This has been a long time coming, but now I’m finally ready to say "fuck it, let’s sell this thing." As a huge geek I’ve always been fascinated with many different genres of fantasy. One of my favorites though is Fullmetal Alchemist, which was the primary inspiration for my magic system. I also love many urban fantasies, but it always struck me as odd that magic was always a secret, some other world that the public didn’t know about. Why did it have to be that way?

So I decided to do magic differently. Not only is it not a secret, anyone can do it with enough training. A lot of training. Once I’d gone that far I came up with a story about a team of Marines led by a 30 foot tall giant.

Yeah, that didn’t work. But it did make me think that inserting fantasy races into my modern real-world story might be an interesting way to deal with racial issues, without actually dealing with real world racial issues.

Then I just came up with a cast of characters, gave them all backstories, and borrowed a plot device from the first episode of the A-Team, created a McGuffin with an interesting sounding name, and voila.

I’m heavily influenced by the works of Jim Butcher, Terry Pratchett, Douglas Adams, Carl Hiaasen, Cherie Priest, Scott Westerfeld, Piers Anthony, and more recently, Ernest Cline and Andy Weir.

Please, let me know what you think. The story is written, but I’m always happy to take input from people who know their stuff.