Know the Novel Part One: Introduction

(all images via Pinterest)

As November looms on the horizon it's high time I finally announce my NaNo project. And guess what... it's the same exact project I worked on last year. Believe it or not, I actually won NaNoWriMo last year, well, obviously I didn't write a whole novel in the month or else I wouldn't still be working on it a whole year later, but I did write 50,000 words in the month. And no, I didn't put RLtG down through all of 2021 only to just now pick it up to finish it. I've been working on RLtG steadily throughout this whole year even going to write 86,000 words in it over the summer.

The problem? The problem is that RLtG is an absolutely monstrously huge book and is currently sitting at over 215,000 words long and still not done. It is my NaNo goal to finally finish this beast.

I've put it down briefly over this month as I have worked on trying to wrap up my first standalone A Tale of Gods and Glory and I'm really excited to pick it up again despite the fact that I have been working on this project for well over a year and going into my second NaNo, because I love this story just so much. And I can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel. It shall be vanquished! I shall finally finish it this NaNo... at least... I hope.

Anyway, in other super exciting news, I finally added RLtG to my shelves on Goodreads.

Now... onto the linkup which is being hosted by the lovely Christine Smith.

1. What first sparked the idea for this novel?

(image via Pinterest)

You wouldn't believe it, but actually the first idea for Rage Like the Gods came from playing a video game.

If you've never played Skyrim—first of all, you should probably remedy that—but it is an open world fantasy role playing game. It's the fifth installment in the Elder Scrolls universe, which quite frankly has phenomenal world building. In this game your character, chosen from a large selection of races, is a Dovakhin—dragon born. And that's about it, beyond that fact your character can be literally anything, whatever you choose for them to be. Good? Evil? You decide. You can be a mage, a thief, an assassin, a werewolf, a vampire, a soldier fighting on either side of a civil war, raid burial grounds, build a house, adopt kids (the last two only if you have the Hearthfire add-on), and slay dragons. I mean what more could you want?

This game offers so much with factions, side quests, and places to explore that it is a well established joke in the gaming community that most people who play it always put off the main quest and allow dragons to wreak havoc on the nearby community while they gather ingredients to turn into potions. And by most people I mean, me. I am most people.

Anyway, I had a bunch of different characters who I had put a crazy amount of time roleplaying as. I gave them backstories, fears, weaknesses (for instance one character was sworn to nonviolence just to spice-up my gameplay). And I got to thinking about those characters and I realized that since I had put so much work into creating these character to roleplay as, why not go the next step and write them into a book as well? Most of what I had was my own original concepts, my Skyrim characters were each named after a god or daedra in Skyrim because I was lazy and didn't want to come up with original names. Well, for my own book I can name my characters after the gods of their world and they will in a sense represent those gods.

And so Rage Like the Gods was born. Literally just like that, I was lying in bed, trying to sleep and telling myself that I didn't need a new WIP and my brain was like, it will star your Skyrim characters and you will call it Rage Like the Gods and boom next thing I know it's a year and four months later and I've written 215,000 words and still haven't finished it (pro tip, never listen to your brain, kids*)

*please note that I am only joking, you should listen to your brain at least sometimes

2. Share a blurb (or just an overall summary)!

Now, I know it's a bit long, but the book itself is already well over 200,000 words long so I guess it's pretty fitting.

Ruskhazar is a land of mountains and magic; men and elves. Built atop a fallen civilization and the bodies of demigods and the old monsters, it knows a tenuous peace. However, there are those that believe that not all that is buried should remain so. There is a powerful cult of necromancers bent on bringing about the end of the world as was foretold long ago. If left unchallenged their army of corpses will only grow, until nothing can stop them and the living will fall to their own ancestors.

The gods have chosen mortal champions who will fight against these necromancers and stop this from happening.

Unfortunately, these champions are just strangers waking up in the same jail, with no memory of how they even got there. When an attack from an undead kraken sets them free, they set out on their separate paths, unaware of each other’s presence. And unwilling to save a world that never had any place for them.

