What’s the style of this quest?

As per many quests, there will be options at the end of most chapters for what the perspective character should do next. To start with, I’ll be using approval voting to figure out which option we’re going with to write the next chapter.

At certain points during the story, I’m planning to allow the user base as a whole to be the voices in the dark, whispering things to our major characters to influence their decision making. See Voices in the Dark , below.

, below. I may introduce a Reputation Points system of some kind for omake and fanart in the future, but for the moment, I’m trying to minimize my tracking for this.

Whispers in the Dark

Who is Keras Selyrian?

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Who else should we know about?

trashy

He’s on this continent for a reason — to gather information and resources before the rest of his team arrives. That should happen…any time now. Yep. Any time. (Guys…guys? Where are you?)

Obtain the other sacred swords. There are six of them in total, and the other wielders generally have the same goal. This isn’t exactly a necessity, but he believes that it may be helpful in arranging a meeting with the local goddess — Selys — who his group is supposed to eventually make contact with for reasons.

Get Dawnbringer a body that isn’t a sword. This will hopefully make her at least 10% less annoying.

FAQs:

I am writing more books. My intent is to make sure this doesn’t cut into my writing time significantly; instead, I’m using this as a substitute for the time I usually spend on social media like reddit, etc.

Corin is telling his adventures linearly from the start of Arcane Ascension, so there isn’t really room to fit in a “new” adventure for him without breaking the timeline or making it non-canon. Keras, however, has years where we don’t know what he was up to that can be filled in without breaking continuity.

Because if I don’t take breaks from writing my gigantic epic, I’ll lose interest in it and won’t write as well.

Soon ™.

Because of where Keras is currently located, as well as some of the other characters that may appear.

