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...

In the Last Goblin Queen stories, all five Lineages — Goblin, Human, Ogre, Elf, and Naga — are almost entirely vegetarian peoples, with the occasional fish eaten in some of the more coastal communities. So when the stories describe something as made of 'leather,' where does it come from? In the context of the Kingdoms, 'leather' is a class of fabrics — not a single material. The most common variety, particularly in the Human and Ogre Kingdoms, is a thick barkcloth derived from pounding fibrous tree bark into flat sheets, soaking it in plant resins and tannins, and finishing it with ash. For applications like armor or scabbards, barkcloth leather is often layered into multiple sheets and coated with lacquer. The Goblins make sporehide: a tough, somewhat spongy fabric cultivated by growing sheets of specialized fungi on trays of sawdust. The result is durable and leathery, but needs to be rubbed with oil occasionally to keep from cracking. Sporehide almost always comes in...

Starting this Wednesday, 6/17, through Sunday, 6/21, "The Last Goblin Queen: Dragons of the Crystal Forest" will be availble for free and e-book though Amazon Kindle. Download "Dragons of the Crystal Forest" and leave a review!

In the setting of the Last Goblin Queen, there are five Lineages: Human, Goblin, Ogre, Elf, and Naga. Only Humans are capable of having children with other Lineages. While inter-Lineage marriages are rare among the Kingdoms, still how do the Lineages remain distinct over the centuries without becoming a gradient of different Lineages? In the Last Goblin Queen setting, it is only possible to be half-Human or 100% one Lineage, like a single-gene or single-chromosome trait. So the children of a Human and a Goblin would be half-Human, half-Goblin (called a Hobgoblin). The children of a Hobgoblin and a Human would all be entirely Human, and the children of a Hobgoblin and a Goblin would all be entirely Goblin. This leads to a number of possible romantic outcomes... The children of two Hobgoblins would be, on average, 50% Hobgoblin, 25% Human, and 25% Goblin. The children of a Hobgoblin and an Ogre would all be half-Ogres. For a Hobgoblin and a half-Ogre parents, on average, one third of the...