Thyre, a former bandit, is seeking a new home, instead she finds two in the form of a werewolf pack and a group of deadly assassins named the Family of Night. Torn between these warring loyalties, she struggles to decide who or what she truly is. An assassin or a werewolf? However, there is one thing that she knows for certain—she will do whatever it takes to make certain that she never loses a family again. Even kill.

Eirik is a bard just trying to make a name for himself. When he falls in love with a beautiful lady knight, he dons a hood and becomes the thief known as the Masked Wolf, in order to steal enough gold to buy himself a better life. By day he woos his love and by night he robs his wealthy employer; and if he can aid the poor miners of the surrounding land then the better for the tales, right? But as he struggles to keep up the ruse, he finds himself wondering how his story will end and if he is truly the hero…or just a rogue.

Meruna is a prodigy of magic. Her future has already been chosen for her and she doesn’t have time to save the world, not when she only has a short time to live out her dream of attending the Academy of Magickers before she is sold off in marriage to further her father’s political goals. Nothing will distract her from her lessons. Not her warrior nun bodyguard, not the handsome academy student born partially immune to magic, not even the ghost who claims to be a victim of a killer in the academy.

Dagmy is an exile from the deserts, determined to make it in this new land by selling her sword arm until she has a chance to reclaim the honor she forfeited. Hiring a fellow mercenary to be her guide, she sets out to become the next legend of Ruskhazar, instead she finds herself transformed into a monster that shrivels in the sunlight. Working for a band of monster hunters, Dagmy infiltrates a lair of vampires. If she can save a small village from their dark plans, she just might earn a cure for herself.

Perhaps fate had lofty plans for them, but the gods’ chosen are determined to make their own destinies. Forget the gods, forget necromancers, forget the mad sorceress determined to unite them and save the world no matter the cost— this isn’t their story. This is the tale of the heroes who never were.

3. Where does the story take place? What are some of your favorite aspects about the setting?

(Images via Pinterest)

RLtG is set in Ruskhazar, it's a peninsula surrounded by a ring of mountains, with a lush valley at its heart. It is the home of four separate clans. Two human clans and two elf races all four have a long history of conflict and do not get along. Ruskhazar is also the home of a small number of foreigners from the deserts who had to leave their home for whatever reasons. It is the only known place where magic can be found, the only place where many things can be found including elves. It has a dual kingship with a human lesser king and an elven higher king.

I honestly love how the different clans interact and how they all think they are better than the others, I also really like the religious system, and history. Another thing I'm exceptionally proud of is the fact that magic is not a rare thing but that most people have it. However it is a little like academics and a lot of people just aren't willing to put in the effort to learn it. I also love how many things were wiped out and buried long ago (an important aspect for a story about the dead coming back) so this book has dragons and krakens and shapeshifters and all sorts of other really cool fantasy monsters but they're all undead!

Another thing I really enjoy about the setting is just how beautiful it is, from jagged mountains, to heavily forested foothills, to northern lights shining in the sky Ruskhazar is just breathtaking in its splendor.

4. Tell us about your protagonist(s).

I have five protagonists in this book...

Thyre the werewolf assassin. She is quite serious and an exceptional warrior who has no qualms against killing anyone who gets in her way. She is fiercely loyal to those she loves and fears nothing except for losing them. However, she does have a soft spot when it comes to true love, she's really quite a romantic at heart.

Eirik is the lucky bard thief. He's the half-elf son of a farmer and an alchemist and is recently realizing that the life he chose for himself isn't quite as filled with glamour as he thought. This has caused him a considerable amount of anxiety. However, nothing can truly bring down his good spirits and he still has faith that somehow he can make it all work out in the end.

Meruna is a student studying at the academy. It has always been her dream to attend there and she is not going to give up that dream for anything. Born to a wealthy family of a powerful legacy and the only heir set to inherit it all, but Meruna sees this as more of a burden than anything. She believes that her whole life has been decided and this time at the academy is her only time to live the life she wants before it all must end.

Dagmy is an exile from the deserts. Quiet and stern, Dagmy only cares about remaking herself in this new world and wiping away the blemish that has stained her honor. She believes that if she does enough great deeds she will be able to do so, however she is really quite inexperienced in what life in Ruskhazar is like and that inexperience has led to her becoming a vampire, a cursed existence that she despises.

