#The Dark Princess of Acontinum

[ren-c-leyn]

@writingonesdreams I made a huge breakthrough with the plotting of The Dark Princess WIP! :D

 In finally got the ending figured out, even wrote a little blurb in my notes as a guideline for it, and found the catalyst of all of the horrible things that go wrong. A lot of things have clicked into place with it. A few motivations I didn’t have solid answers for suddenly make sense, a few characters got put in a totally different light, and a whole new level of intrigue and mystery just got added to the mix. It’s going to be great ^^

 Now I just need to sit down and work on the world building, figure out how a few things/deaths/reveals happen, and some of the characters and then I should, actually, be ready to get started on writing it! :D

[ren-c-leyn]

Happy STS Ren! What about a scene comes to you first? Piece of dialogue, first line, conflict, imaginary, voices,...What else do you need to write it down? @writingonesdreams

Also any hints on what the celebration in October will look like?👀 Your enigmatic posts are making me curious.

And if there is a writing/thinking update I would love to hear how you are doing ^^ How is the dark princess wip?

@writingonesdreams

Happy STS to you too, Dreams! :D

That depends on the scene in question. I got on a ramble, multiple rambles actually, so here's your very favorite thing to get on sts and wbw: a read more.

Some of them it's the first line, like the opening of The Shackles of Time. Some of them it's dialogue, like the scene I have in mind for the ending of book 1 of The Dark Princess wip. Some of them it's imagery, like The Time Keeper's office scene in chapter 4 of The Shackles of Time and the tea scenes in Forgotten Gods. Then, there's times it's the conflict, like the last couple of chapters of Forgotten Gods and this explosive scene in the middle of The Firewalker.

I never really know what my brain is going to latch onto to to inspire a scene in my mind, but in order to actually write the scenes out, I need to know what came before it. I can't just dive in and start writing an ending scene without knowing what happened in the middle, or the beginning, of a story. Which is why I have to write in chronological order, otherwise the scenes don't fit right and I can't get my mind to do the cause and effect chain I use to keep my stories on track.

Usually I don't need much more than that. I can roll with just a snippet of dialogue bridge where I'm at to the dialogue without an issue. I can do the same thing with just a first line of a scene and then use what came before and my ideas for where the next big plot point are to roll it that way.

If I'm working on a one shot short story, like the ones I used to write all the time for the blog, then I don't even need that much. Just some kernel of an idea and I'm good to go.

The joy of having a chaotic writing process that not even I can predict lol XD The downside of this process is that if I'm not getting that random spark of inspiration for a scene, or a scene that's relatively close, I hit snags where I need to actively start hunting for that snippet of dialogue or line or conflict or imagery I need to get the story to go again.

As for the October anniversary celebrations, what can I say besides it's a surprise? Okay, okay, I actually have a lot I can say. I'll give you a spoiler for the special post I did complete, because it turned out awesome and I need to scream about it a little bit: making things sparkly is super fun ^^ Having three people do far say they love the same sparkly thing in The Shackles of Time gives me lots of excuses to make this sparkly thing over and over again in different contexts. Oh, and I have an idea to turn one of your answers + one of your favorite Shackles of Time Incorrect Quotes into another thing. It'll be the next celebration thing I work on after the current thing I'm doing, since it's going to be a format I've never worked with before and I might need a couple of runs at it to make it work. Before I work on it, though, I'm going to finish Arlen's introduction post art so it doesn't get lost in the celebration stuff.

As for writing updates, I don't have much to report. I'm just getting back into the swing of being on tumblr regularly and creating things again. My life is settling down again, thank goodness, so I should be able to start clawing out more time for writing and plotting and stuff.

