Welcome to the Chronicles of Qal'ath

After many thoughts about creating a world based on a small nugget of an idea I had a few years ago and being encouraged by my wife to pursue becoming an author, the Chronicles of Qal'ath are finally taking shape. I have spent much of the last few years mapping the world, creating characters and writing fragments of the plot from various locations within what is now the Erdàn Savànii. At the heart of this land lies the stone city of Bezélan, the capital of the Realm of Qal'ath and the focal point of the first actual tome of the Chronicles.

However, as I neared the end of another "final draft" of book one, I began asking myself questions about certain characters: why do they think like that? What happened to them that changed their perspective? What was that land like before such-and-such happened?

So it was that I have also begun a mini-series which I will eventually collate under Tales of the Realm (or more likely, Tales of Savàni, as that is decidedly less generic!).

While most of my work takes place at 553AFD, this "short" goes back to the weeks before the official founding of Qal'ath as a nation in the year that would become 350BFD.

Qal'ath is no perfect state with a morally-upright foundation. By returning to this point in time, I hope to draw you into the origins behind the Chronicles, as well as provide a small introduction to how my writing works.

These Tales often contain names, words and place names in my developed language of Foyiitùn. While the full tomes (books) will provide "translations" by way of character dialogue or other explanations, in a "short" such as this, those would be distracting for the reader. So, I have included a glossary at the end for any terms where a translation would be helpful.

It would be a gross understatement to say I am nervous about people reading the disparate thoughts that eventually make up a plot. But it is my world, created not only for my enjoyment (where the story is enjoyable anyway!) but to share. None of us is perfect; the world and cultures we live in are flawed. Yet each of us must be a hero in our context, pushing forward where each day survived must sometimes be counted as a victory.

Welcome to Savàni, which starts with the sad tale of Fallen Down of Nectar Glen. But fear not - where there is tragedy, somewhere there is hope.

F J Brodie