Way Walkers

I know I’ve been quiet, there’s been a lot of life drama, and things are moving at a crawl on all ends. But here’s a preview of a scene for WW:U3 as another thank you for your patience. Enjoy!

So, I’ve been quiet for a while. This is two parted, the first being my sweet doggo feel ill and i was taking care of her for three weeks until she finally passed. I had her for 12 and a half years and she was dearly beloved. Her loss has hit me rather hard, as she’d been there for me through some of the darkest times of my life, and this was also the first time i was solely responsible for making the choices about the life and death of a pet. She was really awesome and chill and just good, in a way that was exceptional for her breed, a Chow-Chow, whose name literally means ‘bite-bite’ lol. But not my girl. The only one she ever bit was a stranger who decided to get in my face in a very threatening way and he immediately regretted it. To everyone else she was playful and fluffy and darling. I miss her.

The second hiccup in the mix is honestly more time-consuming, and that’s the final push to finish remodeling my mother’s home so she can sell it, and we as a family can buy a new home together with a mother in law suite. I’m hoping we can do this relatively quickly and find a home closer to my work, which would in turn spare me a ton of driving in a day.

But until then i’m going to be MIA for a bit, so love, laugh read and enjoy life in the meanwhile. ❤

~j. leigh

So, there’s been a lot going on in the world and it’s stressing me out, so i decided to calm myself by writing you out a little bit of lore on the judicial systems of the Tazu Nation and Clan Lands (as these are the more developed systems in the world, though i’ve got info on all of them). These are brief explanations, but if you have any additional questions or thoughts, feel free to share ’em and i might answer or amend them late. enjoy!

Tazu Nation:

The Tazu Nation follows a matriarchal feudal system, with a few variants with regards to how the King’s and Queen’s offices function with each other. Because it a matriarchal system, the ruling heads of each office are traditionally brother and sister– with occasional variants for cousins and the like, though it is never a husband and wife dynamic. The functions of the whole government are divided between them– the Queen’s office being responsible to the home-base related aspects, such as the distribution of land, as land is typically passed onto women in families, while liquid capital is passed onto males. All aspects of government fall into these traditional binaries, for example the collection of taxes is handled by the King’s office, while the distribution of funds is then determined by the Queen’s office. Foreign affairs on a global scale are dealt with by the King’s office, while actual trade rites fall to the Queen’s office, and so on to all portions of governance. This hand-in hand approach applies also to the lower noble families, with each tier on the feudal system pyramid following the same model.

The legal system of the Tazu Nation follows the same hand-in-hand model, with the King’s office holding dominion over criminal law and legalities, and the Queen’s office holding dominion over civil laws and disputes. For complex cases that combine these two, both the King’s office and the Queen’s office would oversee the trial. This is not to say the King or Queen themselves would try every single case of theft or destruction of property to come into the system– each Lord and Lady of a family would have similar, smaller courts in their own territories that would function the same, with the official King and Queen’s laws to work from as the standard though with some room for interpretation by individual Lords and Ladies. However, as it is with the feudal system’s tiered arrangement, where there a dispute between lesser lord or ladies, the high lord or lady will oversee their trial, and so on upwards until they reach the King or Queen’s authority– theirs is considered the final word on the matter. Group or large scale crimes and disputes will also climb to reach the actual king and queen’s level of the system if they cover multiple provinces or have a large number of complainants/victims, or have a national impact/precedence to be set.

Clan Lands:

The Clan Lands government has had many incarnations over the years, given it has the longest history out of all the nations, varying from a feudal system to a republic, depending on the timeline. The only consistent factor, however, has been the judicial system, which has remained steady for the majority of it’s history despite the governmental changes. This is made possible by the fact that from the second millennia onwards the entire court system is run by one Clanswoman, the Original Erin Manna of the Mannachi clan. Known for her extensive precognitive powers and her rigid lawful neutrality, Erin Manna sits as the sole judge of the High Court, the only court and person capable of proceeding over even an emperor should the need arise. Within her system, she acts autonomously from the rest of the government, appointing judges from lesser to higher courts all across the country. This works solely due to her ageless nature, unquestionable power over the majority of Clan, as well as her stanch adherence to the law– managing to remain unbiased in her interpretation of the laws created by the government, and often returning (though rarely outright rejecting) laws with amendments for the government to consider before officially passing to ensure the proper spirit of the law is being upheld, and to check for moral ambiguity. While this has often made her arguably more powerful than the actual Clan Lands government, she has always also maintained a distance, allowing for the governing system to move and act on its own to the letter of the law.