I will definitely be working on The Shackles of Time as my main focus, though, since I'm releasing those extra chapters in October and December to celebrate, along with an extra new years chapter, so I need to get ahead. I don't have enough written at the moment for all of them. Which is fine, I've been looking forward to introducing the new team, which will be the next arc. The trio have one more rookie quest to go before Glenn and Zephyr get their date mini arc. I'm looking forward to that, though I'm also a bit sad since the trio being turned loose might mean less of their fun mentors. I'm thinking of ways to keep them involved, and I think I have a few ways to keep not only Glenn and Zephyr involved, but also Wyndulin. So we'll see how that pans out when I get there.

Dark Princess is still going, though it is admittedly on the back, back burner at the moment. I have a general idea of the layouts of the kingdoms before and after The Dark Empire starts it's warpath. I also think I more or less have the diplomatic relations between the kingdoms figured out. Still have not finished building all of the characters. Did I say this is a huge cast? It's like over 20 characters I need to keep track of. No one is named, yet, and I don't have everyone's loyalties figured out. But hey, at least I have the major players in the plot more or less built. So progress!

Still haven't built the magic system, but I think I figured out the basic structure I'm going to be going with. It's inspired by The Shackles of Time's multiple traditions, the Lumen from Long Live The Queen, with a twist of The Plight of a Sparrow's consequences. Maybe. That's the general framework that's sticking with me as I'm looking into different magic systems, so I think that's the one I'm going to be going with. I need to set down and set up the rules of the magic system as a whole, but I'm going to put that on the back burner until I finish building the court. How many nobles could there be in a castle? *insert laughter that slowly trails off into a long sigh*

As one of my housemates are fond of saying: You just can't make anything easy on yourself, can you, Ren?

The answer is no, no I can not, but at least it makes for good stories, right?

[ren-c-leyn]

Happy WBW! Ren, sweetie, pls tell me more about these two empires in Princess wip, one that rides on dragons and one ruled by a Dark Lord. @writingonesdreams

And a happy world building wednesday to you too, Dreams my dear.

Unfortunately, I basically just hat that about them right now ^^' The world building has taken a backseat for the time being until I get the characters sorted out. I'll tell you what little I have, so far, though.

They don't have names, at this point. I'm not even actually sure where they are on the map, I need to make a map for this one. The dark lord's empire shares a boarder with Acontinum, I think? But that's the only positioning I know of.

The dragon-riding empire has a thing for the sky, their fashion, their art, their temples, everything is built and made with the sky in mind. It's ruled by a council made up of a noble from each of their regions and a representative of their main religion. These candidate are chosen by the regions they represent. (Or the holy order in case of the temple's candidate.) The dragons of this world aren't sentient, so they had to be tamed. As far as I know, they're the only land with enough dragons to make a military force out of them. However, most kingdoms have a flying creature they use in similar ways.

The dark lord and his empire have a sinister reputation, but really it was never supposed to go this far. I think he's just as shocked that it happened as every one else. A king of a small nation got sick of his land constantly being used as war grounds for bigger nations or raided or otherwise abused so he sent them an ultimatum - quit it or I swear to whatever god cares enough to hear me I will show you how it feels. They laughed, and he went to war.... and won. Using a combination of clever alliances and guerrilla tactics he took over the kingdoms that were bullying his people. The nobles of those kingdoms cried to their allies, who invaded, and he won again. And the boarders kept expanding despite him not starting any of the wars until he had become emperor of all of the petty kingdoms that once surrounded his land. He's currently trying to fix all of the issues he's inherited from the kingdoms he conquered and get his peoples to start seeing themselves as allies instead of former enemies forced to share a banner. Because surprise, surprise, they kingdoms all hated each other too and still kinda do despite being one empire now. I'm sure he's at his wits end already.

I have nothing beyond that on either empire. Sorry ^^'

Thanks for stopping by. I hope you have a lovely day/evening.

[ren-c-leyn]

I'm going to use this WBW to continue asking - that's a really good start! How does it turn out with the dark elf?👀 Will he become her bodyguard? What would it mean politically? Are these dark elves different than usual, aka Ren's world touch?

