Jan 7, 2016
Thursday update time. First we've made some forward motion, 74 copies ordered and 269 followers, but with only 2 weeks remaining we need to make a great deal more progress in order for me to get this book into all of your hands. That means that I need and beseech all of you who haven't ordered to do so, preferably now but anytime before the deadline will earn you my heartfelt thanks. And for those of you who have already ordered, I hope you'll continue to recommend to everyone you know who would also enjoy Exile, Magus. All of the support I've received thus far has been truly heartwarming, and I don't intend to give up so I hope you don't either. Inspirational big game speech done, now on to the geek stuff.
I've always been a complete map-geek, and seeing John Robin's recent update has made me really want to get back to doing my best to prettify my maps of Pentaz' world(or more specifically the continent on which his story takes place). I've pretty extensively mapped out that continent over the decades of my obsession with this world, and also far less extensively mapped out the 2nd largest continent on that world. Unfortunately all of those maps are cluttered, worn-out messes which are pretty much only decipherable to me at this point. With that in mind I had set out to draw up new copies of them, and to make them a joy for others to look at.
As some of you may remember I did previously post up 2 of the newly drawn maps, but they were of what amounts to two different islands which are both kinda speckish on the larger map(which I have yet to finish a new drawing of to show you all). At one point I even purchased watercolor pencils in the hopes of fully coloring the maps to give the full effect, but alas my schedule became too hectic and I had to let the map remaking fall by the wayside. I make no promises, but I do say now that I fully intend to finish the map of the Zaltruscan empire, Frozen North, and Llanchland which I had started some months back and share it with you all before this campaign is over. This would show you the area in which the bulk of Exile, Magus takes place(only chapters 5 - 8 take place in areas not shown on this particular region). The next map after that will be the Badlands and the peninsula known as the blade which will cover the areas in which chapters 5- 8 take place.
Also, for those of you who have read chapter 3 as well as the first section of chapter 6 I posted up recently, you may recall talk of two ancient(and long dead) civilizations - Thirosia and Melexi. While neither of them are of vital importance in Exile, Magus, they do each have various parts to play throughout the series (such as a certain Thirosian artifact in Exile, Hunted). I don't dwell too long on either civilization at any point in Exile, Magus or Exile, Hunted for the sake of narrative flow, but I do love discussing them which is why the idea for a blog post I mentioned on Tuesday focuses specifically on them.
Beyond that if there is anything you have seen mention of in any of the chapters I've posted up that you're curious about, or just any questions you have about my world and/or characters in general, then I hope you won't hesitate to discuss them with me either on Facebook(https://www.facebook.com/redthomasjarnold) or Twitter(@thoasoold), though I will keep all such conversations spoiler free. Hopefully anyway. I also periodically post a bit of insight into my mind/world on my blog(http://thomasjarnold.blogspot.com/).
Now, because I enjoyed it last time(and I hope you did too), I'm going to give you another short pronunciation guide. This time I'll focus on Chapter 1. Just as last time, feel free to ignore my way of saying any word and instead read/say it however you want to.
Thierdenvolgenlund: thear'den'vole'ginn'lund. This name was actually inspired by that time I read the Nibelungenlied. I wanted a name that had the same cadence as Nibelungenlied, so I just let sounds roll around in my skull until Thierdenvolgenlund jumped out screaming and waving an axe. Sidenote: I cannot say Thierdenvolgenlund without sounding a bit like the Swedish Chef(Muppets).
Kerutda Magul: care'oot'duh mah'ghoul. Never mispronounce this in her presence, she's known as the Lady of the Hammers for a reason.
Muix: myoo, not to be confused with moo. That's right, the i and the x are mostly pointless and there only because I like the way it looks when written out. Fun fact: only 1 person other than me has ever pronounced this right without any prompting or hints from me. My jaw dropped at this occurrence.
Palkaz: paul'kaz or pal'kaz or paul'kuz. I can never make up my own mind on this one, just depends on just how much I'm giving into my lazy Southern tongue.
Pentaz: pin'taz
Duertanso: dyoor'tan'so. A bit of a compound origin to this one. When the Muix family first popped into my head, the main focus was Duertanso's grandson, Gwydion. Gwydion has(or I suppose more accurately will have) a lot of brothers, the most unremarkable of which is a fellow named Bartanso. I always felt kind of bad that poor Bartanso is the one brother who really has nothing going on for him, so when I decided to dive into telling the story of Pentaz(who had always been pretty enigmatic in Gwydion's tales) as well as Palkaz I decided I wanted to reflect a bit of Bartanso's name in their father's name. I knew Duertanso was sort of a thinking action hero in his younger days(I mean, he led a squad to kill a dragon after all) and probably a bit of a swashbuckler at that, so my brain naturally went to The Three Musketeers(my brain has very crooked roads, so my natural does tend to be convoluted) and thus I combined the 'tanso with a bit of D'Artagnan to make Duertanso. Well, now that I've shared that long winded origin that no one wanted to know I'm gonna call it a day on the pronunciation guide for this update.
I have taken up far too much of everyone's time now though, so I'm going to leave it at that. Since we've hit the threshold(and are near to hitting more thresholds) I will be posting up the next section of chapter 6 on Saturday. If we can get hit more thresholds(every 10 orders and 20 followers), then I'll post up more sections of chapter 6. If we hit 100 orders by Saturday I'll post the remainder of chapter 6 as well as section 1 of chapter 2 on book 2 (Exile, Hunted). Thank you for all of your time and support, and don't forget to buy and recommend Exile, Magus.