Information from the Author

(This contains SPOILERS to Lucrys’ Story/As Remnants of Reign, Part One: Amillara)

Why I wrote it:

     Lucrys’ Story was originally started in a college story writing class. It was meant to be a short story. Part One, Amillara is the overall events that would’ve taken place in the “short story.” However, I changed the ending of Part One a few weeks into class. I came to the idea that Skaarin should steal Lucrys’ heart, causing a new piece of the story to unfold. It originally would have ended with Amillara’s death.

     The worst feedback my teacher gave me was that I suck ass at writing short stories. But he told me to definitely finish the novel I’d started. I agree with him. I don’t even want to write a short story.

     I challenged myself to make something darker than my other stories. The world has darkness and murder, sure. But I decided to go all-out. That’s when Skaarin was born. And worse yet: Alucin Latrus, the only monster that could harm Skaarin in the first place.

On KDamascuonj Information:

     I take a lot of inspiration to and from my work. When I first began creating this world, it was heavily inspired by three things: D&D (Specifically the Legend of Drizzt), Dark Souls (Hence our lore-building at the core of our creation, and everything connecting), and Final Fantasy XII. (The world of Ivalice was my favorite thing to explore when I was young. The creatures and differing landscapes made me want to create my own world. Only “better”.)

     (Fun Fact: KDamascuonj was named after Dalmasca from FFXII. Which also reminded me of Damascus at the time. Since then, most names and words I create are just whatever I think sounds good. But that’s a rough task within itself.)

     After a couple years of creation, I began finding most of my inspiration from the world of KDamascuonj itself. Sometimes I just read over the lore and think of what I could add to make the world more interesting and more my own. Originally we had written about dragons and magics, elves and dwarves, but we’ve scrapped all of this. KDamascuonj may be a high fantasy world. But it’s not another Tolkien-based world like most of the others. I don’t dislike other worlds. Far from it! I get lost in Pathfinder and Drizzt easily. But I wanted something fresh - Something with heaps of lore and history seeping within its world to a point where no single person could ever learn of the entire creation – Something where everything had a reason for the way it was right down to the beginning of its creation and lore. And I think we’re on our way to creating that world.

     Other than KD itself, I also get most of my inspiration by scouring Instagram artists (it’s the only app I use), and, occasionally, from the good dream that passes me by.

On the Inspiration for Lucrys’ Story:

Hellvyre once asked me where the inspiration for Lucrys’ Story came from.

     This was a tough one, because for once, I wasn’t inspired by much outside of myself. I wanted a similar style to the poetry I wrote around the time I started this story. So, I came up with Lucrys in class - A delusional character that would allow me to break into a Stream of Consciousness writing style within the middle of a story. (The first of these was from Night Terrors - A scene where Amillara’s ghost “kills” Lucrys and sends him into a dream-world.) These became Lucrys’ mind-ruptures. And they were fun as hell to write.

     The characters in Lucrys’ Story were based off of different parts of myself, as well.

     Lucrys was based off of a character I’d named Sephirus (No, not Seriphus), who was insane.

     Skaarin came from a part of me that was in pain over a girl I’d known. She was a dear friend that I was afraid of losing (I did), and Skaarin was the darker side of me - That fear of her absence; the anger and hatred I held for myself, for allowing myself to lose her. I even designed him from my own body. I took a joke from a friend’s sister about my hair even farther. She said I looked like a girl when I flipped it over my head. So I did just that to Skaarin’s eccentric design. Feminine face, curly hair flipped over the head, the left side dyed in scarlet blood. Eccentric in the way Skaarin should be. (He keeps the blood from rusting by using magnius arts, though no one would be able to tell by reading the story. It’s a slight nod to Skaarin where, once you know this, you understand just how in-tune with his control over magnius he really is. He constantly has magnius messing with his hair just to pull off an extra Skaarin-esc appeal.) I gave Skaarin a motive, to kill his best friend and use his other friend to do it. (This is a play on how I wanted to kill myself at the time - and sorry, yes, I was suicidal when this began.) Skaarin had a love for Latrus, and a yearning for his death. He had a passion for Lucrys (Yeah, sorta a little gay for him after he makes him immortal.), as well as a festering hatred for a left over remnant of Alucin’s conquest.

     Latrus Alurin was created as a piece of my past. I used to yearn to be everyone’s friend, then turned to popularity in high school. (Bad choice, I didn’t have real friends at the time.) Latrus reflects my childishness from when I was a boy. He wants nothing to do with what he sees as evil: murder. I also had some daddy issues. So, Latrus got some, too. I was even blonde with straight hair when I was very, very young, so I thought it’d fit this king well.

     I then made Amillara as the reason for Lucrys’ broken brain. A reflection of the fear I had to losing my dear friend.

     I created Nii’rah and Gren from stories I’d written with that friend. We’d written so many that a few of the characters inspired me to create two of my own. They symbolize the remorse I felt when she left. I felt as though I could never finish the stories we’d began. And, because my characters are very real and very much alive in my mind, I felt as though one of their creators had left them; as though I’d failed them and couldn’t finish their stories - As though their lives would never end. Rastona and Yin (who Skaarin mentions) are the main characters from our first story together. Nii’rah and Grenivous were placed in cells, because I never imagined I’d finish the stories of my other creations without my friend. Part Two is a symbol of myself moving on. A piece where I came to finishing grieving, and where I understand that I can finish the other stories her and I had started together. It took a long time to get to a place where I could even start writing Part Two. Metaphorically (and literally for me), it explores a subconscious part of myself that I was afraid to delve into when I began Lucrys’ Story. And that’s what I’m writing now.

     Staara was from an old, old story I’d started writing in high school, about a character named Sevrynous.

     Temorra and everyone introduced afterward came after my grieving. They weren’t based directly off of my inner conflict at the time. But they will hold their own stories in this world one day.

(It’s the Smallest Details…):

     In KDamascuonj, knowledge of Earth is very rare. Skaarin, however, has visited the Lord’s Library at the Cascading Isles and learned about much of our world. He is able to reference Poe and speak of Old World knowledge without a second thought. Behind Skaarin’s eccentricity and violence, I was able to see intrigue and mystery, as well as hardship and taboo knowledge. So I built subtleties within the structure that made up his mind. He was an entertaining ride to forge.

     Latrus always wanted a father he could trust. And he was very young when Alucin sent Skaarin to watch over him. In Skaarin’s memory within the Limbic Ring in Executing Plans (Pt. 2), you can see Skaarin’s irritation while watching Latrus. They hadn’t been acquainted long, and Latrus was still very young. But in the scene prior, from Latrus’s point of view, Skaarin and Latrus have become great friends. At the end of the scene, Latrus tells Skaarin he loves him. This was meant to show his yearning for a fatherly figure, and his trust within Skaarin to provide to that wish. Skaarin retaliates with a joking demeanor, in the playful way they usually find their friendship. But from his words, he shows that he knows what Latrus means. Skaarin had spent a short time as a father, although this came to an early end. During this scene, he laughs away the chance to fill that role, knowing all too well what he plans to do in the future. Despite this, he inevitably fills that role, and the role of a dear friend to the young king.