@writingonesdreams

Sounds like a plan to me ^^

So yes, he does become her bodyguard. It's an interesting situation that all parties find themselves in as a result. I've been giving this particular part a lot of thought because this is something that has a lot of potential for chaos. My history-geek roomate has also been helping me with this part, so it does have some historical influences on top of my 'that sounds cool' approach.

So, here's your third readmore for the day, I hope you enjoy it :D

The dark elf body guard (I need to name all of these characters, I don't even think I've named the princess yet XD), is the youngest son of a member of the dark elf council. So, fairly important but not a critically important figure to them, which is why at the end of the war, when Acontinum won the dark elves let them keep him as a 'guest.' In truth, he and three other dark elf nobles are there as sort of political hostages to ensure that the dark elves keep true to their word, just as four minor nobles of Acontinum were sent there as 'guests'. Don't worry, they are all treated well on both sides, because if they weren't it'd spark another war.

But, having him as the princess's bodyguard sets several of the nobles on edge. She's the king's only child, she's beaten this elf in combat, they only just got out of a war, so everyone is freaking out because there might be an assassination which would start an internal battle of succession. And even if that doesn't come to pass, it puts a former enemy in a position to gain sensitive information.

She's not worried about it, because she has beaten him on the battlefield, and is actually the one who proposed the idea after talking with him during the first several months of his stay. The dark elf is cool with it for several reasons, not least of which because of his relatively low rank back home. At least here he gets to do something besides act as canon fodder for his house's battles. Since the dark elves do run on order of birth, he's the very last in line to gain his father's position and thus is the most over-looked of his siblings. So, having someone who both recognizes and values his skills is a plus.

It also creates a sort of image of unity between the two countries, with a princess picking a former enemy as he bodyguard. In some ways, it may make them more reluctant to openly act against her. In other ways, it could create a loophole to make it easier to get at her. That will mostly hinge on how the dark elf bodyguard chooses to play his guards.

As for the dark elves in general, they're a larger country that sits between the dragon empire and Acontinum and also shares a little of their southern boarder with the wood elves' territory (where the dark princess's assassinated lover is from.) Unlike many fantasy settings, they are surface dwellers. They have always been surface dwellers and have no problem with the sun. But, unlike many of my settings, the elves did not come from the same god, and some were not even born of Gods' meddling. So they all vary drastically in appearances and cultures.

They do have dark gray skin, but their hair runs a gray tone spectrum from stark white to deep black. Their eyes run a similar spectrum, but include varying shades of colors both normal and fantasy, like a super dark brown or a really pale purple are both normal for them.

Their lands, much like Acontinum, are cold and icy for much of the year and boarder the ocean. Unlike Acontinum, though, they massive mountain range doesn't cut them off from the south. So they are as versed with the open sea as they are with the frozen plains and the thick forests. Their country is mostly self-sufficient and even trade off some of their goods with Acontinum, the dragon empire, and the wood elves in exchange for other goods.

However, this great influence of varying cultures makes it where the dark elves are even further from being a monolith than the rest of their elven cousins. The different regions of their country have adopted different food staples, fashions, customs, and the like based on their influences and mixed with their own traditions. So it's a bit of a melting pot. The ones on the western side, for example, tend to be more warrior-like since they share the boarder with Acontinum. The ones in the north tend to be more sea-oriented since they boarder the ocean, and so on.

Their ruling system is a council made up of the heads of several families from each region. I don't have an exact number, yet, but I think each region gets multiple representatives and that these families have changed over the years as bloodlines ended, people got fed up with corruption, political workings put some families out of power, ect. Competition for these seats can become fierce and sometimes end in bloodshed. Different families are allied with each other and will vote on actions together, or work together to frustration the plans of political rivals. These heads of the families, and usually their spouses, live in the capital city while their eldest children or trusted stewards run things back home and keep them updated on what's going on there.

They typically prefer diplomacy to war, but will not shy away from war if it is called for. Though, I'm still working out what the clash between them and Acontinum was about.

