Hello everyone! To all you mothers reading this I hope you had a lovely Mother’s Day!
It’s time for another update. I’m ecstatic to announce thefirst edit of Encyclopedia Sarcadia HAS BEEN FINISHED!!! Almost three years of work has gone into the world building for the Cardinal so I’m thrilled to have finally reached this crucial milestone.
Before I dive into what happens next, let’s have another brief lesson in Sarcadian Geography 101. But first, here’s an obligatory photo of Zoya showing off her “ninja skills”.
And now our lesson can begin!
Tarana
Tarana is a continent located in Sarcadia’s west once filled with dozens of warring empires. The tyrannical Ido Empire would dominant Tarana for almost five centuries before they were defeated by Atriarch. The All-Father named his Taranese ally and good friend Shintaro Gun as the new Emperor of Tarana. Shintaro’s reign ushered in a period of peace and harmony up until his death. The Emperor’s dying wish was to have Tarana divided into equal kingdoms between his children: Pyoyo, Heninchi, Shinlao, and Zensou.
Zensou was outraged. He believed Tarana should belong to him as he was the eldest child. Zensou’s attack on his brother and sisters would start the first of many wars between the four kingdoms. For almost two thousand years the Kingdoms of Pyoyo, Heninchi, Shinlao, and Zensou fought for supremacy. King Osamu Sun of Pyoyo would eventually defeat the other three kingdoms and claimed dominion over all of Tarana.
King Osamu proclaimed himself as the Emperor of Tarana and founded the Sun Empire to rule over all four kingdoms. He allowed the royal families of the Heninchian, Shinlaoese and Zensi Kingdoms rule their lands but installed an “Imperial Consul” in each kingdom to control them. The system has worked for almost four centuries, but now there are growing fears Tarana could be headed towards a devastating civil war.
That’s as much as I’m going to give away for now. You’ll get to read about Tarana, the other countries, major events in Sarcadia’s history, and much more over the upcoming months!
What happens next?
The first thing I’m going to do is take a quick break from writing. I’ve been working firmly on Encyclopedia Sarcadia over the past month, so I don’t want to risk burning myself out too fast. I’m going to let my brain rest for a week or so before the real work on the Cardinal series begins.
I’ll be handing over a copy of Encyclopedia Sarcadia to some people who have helped work on my books when I was publishing under another alias. I trust their input and they’ve got a keen eye for detail. I know there’s bound to be some errors floating around so I’ve no doubts they’ll give my work a good polish!
I’ll also be looking to start drawing a map of Sarcadia. I have a general sketch of the shapes of each continent and where major cities and towns are situated. Having a map of my world will help build a better story. Plus, I’m sure you’d like to see how Sarcadia looks in much more details.
Before I can start fleshing out the Cardinal, I need to figure out the extravagant journey all my characters are about to embark on. I have a rough idea of how many books there are going to be, the main plots of each book and the overarching main storyline that will connect everything together. What I need to do now is work out how the story is going to unfold. Once I know how characters will get from point A, to point B and so on, I’ll be able to immerse myself into the series.
In between all this I’ll begin writing up a series of short stories to publish on the website. These will include:
- “The Menagerie Origins”, which will narrate the night a human was turned by Octavian, and
- “The Eternal Monologues”, which are a collection of shorts written by Sarcadian bard Bruce Boward. The monologues focus on key moments that occurred for Atriarch, Elysia, and Octavian.
That’s all for now! Thank you for reading and thank you for your continued support. Before you go, I figured you all deserve another photo of Zoya. Why? Just to celebrate the completion of Encyclopedia Sarcadia.
Until next time, be safe and take care!
W.F. Thorne
W.F. Thorne 