L.G. Estrella's Blog, page 5

Puddle (Flash Fiction Fridays #67)

The boy and the girl looked at the puddles that had been left by the rain.

“I think this puddle is the best.” The boy nodded sagely and poked the puddle with his foot. “Yep. This puddle is definitely the best.”

The girl shook her head and poked a different puddle with her stick. “No way. This puddle is better. It’s definitely the best.”

The boy and the girl stared at each other. Then, as if by mutual agreement, they both raised their feet and –

SPLASH.

The two siblings engaged in the ancient and...

Ghosts (Flash Fiction Fridays #66)

Katie gulped and looked away from Old Man.

“You see them, don’t you?” Old Man murmured as the drizzle turned into rain around them. “Yes, it was raining that day. I can still remember the way the mud churned beneath their boots, the way the water clung to their armour and dripped from their weapons.”

Around them, standing silent but angry sentry, were scores of ghosts. All of them stared balefully at Old Man, their spectral forms still bearing the wounds he had inflicted upon them.

“Maybe we sho...

World-Building and Gods

World-Building and Gods

If you’re writing a fantasy story, the odds are pretty good that if it goes long enough, you’ll need to do something about the gods of that world.

The question you should be asking yourself is: how involved are the gods in daily affairs?

The answer to this question is very important because it will shape how much the gods are likely to be involved with the progression of the story and the development of the characters.

If the gods are relatively divorced from daily affair...

Dream Eater (Flash Fiction Fridays #65)

Dream Eater

Timmy glanced up from his book. He wasn’t normally the sort of person to watch somebody else sleep – that was more than a little creepy – but his pint-sized apprentice was a special case. Over the past week, she had complained about having several strange dreams. That was not, in and of itself, cause for concern.

Strange dreams were hardly unusual for necromancers, and the castle was something of a… hotspot for unusual occurrences. However, the specific content of her dreams had draw...

Everton’s Language

Everton’s Language

Everton speaks the same language as the Eternal Empire. This is because Everton was once a province of the empire. Moreover, most of Everton’s nobility is made up of nobles originally from the empire who were part of the original rebellion that saw Everton secede from the empire.

The language spoken by the empire is the most commonly spoken language in their hemisphere since the empire is the single most powerful nation and has many provinces, colonies, and so on. Everton itse...

Species-Innate Magic

Species-innate magic refers to certain forms of magic that are inherent to various species.

Perhaps the most famous form of species-innate magic is the petrifying gaze common to all gorgons. Another famous example is the fire magic found in all fire salamanders. Dragons, likewise, all possess an affinity for fire magic. This even includes ice-aligned dragons although they tend to use their ice breath and ice magic over their fire-related abilities.

Note that elves do not, technically, have a spe...

Paired Magics

It is not all that uncommon for someone to possess two forms of magic. One of these will usually be referred to as their primary magic whilst the other will be referred to as their secondary magic. Some systems classify the first form of magic to appear as the primary magic whilst other systems refer to the more powerful form of magic as the primary magic.

Generally speaking, people with two forms of magic can be broken up into two groups: those with paired magics and those with unpaired magics....

Is height inversely proportional to magical power?

Katie once tried to argue that it was, claiming that her enormous magical power for someone her age was the cause of her stunted growth. She also cited the fact that Timmy, who she considered to be obnoxiously tall, was not known for his raw power, at least in comparison to other Grand Necromancers.

Gerald’s arrival was semi-confirmation of her idea. In particular, Gerald is a fair bit taller than Timmy and most of the other human characters. Although he does have a pretty decent amount of magic...

To Tide You Over

To tide you over until I have more news about Book 5 (progress continues).

An experiment I ran earlier this year.

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/81046/the-ballad-of-a-semi-benevolent-dragon

Buttons…

Who decided it was a good idea to replace buttons with touch screens on everything?

Seriously.

It bothers me tremendously when you have to do something like double tap a screen to activate it and there seems to be no specific rhythm, length of touch, strength of touch, or other characteristic that defines if it works or not. More often than not, I end up double tapping… and then double tapping again. And then there are the times when I’m there tapping it over and over while it just stares at m...