And that's what I have on them so far. Thanks for stopping by, I hope you have a lovely day/evening.

[ren-c-leyn]

Hi Ren how are you and how's the writing going?

Hey, Athena! :D It's been awhile since I've heard from you.

I'm a bit sick at the moment, I caught another head cold :( , but am otherwise doing alright. Things are still busy, but it is a lot calmer than it was.

Not a lot going on writing wise at the moment. Haven't made a lot of progress on anything in particular recently, but I've been chipping away here and there at The Shackles of Time's second quest arc, it's been a fun and dramatic one to work on. I've also been working on rereading Forgotten God's first draft and making the rewrite notes as I've managed to work up the time and energy to. Can definitely tell it's a first draft, but it's still been fun to read and I'm working forward on starting on the second draft. I've also been very slowly working on plotting and world building for a new WIP called The Dark Princess of Acontinum, which is a political fantasy drama thing. It's outside of my normal genre, but it's been fun to work on, even if I haven't actually started writing the story itself, yet.

How about you? How are you doing and how's the writing been going? :D

[writingonesdreams]

That's amazing how you are trying out completely different stories, requiring different approaches, than your usual + and at the same time! You are super fearless and I'm loving how this sounds.

The outlining method of running the plot through each or at least every major character's pov is a popular one with complicated plots and timelines, sounds like it could work for so many characters and clashing interests. I love you are watching similar things on purpose, that's one of my fave things to do :D can't wait to see how it works out for you and what ideas it inspires.

Also the world for the Princess wip sounds so cool! Several empires, one riding dragons and one governed by a Dark Lord? Invisible assassins and magic playing a role in this in the politics and power dynamics? Sounds absolutely incredible. (Btw what's scrying magic? Is it like spying through mediums to see other places or more of a future vision thing?) Does the MC Princess - is her name Acontinum or is that the kingdom? - have any magic? Questions in questions I know

I'm loving the sound of the impulse wip top :D 8k with ideas, vibes and magic is awesome and adventure/slice of life style of plot with characters in focus sounds like a dream. Mages and a dragon friend! to the mix! Yes, very much looking forward to this one. Mage of renown and an adopted father? Anything more you would be willing to share about them? :D

Happy Tbtt, Ren, our writeblr delight^^ How is it going with the two impulse projects? With the romantic political fantasy and the op mage one? It's a different process for you, I'm hearing, so I'm curious^^

@writingonesdreams

Ah, thank you, Dreams, you're an absolute delight <3

It is a very different process than my norm for both of them. The thing about politics is that there's a lot of moving pieces too it that requires a lot of thought. Also, the thing about starting a story with little of the plot and none of the world building beforehand is I have 0 idea what I'm doing and I'm hoping it doesn't collapse on me ^^'

The process of The Dark Princess of Aconitum's process turning into quite the ramble. I really do hope your chair is comfortable, this will be a read XD

Fixing this because tumblr messed it up when I posted -

 In addition to the normal political drama killing a king is both very difficult and very treasonous, trying to do so without endangering herself or her claim to the throne will be even more so; trying to catch professional assassins hired secretly by said king to kill a foreign crowned prince, different noble houses from her own kingdom and foreign lands throwing their sons and daughters at the princess for a chance at the throne, diplomatic break downs and pressures from the dead lover's mother, a magical and equally angry elven queen; trying to manage a kingdom in the middle of turbulent times, dealing with the end of a war they just got out of with the dark elven kingdom to their south, two large empires clashing in the world, one riding dragons and one rules by a Dark Lord, and I've really got my work cut out for me.

I'm going to have to not only fill in my skeleton of a plot, but also the intent and actions of each noble house, every main character, the way the people are responding to it all, the state the kingdoms are in, and where these goals and dozens of other threads clash and their results, all the while working at how the Princess uncovers the identities of her lover's killers and who hired them, and her eventual revenge and what method she uses for it.

I think I'm going to have to do like I did for The Plight of a Sparrow, my now second most complex story, and run down the story from each character's point of view.

