Edit Rejoined

Just a quick update to the road map for TPA and its associated series. I have made a more firm commitment to the Entanis Perling series and have been actively developing the concept for a few months now. I am currently envisioning a six book series to explore her life and the development of the Philosus/Jaltikij society.

This has led me to a renewed vigor for finishing the third TPA book, which is currently caught on the hurdle of an insatiable desire to re-edit The Great War and, eventually, The Birth of Magic. I think The Great War is strong enough as it is, but there are a lot of concepts which are not thoroughly fleshed out and two other major problems with the story. 1) The book suffers from unfamiliar name overload in the first few chapters. I think this is a fairly large issue. 2) The setting still feels cold and uninteresting because I don't spend very much time exploring it. Some of this is the result of an aggressive edit-down and some of it is just due to my under-developed writing style. I think both of these issues should be addressed to make the story as strong as it could be. The development of the Entanis series has also informed some aspects of TPA which I had not formerly considered. I think there are some muddy concepts surrounding the training and development of mages as contrasted to the cataclysmic inception of demons. If I can clean this up and expand on the concepts of magic as a stream of power in the story, I think the whole series will benefit.

Lastly, there is a very interesting gap between the end of the Callic war and the beginning of Entanis' story. I have a game concept I have also been developing for a little over a year now, which I find pretty exciting. It started out as an outlet for my frustrations with the mechanics of some other experiences I've otherwise enjoyed and has grown into a bit of a passion project. If anything, I think I've baked too many ideas into the pursuit and will eventually need to pare it down to a simpler design. Once I have a firm grasp on exactly what the game will look like, I can delve deeper into developing its assets and possibly even seeking out a team to help me create the thing.