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who are you loyal to, who are you lying to?

(print | patreon)

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Been binge reading TVM and I LOVE IT. Bowman was already my favorite character but this story has already skyrocketed for me just how much I adore him. Though Felix is a very close second just cause of how he is with Carmen. I’d also love to know more about the Rangers.

1. Did you draw from any particular real world inspiration for them?

2. What’s the backstory behind how the Rangers came to be? Any little stories of particularly notable members you’ve thought up?

Yay awesome.. it's definitely the bowman book so I'm glad the focus on him is working hehe

1. Yes! The rangers are almost entirely a play on the Fianna, a band of heroes and hunters from Irish mythology. I strongly recommend you check out their stories because they're some of the greatest stories you'll ever read - start with the salmon of knowledge and then try diarmaid and gráinne. Fun fact, in older drafts of my books I call the rangers The Fianna but I found it messy.

As for real world inspiration, there's actual irl rangers as well, stewards of national parks and rare habitats. The rangers in Inver do not fight faeries so much as they manage the Ruad and ensure it is safe, and in Pascal's time (the far off distant future of 2017) rangers have become more ecologists than anything else, as their deep knowledge of the region and huge archives of faery activity over the centuries lends itself wonderfully to monitoring habitat health. So many of the ecologists I know were also used as inspiration hehe

2. The rangers of the Ruad (not the Greys) were founded by Finbarr Ó Casaide as part of the war that founded the state of Inver. He and the first rangers built the main Spikes barracks because (if you check the habitat map you'll see) there's a broad stretch of ancient yew wood north of the Lough, ideal for making bow staves. So Finbarr was a Spikes ranger. He and the others engaged in guerilla warfare against the werewolves led by the first D'Ouilly traitor, in particular the Tanet sect.

This is a short book I do want to write (it's on the table!!) eventually but you can find out more about Finbarr and his mortal enemy Olivier by searching the names on my blog. I'm stuck on mobile for the time being but I did write a pretty long summary of the pair of them and their relationship dynamic a few months ago.

Notable rangers include Finbarr himself but also Bowman André, who was the ranger who drafted the treaty between ranger organisations and the new werewolf monarchy, enshrining the terms of their operations in the Ruad into law. Although Finbarr's side lost their war, André's negotiations led to the current state of the ranger barracks as both gender neutral and independent of royal law, self-governing and so on. These wins came from the fact that any time the monarchy tried to employ its own army into the Ruad to protect trade or fight faeries or whatever, the soldiers would inevitably desert, or start pissing and moaning about it and why can't we just get the rangers to do the work instead. The flip side ofc was that most rangers are convicts who joined or were pressed into the service, because so few people willingly join an organisation that forces you to spend months at a time in the most dangerous habitat known to man, with no-one but other rangers for company.

Another notable ranger is Sharps Captain Torben, he's extremely famous and well-liked in the Régian [victorian] era due to his notoriously kind and gentle touch, as well as his good decision making skills meaning that there were almost no civilian fatalities under his watch for years at a time.

Finally another famous ranger is Hooks Captain Celeste, in 1969 she anticipated the disaster that almost swept Cánamac town away and ordered an evacuation before the tidal wave struck the town. I've written about that disaster on my sideblog @ranticore ;)

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How does blood magic work exactly? Is it only for healing or are their other ways it can be used? If so, how? And has it changed at all from how it was used/preformed back in Renzo’s time?

"blood magic" means something different in Inver than it does to the church of Suzette. In Inver it's just another type of witchcraft - one with a bit of stigma attached, sure, but it's more or less like any other magical practice. Bearing in mind that each witch has an entirely unique way to do magic borne of a unique relationship with their patron or educator. So blood magic has no strict boundaries or rules as a class of magic, it's just magic that uses blood to achieve an end. For Islin that end appears to be healing(?)

To the church of Suzette, blood magic is any form of heretical practice which requires a human sacrifice. Islin's... abilities... do require that sacrifice. Importantly here, whether or not the practitioner is only sacrificing their OWN blood/other body part etc is not relevant, though there's an undoubtedly greater punishment if you do sacrifice others. Even limited to your own blood you are still "desecrating a human body (your own) by supernatural means".

The reason they come down HARD on blood magic - more than people native to Inver do - is because otherworld magic is somewhat limited to the region around the Road. Renzo, who founded the church, comes from the italian peninsula, far from the Ruad. The wars waged during the foundation of his state as well as the surrounding states were violent and bloody, and the magic used - their esoterica - was not in any way related to the faeries of Inver. It was magic of a different source, used in such a way that it left permanent marks on the region's cultural perception of death and blood magic. It is deeply unacceptable there. In Renzo's time, any corpse could be conscripted, and bands of soldiers would slaughter whole villages just to conscript their unwilling bodies into the war.

The termination of that war resulted in a unilateral blanket ban on the practice.

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i've been following ur blogs for a while now and a few days ago i finally decided to buy said the black horse and boy im so glad i did

i've already finished it and im so in love with ur writing style as well as the world you've created. cant wait to get to reading the second one!!

Whoa hi.. I'm still abroad but I have wifi again. Thank you anon & hell yeah I'm glad you're having fun and I hope you enjoy the ride!! 🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡

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fumes

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I’m so hyped that the second book is out and I can’t wait to get to reading it! I loved the characters and story so much in the first one so I’m hyped to see more of them, especially Bowman. Have you done any sketches of the dashing archer recently you haven’t share on here? Or do you have stuff planned to post of Bowman and Esk in the near future?

I do!! Trust me I have stuff in the pipeline unfortunately I can't show any because I'm not at my pc and won't be for a few weeks hehe. Thanks so much <3

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and when you do swallow the sun, what next? | buy a print of this piece here

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fumes

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Weir Leap | print

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because of you i get smacked in the brain with that "GALWAY MENTIONED" image whenever i see the name of the place anywhere so thanks for that

if you think that's bad imagine actually living there

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the crawling beast of the earth

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new book out just for u it's the sequel to SAID THE BLACK HORSE. enjoy mwah

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up there

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up there

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which of your art pieces do you think captures Felix most accurately? im curious about how my mental image of him compares to yours after reading

ive drawn a bunch of very elaborate drawings but the two most recent are these

(ignore the hand and neck tats in the first pic, technically that's a drawing of pascal, thus the labelling, but he's identical to félix anyway so)

The most characteristic traits are the frown lines. I tend to draw the characters relatively simplified because I do want ppl to keep their own mental image

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liked him so much in the last pic i just kept going