In the meantime, while I'm considering all of this and am still building characters, dear goodness the amount of characters T-T There's going to be at least 20 for the first book, I swear. I haven't even bothered trying to name them all, yet XD That's 20 different mannerisms, personalities, personal goals, loyalties, alliances, and enemy lists I need to work out. My one spot of good fortune is that I won't have to deal with all of them the entire way through.

I also need to factor in how magic interacts with the world and build that into the thick of things. Because if there's scrying magic, why wouldn't she just go find a mage? If there's invisibility magic, would anyone even have seen the assassins? And a dozen other questions I need to answer about the world itself.

I also haven't read many political fantasys. Actually @writeblrfantasy is one of my first exposures to the genre, so I've decided to watch as many of the shows relating to that kind of thing as my housemates have thrown at me as I can. It's given me some good ideas.

I'm actually planning on starting a document with what I have thought up so far so I can start to kind of weave the web so to speak. I think it'll get easier as I start checking things off the list so I have something more solid to work with. I am making progress, though. I've got the angry princesses' three main accomplices figured out, and am working on building her personal set of alliances. As I flesh out her father and his alliances I think I'll get a better idea of where the rest fall.

At the exact opposite end of the spectrum is Mage of the Final Rest. I have winged 8k words of it so far, have an over powered mage girl, her new dragon friend, her adopted father, a mage of some renown himself, and a couple of random passages from an in-universe magic guide between the chapters. No plot, just vibes and a vague concept of a fantasy/adventure slice of life. There isn't much of a process here except keep writing and hope my brain decides it has a plan by the time I get to the end of what I planned. I don't even have much in the way of world building, outside of how magic works.

It's fun, but also kind of stressful. I don't have a good history with just jumping into projects without any sort of grounding in plot or world building so I'm getting a little nervous.

Thanks for stopping in, Dreams. I hope you have a nice day/evening ^^

[writingonesdreams]

That's sounds amazing 👀 the Dark Princess wip coming along with the intrigue and schemes with the empires...

I'm curious about this catalyst of horrible things and character motivations...whee can't wait what else you will share about this

Good luck sorting out the rest & starting to write it! Looks like this wip wants to born ^^

@writingonesdreams I made a huge breakthrough with the plotting of The Dark Princess WIP! :D

 In finally got the ending figured out, even wrote a little blurb in my notes as a guideline for it, and found the catalyst of all of the horrible things that go wrong. A lot of things have clicked into place with it. A few motivations I didn’t have solid answers for suddenly make sense, a few characters got put in a totally different light, and a whole new level of intrigue and mystery just got added to the mix. It’s going to be great ^^

 Now I just need to sit down and work on the world building, figure out how a few things/deaths/reveals happen, and some of the characters and then I should, actually, be ready to get started on writing it! :D

[writingonesdreams]

So many things to inspire a scene for you! Dialogue, line, imaginary ot conflict! That's awesome.

Sparkly?👀 Man so mysterious. Is it writing, art, edit, what is ittttttt. It will be cool what of my fave things you use though, looking forward to it :D

20 characters and their loyalties! Haha yes that is some work cut out for you :D Magic system shaping up, so many combinations! Really rooting for this wip and my dark king in the middle of the chaos.

Ohhh can't but agree with the past point, you aren't lazy with your creative, you chase it and give in to it and let it bloom and it makes for the best of investing stories it's a joy to fall into.✨

Happy STS Ren! What about a scene comes to you first? Piece of dialogue, first line, conflict, imaginary, voices,...What else do you need to write it down? @writingonesdreams

Also any hints on what the celebration in October will look like?👀 Your enigmatic posts are making me curious.

And if there is a writing/thinking update I would love to hear how you are doing ^^ How is the dark princess wip?

@writingonesdreams

Happy STS to you too, Dreams! :D

That depends on the scene in question. I got on a ramble, multiple rambles actually, so here's your very favorite thing to get on sts and wbw: a read more.