J. Leigh

Well, actually, it’s strep throat, but either way, i’ve been down for two weeks of my break with sickness, and i’m just pretty much useless. It’s a shame, because i really wanted to spend the time writing and working on projects and now i’m just laying here dizzy and sick and miserable.

AT least i have X files reruns to keep me company.

So coming off over 50k words in WW:U3 being written in April and May, i’ve been taking a break in June, partially because it’s good for me and partially because it’s just been really stressful so far this month. I won’t go into details but this time of year i’m always much busier at my normal teaching job what with the art show, the upswing in the craft fair season and jewelry making, and additional life drama has been abounding (we might be moving again soon-ish– yay?). I’ve been reading a lot to keep sane, and that’s all i can brain on my downtime. (That and cuddling pusheens. Give me all the pusheens.)

Aside from that, i’ve loaded the entirety of WW:U thats done so far into a massive omnibus thats i’ve been using to track plot holes and stat levels; it’s been educational and i’ll be fiddling with it for a while before i finish WW:U3.

For those still wondering about when things will come out…i have no idea. My excessively long Tazu book3 is sitting in the editing que of my ever-growing publisher, and when i am told it’s going into copy-editing, i’ll let you all know. lol As far as WW:U3, i’m still plugging along. It’s a big one, even with me trimming things just so it shall be DONE. I’ve also been taking breaks on it to streamline the stats system for future WW universe CoGs and toy with other ideas, because i can really only stare at it for so long. (six weeks straight seems to be my limit lol) Chances are i’ll pick things up again at the end of June, then break for the four weeks of summer camp, then back to it in Aug for three weeks straight unless the move thing happens. Then gods only know.

I’ve also been doing my nails a lot, because reasons.

~J. Leigh

SO i spent my birthday being sick and dragged to doctors offices and trying not to die, but today i actually felt human so i finished the Kess recruitment chapter. Here’s the overall progress updates for WW:U3 since Jan:

01 Precognition Class (done; 1,975 wc)

02 Decide plan for helping Illyan– A or B (done; 6,290 wc)

03 Surprise Party (done; 36,616 wc )

04 Recruit help for plan; Confront Jun (98% complete; 26,524 wc)

04 Recruit Person A (100% done; 20,747 wc );  Recruit Person B ( 100% done; 21,057 wc);  Recruit Person C (100% complete; 36,250 wc);  Recruit Person D (100% complete; 30186 wc);

05 Next Step Plan A (50% done 10,588 wc);  Next Step Plan B (60%? done 30,551 wc)

06 Classroom Adventure (Bio) (intro 100% done; 12,075 wc for all bio scenes)

06 Bio_work Shelly (20% done); Bio_protest Umbrave (10% done); Bio-cut class with Umbrave(10% done); Bio-cut class with Kess (25% done); Bio cut-class Umbrave  and Kess (90% done)

07 Activity Class (plan B clue) (10% done; 658 wc)

08 Second Step Plan A (10% done; 1,509 wc); Second Step Plan B (10% done; 1000 wc)

Hopefully, the latter half *should* look something like this:

09 Telepathy Class; Energy Manipulation Class

10 Third Step Plan A; Plan B

11 Prank Sem (50% done 5,986 wc)

12 Fourth Step Plan A; Plan B

13 Semryu Past Life Regression (50% done; 19458 wc)

14 Climaxes Plan A; Plan B

15 Epilogues (Climax fall out, academics and romances)

So i’m actually plugging away nicely this year, as opposed to last year where i had thrown my back and all that drama. DX I finished the Umbrave recruitment chapter, adding around 8500 words total. (freaking duelists DX) Kess’s recruitment chapter now has gotten from 6200 words up to over 15k, and still climbing. I’m hopeful i’ll finish it soon ans well, and manage to make my 30k goal for April. Also going to do my best to keep the momentum up and try to live up to my 1k a day schedule– we’ll see.

So anyways, i’m alive, i’m working and i’m doing good. Also the weather is insane. Like, really where is spring?

