, but after her death, Irel took over. On the whole, the Insurgency are regarded as criminals and little information is shared about them by the IGA, which is something Irel wants to change but that gets into the plot of book 1.