Some of them it's the first line, like the opening of The Shackles of Time. Some of them it's dialogue, like the scene I have in mind for the ending of book 1 of The Dark Princess wip. Some of them it's imagery, like The Time Keeper's office scene in chapter 4 of The Shackles of Time and the tea scenes in Forgotten Gods. Then, there's times it's the conflict, like the last couple of chapters of Forgotten Gods and this explosive scene in the middle of The Firewalker.

I never really know what my brain is going to latch onto to to inspire a scene in my mind, but in order to actually write the scenes out, I need to know what came before it. I can't just dive in and start writing an ending scene without knowing what happened in the middle, or the beginning, of a story. Which is why I have to write in chronological order, otherwise the scenes don't fit right and I can't get my mind to do the cause and effect chain I use to keep my stories on track.

Usually I don't need much more than that. I can roll with just a snippet of dialogue bridge where I'm at to the dialogue without an issue. I can do the same thing with just a first line of a scene and then use what came before and my ideas for where the next big plot point are to roll it that way.

If I'm working on a one shot short story, like the ones I used to write all the time for the blog, then I don't even need that much. Just some kernel of an idea and I'm good to go.

The joy of having a chaotic writing process that not even I can predict lol XD The downside of this process is that if I'm not getting that random spark of inspiration for a scene, or a scene that's relatively close, I hit snags where I need to actively start hunting for that snippet of dialogue or line or conflict or imagery I need to get the story to go again.

As for the October anniversary celebrations, what can I say besides it's a surprise? Okay, okay, I actually have a lot I can say. I'll give you a spoiler for the special post I did complete, because it turned out awesome and I need to scream about it a little bit: making things sparkly is super fun ^^ Having three people do far say they love the same sparkly thing in The Shackles of Time gives me lots of excuses to make this sparkly thing over and over again in different contexts. Oh, and I have an idea to turn one of your answers + one of your favorite Shackles of Time Incorrect Quotes into another thing. It'll be the next celebration thing I work on after the current thing I'm doing, since it's going to be a format I've never worked with before and I might need a couple of runs at it to make it work. Before I work on it, though, I'm going to finish Arlen's introduction post art so it doesn't get lost in the celebration stuff.

As for writing updates, I don't have much to report. I'm just getting back into the swing of being on tumblr regularly and creating things again. My life is settling down again, thank goodness, so I should be able to start clawing out more time for writing and plotting and stuff.

I will definitely be working on The Shackles of Time as my main focus, though, since I'm releasing those extra chapters in October and December to celebrate, along with an extra new years chapter, so I need to get ahead. I don't have enough written at the moment for all of them. Which is fine, I've been looking forward to introducing the new team, which will be the next arc. The trio have one more rookie quest to go before Glenn and Zephyr get their date mini arc. I'm looking forward to that, though I'm also a bit sad since the trio being turned loose might mean less of their fun mentors. I'm thinking of ways to keep them involved, and I think I have a few ways to keep not only Glenn and Zephyr involved, but also Wyndulin. So we'll see how that pans out when I get there.

Dark Princess is still going, though it is admittedly on the back, back burner at the moment. I have a general idea of the layouts of the kingdoms before and after The Dark Empire starts it's warpath. I also think I more or less have the diplomatic relations between the kingdoms figured out. Still have not finished building all of the characters. Did I say this is a huge cast? It's like over 20 characters I need to keep track of. No one is named, yet, and I don't have everyone's loyalties figured out. But hey, at least I have the major players in the plot more or less built. So progress!

Still haven't built the magic system, but I think I figured out the basic structure I'm going to be going with. It's inspired by The Shackles of Time's multiple traditions, the Lumen from Long Live The Queen, with a twist of The Plight of a Sparrow's consequences. Maybe. That's the general framework that's sticking with me as I'm looking into different magic systems, so I think that's the one I'm going to be going with. I need to set down and set up the rules of the magic system as a whole, but I'm going to put that on the back burner until I finish building the court. How many nobles could there be in a castle? *insert laughter that slowly trails off into a long sigh*

As one of my housemates are fond of saying: You just can't make anything easy on yourself, can you, Ren?

