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...

Every world has its true believers — and in the Five Kingdoms, none are more fervent, or more dangerous, than the Redcaps. The Redcaps began as a fringe movement, the kind of faction that serious people dismissed and cautious people avoided. Their central conviction was simple, and simply absolute: the Goblin King is no mere ruler. He is a semi-divine figure, chosen and sanctified, whose authority over Goblin society is total and unchallengeable. For generations, this belief kept them on the margins — muttering in border towns, nursing grievances in the Kingdom's forgotten corners, waiting for someone worth believing in. They found him in King Gannon. Gannon never formally endorsed the Redcaps. He didn't have to. What he offered was something more valuable: silence. As the Redcaps filtered into Goblin City and began making themselves felt in its streets and neighborhoods, the King looked elsewhere. Their excesses — the harassment, the intimidation, the slow poisoning of civic l...

 Among all the Lineages of the Kingdoms, none are more elusive than the Naga. They are the least populous of the Lineages, and often the least seen. Many live their entire lives without ever meeting one in person, which has allowed myth and misunderstanding to grow around them in equal measure. Naga are striking in form: humanoid from the waist up, and serpentine below. Their bodies are covered in scales that shift in pattern and color — bands of green, gold, scarlet, or amber catching the light as they move. Their eyes are most often a deep red, with narrow slit pupils that seem to measure the world with unsettling precision. Naga are renowned for their mastery of poisons and toxins. This is not simply a matter of warfare, but of deep biological and alchemical understanding. Naga healers, alchemists, and artisans work with compounds that other Lineages approach only with caution. Their knowledge of subtle chemical interactions is unmatched, and often feared. Naga Alchemy tends tow...

Humans are of medium height compared to the other Lineages, with skin tones ranging from light tan to deep brown, and typically dark eyes. While their appearance may seem unassuming next to the more visually striking Lineages, Humans have long shaped the political, commercial, and alchemical foundations of the modern Kingdoms. Human Alchemy is most closely associated with Distillation, the careful purification of materials into concentrated Essences. Where other disciplines may combine or transform, Human alchemists refine and reduce, stripping away everything unnecessary until only the purest expression remains, the distilled truth of a substance’s nature: a tincture of cold, an extract of sharp, the essence of heavy, or the concentrated memory of heat.  At the heart of Human civilization stands the Human Palace, located within the walled port city of the Human Capital. Built at the center of trade routes and sea lanes, the city has long served as both a commercial hub and a polit...