Useful Links

Welcome to, an Arcane Ascension Weapons and Wielders quest.I’m Andrew Rowe, the author of the aforementioned novels. This quest takes place in the same universe as those books and starts out from the perspective of Keras Selyrian, the protagonist of the Weapons and Wielders series. The perspective character might shift over time based on user decisions and how I’m feeling at the time.I’m going to try to make sure that this is clear enough as a scenario that people can participate without any knowledge of the books, but obviously, book readers will have some additional context that other people won’t. I’d appreciate it if other readers can help new readers along, but try to tag anything that’s a major spoiler for the books.I’m deliberately running this in a time period that the books haven’t covered — that is, after the current set ofbooks, but before— to avoid having to deal with too much continuity mess. If I end up writing enough of this, I’ll probably edit it and publish it as a side story someday, but I’m not sure yet.This is a dungeon crawl, plain and simple. The protagonist(s) will be trying to make their way through a dungeon, find their lost friends and equipment, and either complete the dungeon or escape.At first, you’ll be controlling one character — Keras. As the story progresses, you may gain additional perspective characters and/or encounter NPC companions.NPC companions are going to be a little different from usual quests, at least in theory.When certain characters show up in the story, I may be bringing in additional people to role-play as these characters. These additional NPC users won’t have any foreknowledge of the story — they’re just role-playing based on what their character should know.Other users will have some options on how to interact with the story:Characters, including Keras, will remain in-character and have a degree of autonomy throughout the quest — you’re mostly nudging them one way or another.For some specific styles of encounters, I may allow write-in solutions, or simply have Keras take the solution that he likes the most from Voices in the Dark suggestions. This is largely applicable to things like puzzles.Tone-wise, this story is probably going to be fairly light and action focused, but that doesn’t mean darker turns are impossible.Users may, at any time, attempt to communicate with characters in the story as a Voice in the Dark. To characters in the story, this manifest as a phantasmal whisper that provides information.When doing this, you are role-playing a character in the setting, and only have information from within the setting. You are observing Keras and the others physically, through a form of magical observation. Notably, this magical observation and communication can be blocked from time to time, which may prevent you from interacting.Some important notes: You cannot convey out-of-story information, such as things about Earth or our technology. Voices in the Dark are native to Kaldwyn.If you are personally familiar with Kaldwyn’s politics, magic, etc. you may utilize this information, provided that it comes from theornovels. This doesn't mean you know the text of those books; it means you basically know what some random person who existed in the same timeline and area as those books would know. You cannot have information from the(which is in the same universe on a different continent) or from thelive-action role-playing game (which is nebulous pseudo-canon and may not be accurate). You are familiar with concepts like attunements, Selys, the god beasts, and the visages. You are familiar with famous human figures, like the leaders of nations, as they are at the point in time of thebooks. (This is mostly to avoid too much meta coming in from other books or places in the timeline that are inappropriate.)Who are you? You are one of the denizens of this dungeon, but you do not know who you are, in-character or out-of-character. You may express this confusion if you wish, or simply communicate what you do know — you can generally see what is happening in the story and have opinions on it. You are able to hear the other voices "speak", in spite of the fact that Keras hears your voice in his mind.This means, for example, that if I write perspective scenes for people in two different rooms, the Voices in the Dark can convey information about one room to a character in the other room.Voices in the Dark cannot read minds; you only are aware of physical actions that characters are taking, not their thought process. (I may change this at a later time.)You are not obligated to be honest. You can, at your discretion, choose to help or hinder the protagonists with this information.Do different users sound different to the characters: Yes.Can you be tracked and identified? Find out.For the time being, if you want to be a Voice in the Dark, make your post with the format:Voice to @(user name of the user controlling the character): “(Text that your character is saying)”This is a bit of an experiment and the format and style of this interaction may change in the future.Again, these voices have limited knowledge. NPCs will be instructed to ignore voices that try to convey things that the voice couldn’t know, e.g. character thoughts or real world knowledge.Keras is a wandering swordsman from the continent of Mythralis, where the War of Broken Mirrors novels take place. (He’s in those, too, but they’re less immediately relevant than the other two series.He loves adventuring, but he’s kind of a softie. As a general rule, Keras generally tries to avoid using lethal force in combat — which is somewhat difficult, given that he’s ludicrously strong (even by the standards of the setting, which runs on JRPG physics), and that his primary weapon (the Dominion Breaker) has an aura that annihilates everything it touches. Aside from him, that is. Oh, and the scabbard that was made for it.Skill-set wise, Keras is basically a traditional JRPG hero. He also looks like a JRPG hero.He’s a 20-something year old swordsman who uses sorcery to enhance his combat abilities, which are already excellent (read: absurd anime swordsmanship) without any magic involved. He gets into fist fights with dragons (sorry, Reika) and he’s somewhere in the bullet-timer range for speed. He's fairly resilient, too, but he lacks one of the basic defensive capabilities that people on this continent usually have — a personal barrier called a shroud. This makes him something of a glass canon by the local standards, but, uh, hard glass?Let’s drop that comparison.Anyway, Keras is no slouch in a fight, but he lacks utility. He doesn’t have healing magic, teleportation magic, information gathering magic, or that sort of thing — and as a result, his solo dungeon crawls tend to involve a lot of punching through walls. This is not ideal for his present situation.Let’s talk about what hedo, though.Sorcery in this universe has several different forms. Keras uses dominion sorcery, which draws from essence within his body to create a related spell effect. There are two subcategories; calling, which conjures the raw substance of an element, and shaping, which alters a substance that already is present. Keras can call and shape flame with a low level of proficiency, shape stone and crystal with a low level of proficiency, call light with a low level of proficiency, and shape metal with an extremely high level of proficiency.He also has some passive abilities he’s gained from exposure to magical items in the past. He can see and interact with spirits and he can detect the location of the Six Sacred Swords.Perhaps most importantly, he can acquire abilities from other magical items that he’s used, but gradually, and usually at a lower power than the original. This is not normal for sorcerers; it’s a personal knack that he has for, uh, reasons.(He may not be entirely human. Or even partially human. He’s not quite sure.)Anyway, his hobbies include fighting, cuddling, attempting “talk no jutsu” on monsters, and esoteric swordscery theory.Mechanically, I’d call him something like 15level in d20 system terms, and with some absolutely absurd special abilities and items that no sane Dungeon Master would actually allow.We’ll get into more details about Keras as the story progresses, hopefully organically.The most important other characters to know about in advance are his primary companions, Dawn and Reika.[Minor spoilers for early in thebooks here.]— short for Dawnbringer — is a sentient and telepathic magical sword. She spent most of her conscious life trapped inside a magic rock, which Kerasfreed her from by obliterating it. (This was not how Dawn was supposed to be drawn, which has led to no end of discussion about his legitimacy as a wielder. But, since Dawn doesn’t exactly want to spend another two decades in a magic rock…)She wasn’t always sapient. The sword Dawnbringer predates the person Dawn, and she’s not sure how or why she gained self-awareness.She’s also kind of a tsundere.As she sat trapped within her rock, Dawn only had one person to talk to —, the sword’s guardian.is a dragon. Her hoard consisted of books, more books, and some comfy pillows and things.Most of her life was spent guarding Dawn, after she was passed on the responsibility by her (now tragically deceased) father, Akoji. She took her job excessively seriously, challenging and defeating all comers who sought to wield Dawnbringer until Keras came around and fought her to…well, we’ll call it a draw.After their battle, Keras invited Reika to join him on his journey and, having absolutely nothing else to do with her life, Reika agreed.Notably, a dragon in the context of this setting is a shapeshifter, with a humanoid form and a more traditionally dragony form. She’s a powerhouse in either form, but generally stays in the human-like one because the larger form requires an absurd amount of food. It’s also too big for most rooms in dungeons like this one.If Dawn is a tsundere, Reika is a chuunibyou. This is largely because most of her exposure to human culture comes from readingfantasy romance novels.The three of them have been traveling together for some time now. This time period is nebulous because Keras is currently dealing with some memory loss and can’t quite remember where he is or how he got there.He does remember, however, some of their main goals.There are a bunch of other important characters, but I’m not going to explain them all right here. There will be additional context in the story itself as characters come up.Why are you doing this and not writing more books?Why is this focused on Keras rather than Corin?Why are you writing things that aren’tWhen are you publishing RPG rules for the setting?Why isin the thread title if this is focusing on Keras?These links lead to other places to research and discuss the setting, books, etc. Beware of heavy potential spoilers, though.Arcane Ascension Wiki: Arcane Ascension Wiki The subreddit for all the books in this universe is here: reddit.com/r/climberscourt A Discord server for all the books can be found here: Join the Climber's Court Discord Server! Author’s Blog: Broken Mirrors Author’s Goodreads Profile: Andrew Rowe