The answer is no, no I can not, but at least it makes for good stories, right?

[writingonesdreams]

Hahaha okay but this is brilliant 🤣

First the reasons why he decides to just stand up and go feral are so well thought out and relatable. Good military position and good for defense and everyone was annoying and attacking them, so he went one day....and won everything. And now drowning in paperwork as reward.🤣

Seems like he cares about keeping the peace in those conquered territories though, which must be hard with the culture clashes. So two other brothers? Younger ones? What are they like?

How did they end up winning over everyone anyway? Like the position and defense and magic and sword play were probably good base, but wow

The main character will be the princess though, right? They will meet in the second book?

I really like this Dark Lord. Good reasons for questionable and well meant rule, and scary reputation XD. He is just my type.

@writingonesdreams I made a huge breakthrough with the plotting of The Dark Princess WIP! :D

 In finally got the ending figured out, even wrote a little blurb in my notes as a guideline for it, and found the catalyst of all of the horrible things that go wrong. A lot of things have clicked into place with it. A few motivations I didn’t have solid answers for suddenly make sense, a few characters got put in a totally different light, and a whole new level of intrigue and mystery just got added to the mix. It’s going to be great ^^

 Now I just need to sit down and work on the world building, figure out how a few things/deaths/reveals happen, and some of the characters and then I should, actually, be ready to get started on writing it! :D

[writingonesdreams]

What a dark lord👀 I'm totally rooting for him. Will he be an important character?

The empire itself does not fly though, right? They just militarized dragons. Other flying creatures for kingdoms, that sounds promising👀

Very exciting. Thanks for sharing. Yes yes this wip is amazing.

Happy WBW! Ren, sweetie, pls tell me more about these two empires in Princess wip, one that rides on dragons and one ruled by a Dark Lord. @writingonesdreams

And a happy world building wednesday to you too, Dreams my dear.

Unfortunately, I basically just hat that about them right now ^^' The world building has taken a backseat for the time being until I get the characters sorted out. I'll tell you what little I have, so far, though.

They don't have names, at this point. I'm not even actually sure where they are on the map, I need to make a map for this one. The dark lord's empire shares a boarder with Acontinum, I think? But that's the only positioning I know of.

The dragon-riding empire has a thing for the sky, their fashion, their art, their temples, everything is built and made with the sky in mind. It's ruled by a council made up of a noble from each of their regions and a representative of their main religion. These candidate are chosen by the regions they represent. (Or the holy order in case of the temple's candidate.) The dragons of this world aren't sentient, so they had to be tamed. As far as I know, they're the only land with enough dragons to make a military force out of them. However, most kingdoms have a flying creature they use in similar ways.

The dark lord and his empire have a sinister reputation, but really it was never supposed to go this far. I think he's just as shocked that it happened as every one else. A king of a small nation got sick of his land constantly being used as war grounds for bigger nations or raided or otherwise abused so he sent them an ultimatum - quit it or I swear to whatever god cares enough to hear me I will show you how it feels. They laughed, and he went to war.... and won. Using a combination of clever alliances and guerrilla tactics he took over the kingdoms that were bullying his people. The nobles of those kingdoms cried to their allies, who invaded, and he won again. And the boarders kept expanding despite him not starting any of the wars until he had become emperor of all of the petty kingdoms that once surrounded his land. He's currently trying to fix all of the issues he's inherited from the kingdoms he conquered and get his peoples to start seeing themselves as allies instead of former enemies forced to share a banner. Because surprise, surprise, they kingdoms all hated each other too and still kinda do despite being one empire now. I'm sure he's at his wits end already.

I have nothing beyond that on either empire. Sorry ^^'

Thanks for stopping by. I hope you have a lovely day/evening.