Azern is a sorceress with a shattered mind. She is able to see glimpses of the future, but these glances have taken their toll and left her struggling with a split personality disorder. She has been an outcast her whole life and she is tired of playing it safe. At this point she is willing to do anything—and I do mean anything—in order to save the world.

5. Who (or what) is the antagonist?

Generally, I avoid talking about the antagonists of RLtG, because this story has a lot of antagonists and most of them are spoilers.

However, individual antagonists for each of my protagonists aside, there are a lot of general antagonists. Sorcerers, corrupt nobles, bandits, vampires, werewolves, undead krakens... I mean you name it, they have probably tried to kill my main characters at least once.

The series itself has a couple of main antagonists, but again some of them are spoilers (and by spoiler, I mean that my characters oftentimes don't realize they are actually villains until it is too late and they are getting stabbed in the backs). However, there is a cult of angry vengeful necromancers who are the root cause to most of the problems plaguing Ruskhazar. And I would say they are probably the main antagonist for the series. As this is only book one, and they are the series big bad, naturally they aren't in as much of RLtG as they are in later books.

6. What excites you the most about this novel?

Gosh, am I only supposed to pick on thing?

Okay, I'm going to have to go with the character relationships. From the romances between my MCs and their love interests (with the sheer number of MCs I have been able to explore a lot of different types of romance), to the relationships with them and their antagonists which are oftentimes quite complex with interesting pasts. There are some very strong friendships in these books that I just absolutely adore, but I also really like the relationships between my MCs.

They don't always get along.

In fact, some of my main characters develop a sort of antagonistic relationship with each other as the series progresses, now please note they have almost zero interactions in RLtG itself, this book is to establish them and their roles in the world and then as the series progresses, those roles begin merging or clashing as they meet each other in different stages of their lives.

7. Is this going to be a series? standalone? something else?

Rage Like the Gods is the first book in a five book long series. It also has a prequel Between Gods and Demigods which came out earlier this year.

Purchase here

8. Are you plotting? pantsing? plansting?

Plansting, I guess. When I first started writing this book a year ago I was very much pansting it, however I've since figured out a game plan for almost the entire series so coming into NaNo I definitely know a lot of what needs to happen, however there's still much that I have yet to figure out.

9. Name a few unique elements about this story.

It's a take on the classic "chosen ones" trope, except my characters decided they didn't want to save the world. So basically it's the story of the chosen ones deciding they would rather buy a house, join a guild, get married or do basically anything else except for saving the world. Only they are trying to do all of that while imbued with the powers of the gods and while the world crumbles around them as monsters and dead things threaten literally everyone.

Also, my main characters are all connected through their destiny, they are supposed to save the world together. However since they have since decided to ditch saving the world, they don't actually have anything to do with each other. They don't even really know each other. Their stories are entirely disconnected from the other—now to be fair this is only true in RLtG specifically, obviously the rest of the story is the tangled tale of my characters finally getting to know each other.

Essentially it is five separate books in one, hence why it is so long. But it is...

Eirik's book about thieves and romance

Meruna's book with the academy and magical serial killers

Thyre's book with werewolves and assassins

and Dagmy's book with monster hunters and vampires

The final book I would say is Azern's and it's the one that follows the plot of the series because it is about actually trying to save the world.

10. Share some fun “extras” of the story (a song or full playlist, some aesthetics, a collage, a Pinterest board, a map you’ve made, a special theme you’re going to incorporate, ANYTHING you want to share!).

(drawing of the RLtG cast by yours truly)

(the RLtG cast as drawn by my good friend Lisa Elis)

Here's my Spotify Playlist

And here's my Pinterest Board

And a few of the collages I have made for this story... (all images via Pinterest)

(the first collage I ever made for RLtG, it was my lock screen and my home screen for my phone last NaNo)

(my first attempt at making something for just my five MCs)

(the girl's only collage)

(a collage for the fellas)

(My latest attempt at making something just for my five MCs)

So there you have it, one last glorious month and then hopefully I will have finished RLtG. Be honest, how many of you saw it coming that I would pick this story to be my NaNo project? Who else is doing NaNoWriMo? If you are, I would love to hear a little about your project. Comment below!