A map of the lands of the Kingdoms from "The Last Goblin Queen" (not necessarily drawn to scale).

For the people of the Goblin Kingdom, a teahouse was never just a place to drink tea. Visitors to Goblin City remember the inns and taverns. That's where merchants haggle over contracts, caravaners bed down for the night, and travelers trade stories before moving on. Ask a Goblin where the real heart of the neighborhood is, though, and they'll point you to the teahouse. A Goblin teahouse can be almost anything. In one neighborhood, it's a shaded courtyard and a handcart pouring tea into whatever mugs customers happen to bring. In another, it's a sprawling hall that's stood for centuries, its stone worn smooth by generations of hands. What they all share: none of them are really businesses. They're common hearths. Most homes in Goblin City are cozy but small, often with barely more than a kitchen nook. Goblins are relentlessly social, and daily life spills out into the neighborhood teahouse, where a simple meal and cups of strong Goblin tea can be had for a coupl...

The world of the Last Goblin Queen has two moons. How they move against each other shapes how the different Kingdoms keep their calendars and time their festivals. The Greater Moon dominates the night sky, glowing with a silvery light. It has a 27-day cycle from full moon to full moon. The Lesser Moon is smaller and quicker, racing across the sky with a bluish glow. Its cycle is just 18 days. Put those two cycles together, and you get a double full moon (or double new moon) every 54 days. Most years bring six of these double full moons, but every fourth year, a seventh sneaks in. So next time you spot "moons light" in the Kingdoms stories, know that it's not a typo — it's just how the sky works there.

Three Kingdoms short stories, "Embermanes", "Coppercrawlers", and "Nyra the Forsaken" are currently available for free on Amazon and Kindle e-books. "Embermanes":  The Spring Horse Market in Bridgemark is the last place Gada wants to be noticed. A road-worn goblin mercenary with more scars than silver, she only needs a bed for the night—and a sturdy mare she can afford. But when a razor-tongued Elvish bard named Eleanor turns their first meeting into a public sparring match, Gada’s plans for a quiet, anonymous stay go up in smoke—almost literally. Because the market’s prize attraction is an Embermane colt: a rare Flamebound horse coveted by nobles… and dangerously mishandled. When panic sparks into fire, Gada runs toward the flames with bow in hand, while Eleanor answers with music that reaches deeper than sound. Together, they must keep a blazing miracle from becoming a catastrophe—before a single frightened creature ignites the entire fair. In ...

When Alchemy allows lead to be transformed into gold, what do people use for money? In the Kingdoms, the answer is simple. The most valuable materials are those that cannot be altered by Alchemy: dragon scales and Alchemist's Glass. The highest valued currency is, quite literally, the scales of dragons. Dragons are beings of pure Element (Stone, Fire, Crystal, Water, Metal, or Void), making their scales completely immune to the effects of Alchemy. No alchemist can create them, duplicate them, or transform them into something else. That doesn't mean adventurers can simply slay a dragon and spend its scales. Each Kingdom regulates its currency by acid-etching genuine dragon scales with the Kingdom's official glyphs and sigils, certifying them for use as legal tender. Even so, dragon scales are extraordinarily rare. Most people in the Kingdoms will never see one in their lifetime. They are reserved for diplomacy between Kingdoms, major commercial exchanges, and the storage of ...

Armor is, at its heart, a conversation between a craftsman and violence — a negotiation over who yields and who endures. In the Kingdoms, that conversation is conducted in very different dialects, because each of the great Lineages has developed its own branch of Alchemical practice, and each has found its own answer to the ancient problem of protecting the body without surrendering the ability to move in it. The Elves: When Silk Becomes Steel Elven Alchemy is built around a technique called Amalgamation — using Alchemist's Flame to fuse unlike substances into something that carries the properties of both. For armorers, this opens possibilities that no conventional forge work can match. One of the most celebrated product of Elven Amalgamation is armorcloth: silk and steel, combined at the Alchemical level into a single material that is as hard as iron plate but drapes and moves like fine fabric. No buckles, no joints, no vulnerable gaps at the elbow or knee. An Elven warrior in arm...