New story update time!

As I’ve mentioned before, I’m at work on a new series — though do not fear, Book 6 (the finale of the initial War of Memory Cycle) is still coming. Just working through some issues with the cover, hopefully to be resolved soon.

The new series has a title: Temharat by Curselight! The first book, which is about to start its main draft…does not have a title. It’s suffering from the fact that the original series headliner was to be Aethan, the guy seen in the banner below:

However, said fella is no longer the main character. Our protagonist, point-of-view person and overall central butt-kicker is the lady, Zehua. This can already be seen in the previously posted short story, Curseworks, which I plan to spin into its own book at some point — possibly concurrently with the one I’m drafting now. But this new Book 1 has no title because its original title was Aethan-based. I don’t have a direct cognate to his titles on Zehua’s side, so I’m having to rack my brain for something that works.

Anyway, after finishing the previous draft of Unnamed Temharat Book, I decided I needed a map. Technically I already had one…from 2007, when I briefly ran a Temharat campaign for some friends…but it was a terrible map with almost nothing to it, and I had developed a better base shape as well as a greater understanding of what the world needed.

This came with the realization that I could still use parts of the old map…if I flipped east to west. So most of the directions in the Unnamed Temharat Book draft also need to be switched. Go me for making everything harder for myself.

Equally, since I wrote the action without having a map, some parts of it no longer make sense. But that’s what editing is for, and the book needed a major information overhaul anyway, so it’s just another thing to tweak as I go.

Anyway, enough of my rambling. See below: three levels of Temharat maps!

This is the continent of Temharat, where all the action of the current series will happen. There are other continents — namely the Motherlands and the pole continent from whence the First Invaders came — but it’s probably the only one we’ll visit for a long, long time.

This is a zoom-in on the central area of the Dust Lands and the Great Valley/Cursed Jungle. All three books of the Unnamed Temharat series will take place in this area.

This is an even closer zoom of the Unnamed Temharat Book 1 area. All the action takes place in this ~85 square mile area.

These maps are mostly for my own reference, and I’ve been changing city names almost constantly — trying to find things that sound right but don’t actually mean anything in the real world. Hopefully I’m doing a good job there, but I just today caught an egregious translation hiccup and had to change a major landmark. Wheeee.

Third draft of Unnamed Temharat Book is due to start next weekend! Maybe by the time I finish that run, I’ll have an actual working title!