A little about myself to help explain some of the things behind a story which began in November 2013 and ended with the first draft in October 2015. I have a combined eighteen years of Role-Playing Game and Writing experience. RPG wise, this involves Play by Email Sims set in the Star Trek Universe, Site-based RPG’s set in the Marvel and Harry Potter Universe, and Tabletop: AD&D, D&D3.5, and Pathfinder, and finally Mind’s Eye Society: Vampire the Masquerade, Mage the Ascension, Vampire the Requiem, Mage the Awakening, and Accord the Combined, and have served as storyteller in all those venues at one time or another.

Writing wise, it includes fanfiction set in the Doctor Who universe, A Players Guide to Role-playing the Battersea Family (for a Hogwarts RPG), and a major bio encompassing fifteen centuries of history. My other writings have included: miscellaneous short story work, Camarilla Newsletter Articles on game perception (Metagaming), and Short Story (Vampire: Dark Ages based.) Lastly, prior to this, I been interested in writing a Doctor Who novel, with the 7^th Doctor as the main. I had already had a 3800+ synopsis written and just needed a sample chapter, all of which was to be submitted to the BBC.

The first flicker of inspiration for this novel began roughly far back at 7-9 years ago, after a series D&D related jokes with a buddy of mine, culminating into a cliché idea discussed involving a paladin and a lich forced to join forces for the greater good. It sounded a little ‘out there’ at the time, but for some reason I dwelt on the idea longer than what I intended.  

A few years forward and I had already been introduced to National November Writing Month from someone I followed on DeviantArt. It looked interested, and I even checked out what it was about; write a novel within a month’s time. 50,000 words isn’t hard… right? Well, it sounded like an amazing challenge and the idea for the Doctor Who novel began to come back to the fore. All I needed was a couple of pages from completing a synopsis, following it with a sample chapter, submission, and hoping for the best. But… the other idea called to me. And to be fair I had, since early childhood imagined other worlds and other skies. Maybe it was from watching too much Science Fiction—Doctor Who, Star Wars, Star Trek, Babylon 5, Firefly—but something else called to me.

Originally, it was going to be high fantasy; I even had retinue of fantasy races laid out to be used.  I even had the idea settled on: a meeting of nations, with the lich as a ruler of one of them, and the paladin a human prince. Other ideas within this had stirred; plots, subplots, metaplots, and themes. And yet… I was unsatisfied. I love fantasy, but something told me I could do more…

October 7, 2012 I introduced a Stellar System in a Play by Email Sim I wrote for, the USS Galaxy-A, the Ledyion System, and one of the world orbiting a G8 variable I named Ardis. To my recollection, I had written up this system only a few years’ prior for a plot that never came to fruition, and decided to use it here. However, instead of a race of regular humanoids, the species that once inhabited the planet were a race of seven-feet-tall humanoid arachnids. Why I decided to go ahead to use the system when I could have saved it for another time I don’t know, only that I thought it would work well for the story I was telling.

The high fantasy idea was then distilled into a more science-fiction-like form; a race of Tetrachromats with a dual cardiovascular system and magnetoreception. Their technological progress and achievements came from a combination of a dream which inspired some of the ideas [the flying ships, the gathering, locations, etc.…] and an inspiring idea of environmental protection with a reality-alteration twist. The system itself was renamed ‘Dorastis’ with the parent star changed to a G3V, with the Thread being inspiration adapted from M Theory. Everything else remained the same.

Beyond this, some of the idea from the fantasy idea were incorporated into the story. Magic altered into preternatural manipulation/reality alteration, and what would probably have been a meeting between a few kingdoms or city states, turned into a meeting of nations across the planet, taking place near the end of their nineteenth century.

Lastly, as the race changed, so too did the original pairing changed.  The lich became a Grand Prince and the young prince retained his aristocratic characteristics, remaining the son of one of the leader in attendance.       

The length of time it had taken was a combination of many things: procrastination, meditation, and computer meltdown [thankfully saved most of the information of my hard drive,] but I got it done, sent in, and published! I’m sure there is a lot more I could include, ranging from scrapped subplots, scenes that never came to fruition, and even explanation on a few scenes and comments in general, but that about sums it up!

Tracy L. Reeves

"I believe that when we leave a place part of it goes with us and part of us remains. Go anywhere in this station when it is quiet and just listen. After a while you will hear the echoes of all our conversations, every thought and word we've exchanged. Long after we are gone, our voices will linger in these walls for as long as this place remains. But I will admit that the part of me that is going will very much miss the part of you that is staying." ~ G'Kar, Objects in Motion: Babylon 5