Bronze Dragon, Feator

The Way of History dictates that we are what we were, and that the past holds as many lessons within its depths as the present.  Feator is always an older man dressed in brown monk’s robes with silver dusted hair, a young face and deep bronze eyes.  His domain covers administrators, record keepers and anyone else who must know about the past in order to make present changes. He is also the record-keeper of all souls, detailing the choices made and lessons learned of everyone who has ever existed– literally the accountant for Karma itself.

His Aspect: Feator’s Aspect typically incarnates as a gender fluid, or Pure Ishim person, and represents the current incarnation of a soul, the ever-consistently changing moment of the ‘now’– the present, the eternal moment wherein all of Spirit exists in the same time. All Precognition supposedly flows from ish, and ishir Ability when Incarnated is unmatched in this.

Stones and other symbols: Picture jasper.

Followers of Feator: Focusing deeply upon past lives and past life contracts; they are the keepers of memory itself, and the decoders of the precious life-ladders.  They are also the keepers of lineages, records, and all number of bureaucratic society, calling on his Aspect to always be in constant ‘in the now’ in order to properly know ‘what has been’.

Path of the dan’trai or ‘karma-keeper’: Often misunderstood and almost always underestimated, this particular follower of Fetor has dedicated their life to the pursuit of the past- specifically their own past lives.  While this may on the surface seem to be a leisurely pursuit, the end goal (and ultimate aim of each follower) can result in a person with experiences and skills from many previous incarnations.  Imagine a ka’melie-fire empathic- houlen combination who has also studied history and the path of the mei, for example.  They lend themselves to be terribly powerful if their current bodies have the capacity to back-up their previous memories.

Path of the man’trai: The same as stated above, but this particular path of Feator uses their abilities to pull-out the past lives’ memories and skills of others.  Though their effects are mostly only for a fleeting few minutes, this particular path is the only one of Feator’s Walkers that is made to consistently travel with other Walkers for the purposes of combat.

What Featorians think of followers of:

Montage:  They are the epitome of Way Walkers, the masters of Spirit.  Let no man debate it.

Rhean:  So many ‘empty spaces’ and missing pages in this Way.  Either they are hiding something, or want some deep air of mystery to make themselves feel more special.  Time will tell.

Ulic:  We are similar in method, but differ in practice. 

Rosin: Such contempt for those who decide how you’ll be remembered- perhaps this is why you have such an unfavorable light in the texts.

Desmoulein:  We help them keep medical records, and they know how to learn from what has come before.  Excellent persons to sit and talk with at the end of the day.

Angani:  They do not like change, though they’d learn from us that change is the only constant.  If they were more flexible, they’d be better liked, but I do not think they are in their Way to make friends.  Hum, at least they are pleasant to us; perhaps this is why they are still around.

Beleskie:  A little wild for most of us, but likeable enough.  Great events have had their seeds sown in the un-scripted pillow-talk that is their domain. They remind us of the mortal aspect of events.

Kubesh:  If they’d just ask, we’d be able to teach them so much.  Yet, they don’t.  Oh well.

Turin:  They are too concerned with what’s coming to bother with what’s passed before.

Bree:  They weave some rhythm into history with their ballads and depictions of historic events.  Good for them.

Red:  Its read books, not burn them. 

Balori sect:   This could go very badly or very well.  Like so many things before them.  We’ll see if they’re worth recording.

Founded Nation: Casfeild.

I’m going to start writing up some of these Lore posts, wherein I’ll share some tidbit about the world, or some aspect of Way Walkers. I’ll also draw from forum posts and fb, so any questions you have, feel free to post and I’ll place the answers in a special lore post for all to see. 🙂

Today we have some ruminations from the Aspect of Rhean, Ra’vien. While he is Protection, she is Punishment– deliverer of divine karmic justice. Culturally, she is terrifying. Taking the form of a phoenix whose body is made of black smoke and whose core burns as a blue-white star, she literally murders evil things. (and people)

And yet, she is not vengeance. This is an excerpt from a text written during her second Incarnation which better explains the difference between her and the wickedness that is the Red:

Some call me twisted, wicked, claiming my hands are drenched only in the dark stain of vengeance; this is untrue. I am not the spirit of vengeance– but karmic justice. This is removed even, from mortal justice, made by mortal lives and flawed in it’s own right. Mine is Higher, mine is truer. When I punish it is evil, the true evil, that no Ishim can escape. Thus follows the inevitable question: how can anyone truly define evil? There are always circumstances– does the poor man deserve to lose his hand if he steals to feed his family? Does the murder who killed to save a life deserve to be hunted down and murdered in turn by another for the first crime? And on and on it goes. But i say it is simple– with less moral quandary than Ishim add into it. Evil is obvious– Ishim might wrap it up, pretend it is areas of gray and without absolute, but this is untrue. Identifying evil is as simple as the answer to a simple question: what does one do, when one discovers they are wrong? Do they dig in, piling previous belief upon previous belief atop their heads until buried under a pile of falsehoods? Or do they rise– accept the truth of the harm caused, and do what is needed to make it right? There are those of course caught in the middle, dancing back and forth between philosophies– and these do not receive my judgement until decided. But for those who do not repent in their hearts and with their actions– fear me. For I am coming.

Happy holidays my readers! I’ve been busy on the baking and celebrating front (despite a small blip of tweaking my back again, ugh) but I’m officially on break from my classes I teach until Jan, so i thought i’d take a moment to say hi, and show you guys a little bit of the base structure behind WW:U3. (If my cat will let me, she’s literally trying to sit on my chest as i type this lol)

Anyways, so here’s the basic scene layout thus far for WW:U3, with each number being a ‘chapter’, with WC (word counts) and approx completion %s:

01 Precognition Class (done; 1,975 wc)

02 Decide plan for helping Illyan– A or B (done; 6,290 wc)

03 Surprise Party (done; 36,616 wc )

04 Recruit help for plan; Confront Jun (98% done; 26,561 wc)

04 Recruit Person A (done; 20,747wc );  Recruit Person B (done; 21,057 wc);  Recruit Person C (30% complete; 3,651 wc);  Recruit Person D (30% complete; 3,361 wc);

05 Next Step Plan A (10% done 1,303 wc);  Next Step Plan B (40% done 12,384wc)

06 Classroom Adventure (Bio) (intro 100% done; 12,075 wc for all bio scenes)

06 Bio_work Shelly (20% done); Bio_protest Umbrave (10% done); Bio-cut class with Umbrave(10% done); Bio-cut class with Kess (25% done); Bio cut-class Umbrave  and Kess (90% done)

07 Activity Class (plan B clue) (10% done; 658 wc)

08 Second Step Plan A (10% done; 1,509 wc); Second Step Plan B (10% done; 1000 wc)

This is what’s structured and ‘done’ for now– with most of the scenes being either completely done, or at least laid-out fully with just the actual writing to be filled in. After this, things get a bit more scattered, as I need to finish the structuring of the first two steps for the two Illyan plans before i can lay-out the rest of the steps, and then weave the other, non-plot integral scenes like the Past Life Regression with Sem and the Pranking Sem and at least one more classroom thing with Tele. and Energy Man. (i hope) in between. There’s at least two more steps for each plan (total of four), before moving into the climaxes. It’s my dearest hope that i’ll be able to take some time in the next week or so to actually make all the structured pieces, and thus finally finish the “skeleton'” for WW:U3 after all this time.

Hopefully, the latter half *should* look something like this:

09 Telepathy Class; Energy Manipulation Class

10 Third Step Plan A; Plan B

11 Prank Sem (50% done 5,986 wc)

12 Fourth Step Plan A; Plan B

13 Semryu Past Life Regression (50% done; 19458 wc)

14 Climaxes Plan A; Plan B

15 Epilogues (Climax fall out, academics and romances)

All told, the finished portions of WW:U3 already surpass the original game by about 50K words, and it’s still climbing. So far, WW:U3 has about 175k words while WW:U1 had approx 120K and WWU:2 was i think 130K. For comparison, the novel Tangled Paths was 170K, and Broken City was around 120k, and the third Tazu novel i’ve just submitted was 160K (pre-edits, it will probably come down). When complete, WW:U3 will be the largest CoG i’ve done, and i’m willing to bet the longest of the Way Walker stories I’ve ever written. S, i *am* working hard, but it’s just really, really long, lol. Part of this is because i really believe in giving strong replay-ability in my stories, and allowing the reader to have two vastly different plans to help Illyan matters to me.

Anyways, i hope you found this as interesting and helpful as it was for my mind to write it out ^_^

Have a good holiday my friends and i hope you all have love and joy!

J. Leigh