We reached our minimum goal less than 48 hour after launching our indiegogo campaign and we are FREAKING OUT!
We’re so excited, we can barely function.
What we’d like to do now is see if we can raise DOUBLE our budget! Doing so would help us pay our authors more, and possibly commission more art to include in/with this book!
You can help by REBLOGGING THIS POST! And! For every reblog, you get one entry for a chance to win a free copy of the ebook version of this anthology when it is released!
Just reblog this post by October 12, 2019 and you’re entered to win! That’s it!
She was a bright girl. She knew what she wanted, and she knew exactly what she didn’t. She was easy to know, but difficult to work out. Mature for her age, with bright - misleading eyes, filled with innocence; contrasting from the crimson red that constantly coated her lips. Sending mixed signals without even opening her mouth. A burning soul and a freezing heart - contradicting herself from inside out. She’s a paradox. She’s careless, but she cares all too much. A love that once filled her heart, leaves her aching and longing. A passion that consumed her, leaves her cold and distant. A smile that was once permanently etched on her face is now vacant, left hard and bitter, non existent.
Once I lost you, I began to look for you, I’d look for you in the men I would date. I’d go for the men with messy blonde hair and sky blue eyes, but would run for the hills after realising they didn’t sound like you, they didn’t kiss like you nor did they listen like you. I started listening for you in songs: picturing the way you used to tap your thumbs against the steering wheel to the beat of the music we’d play in the car. I began to look for you in books; reliving our experience through someone else’s words and perspective. I began smoking those Marlboro cigarettes you always used to smoke, trying to be closer to you even though you were out of reach. I played our playlist everyday, on repeat, imagining we were still in your car singing along to every song. And then I started looking for you in my dreams, replaying the time we spent together over and over again, trying to chase after the memories, knowing I would never be able to replay them again. I tried everything, just to feel close to you - to feel the connection I feared I would never be able to find again.
Maybe one day you’ll call me and tell me that you’re sorry too.
So I’m finding that the more I work on footnotes for First Empress, the more necessary (or at least very useful) it feels to establish a system of years for my fantasy world. I created a calendar as well, but I feel like I need to set a year to count up from or down to. I considered starting the year count with the official founding of Viarra’s empire, which will happen a few years after the first book, if I’m able to make this into an ongoing series. (I also thought about starting it with Viarra’s birth, but symbolically that felt more messianicthan I want her character to come across.)
I also thought about coming up with an event in the past that it counts up from, but I’m not sure what that would be, so I’m open to suggestions. I’m also getting into the idea of having an event well into the future that the years count down to, hopefully getting readers curious about what that event entails to. Any thoughts from my readers?
So after lots of deliberation and brainstorming, I finally decided that setting year 0 in my novel at Viarra’s foundation of the Tollesian Empire just made the most sense according to the world-building and for my readers. The other thing I established, however, is that the calendar year system that it superseded was based on a semi-mystical colonization event that couldn’t even be proved happened. The event relates to the founding of the first three Tollesian cities, but during the description, I have Zahnia establish that it was a bogus event shrouded in unprovable legend. Excerpt below the cut; thanks in particular to the lovely anon who offered a number of terrific suggestions in a recent ask.
The Imperial System of calendar years was established in 200 AE (After Empire) by Emperor Valashna II to commemorate the bicentennial anniversary of the unification of the Tollesian Empire under Empress Viarraluca I in what is now regarded as 0 AE. All years leading to unification are labeled BE (Before Empire) and count backward from year 0.
Though self-congratulatory as the move was, it was highly endorsed by scholars and historians across the empire at the time—and not just the ones the emperor’s cronies paid off to endorse it. The move quickly became popular among the citizenry across the Vestic and surrounding lands because it offered them something concrete to latch onto and identify with. The previous Tollesian calendar, now referred to as the Founders System, counted up from a mythical date allegedly seventeen-hundred and fifty-eight years prior to the establishment of Viarraluca’s Empire.
According to legend, the Tollesian peoples descended from refugees from a collapsing empire. Historians tentatively identify the dying empire as the Bronze-Age kingdom of Manarce, to the northwest, along the northern coast of the Istartus Sea. These refugees settled three major cities: Aneth, Thornic, and Venetesh—the latter of which fell into ruin around 600 BE and was located near Arr Patuna. The Founders System allegedly dated from the landing of these settlers and the construction of these cities.
While surviving literary evidence from these time periods sort of corroborates the Founders legends, archeological evidence does not. The earliest known settlement at Aneth was around 1100 BE, while Thornic and Venetesh couldn’t have been settled before 900. Moreover, human remains from these archaeological sites don’t match those of the Manarcean Empire or any other contemporary Bronze-Age empire of the time. And even by Viarraluca’s time, many scholars and skeptics had come to doubt the validity of these tales.
While traditionalists from Aneth, Thronic, and the surrounding regions balked at the idea of instituting a new set of calendar years that superseded the founding of their cities, most citizens of the Tollesian Empire and its client nations were quite content to accept the new system. It gave them a more tangible and exciting chronology to tie themselves to, culturally, and it was relatable to Tollesian peoples outside of the traditional core Tollesian poleis. The Imperial System exists to this day throughout the Empire and many of the nations it maintains relations with.
