In Other Worlds
Every other week, your host Jess will be sitting down with the authors and audiobooks narrators that bring the litrpg, gamelit, and fantasy genre to life.
In Other Worlds
Reverse Isekai: Now we've got magic!
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What if a portal fantasy didn’t whisk one hero away, but dropped an entire magical realm onto our world? That’s the theme behind Paragon Exordium, and today I sit down with author Mikel “Mick” Melwasul to discuss how a college town in Georgia becomes the frontline of a sprawling, character‑driven.
We explore the series central mystery, the Therin Selu, a cataclysmic spell meant to dodge a mythic flood, and how its fallout turns into magic finally returning. Mick shares why the world’s “castology” matters: runes, song, speech, and emotion aren’t just mechanics, they’re culture encoded, shaping grief, faith, and power. We also lean into ambiguity—Jadis bound to a sword, the Weeping King hiding power behind tears—and celebrate the lighter touch that makes the darkness land, from a cult‑favorite basilisk named Shadowfang to the beloved mushroom folk.
If you love reverse isekai worldbuilding, emotionally intelligent magic systems, and characters who force the plot to bend around their choices, this conversation is your map to Paragon. Listen, share with a friend who craves fresh fantasy, and leave a quick review to help more readers find the show. Then tell us: are you team Jadis, and which creatures do you want more of next?
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Welcome everyone to In Other Worlds, the LitRPG Gamelit and Fantasy Podcast. I am your host, Jess. Before we dive in, if you want the longer, unedited version of today's episode and a chance to submit questions for future episodes, you can find that on my Patreon. I will go into more on that at the end. Uh, today we are joined by Michael Melwassel, author of Paragon Exordium. Michael, how are you?
SPEAKER_02:I'm good. How are you?
SPEAKER_05:I am fantastic. Do you go by Michael or Mick?
SPEAKER_02:I go by Mick, but not many people ask, so I go by Michael a lot. Or Mickle.
SPEAKER_05:I we can do Mick. Mick is totally cool.
SPEAKER_02:Mick is my default.
SPEAKER_05:Okay. Mick, it is. You have Paragon Exordium. You have uh another shorter story in the same universe that is getting ready to come out soon, and are working on book two, I believe.
SPEAKER_02:Paragon Apocrypha is a collection of short stories in the same universe and is already out. That came out in July. And then Paragon uh Paragon Attrition book two comes out this year.
SPEAKER_05:Nice. So give us a little bit of a rundown on Paragon Exordium, which I'm sure you could do a million times.
SPEAKER_02:L's on a tank. What more can I say? Basically, it is a reverse portal fantasy. So in traditional portal fantasy uh or Isekai, someone goes to a magical realm from our realm. In Paragon Exordium, the magical realm gets dropped on our world, and mer our earth is merged with this magical realm from mystery times long ago, and humanity is almost wiped from the face of existence and is now trying to survive in a world that is now dominated by magic and monsters and fei and anything in the realm of fantasy you can imagine.
SPEAKER_05:So it's like a reverse isekai.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, it's very much a reverse isekai.
SPEAKER_05:They're brought here. So you you co-wrote the story with David, who is who cannot be here. So I was I've seen some other interviews that you have done, and so I know he started off as kind of like an alpha reader for you slash editor. Uh, how did that relationship kind of evolve into the co-author relationship that it is today? And kind of how do you guys break down the roles of who does what?
SPEAKER_02:It's hard to explain how it evolved because it really evolved is really the right word for it. Um, because it just kind of happened to progress in a very natural way. Because like I brought him on as an alpha reader because I wanted someone with military experience. He had an English degree, he was a good friend of mine from college, so I knew he would tell me if I was wasting my time, which was a major concern in the early drafts. Um, and so it was initially he was just the editor. Um, and as we just kept we kept having meetings after meetings after meetings where I'm filling him in on the story and stuff, and so he just evolved from developmental editor uh to being just a partner in the whole process. Um, and so book one says Michael Melwassel, which is my pen name. But going forward from book two, we've added a D, so it's Michael D. Melwassel because his role in it has increased so much. So he's been so formative in all the character creation and the story arcs, and I'll say this and he'll be like, well, does that work? Or no, that's dumb, or it's not just editing, it's helping develop the story to a stronger degree and writing entire sections uh and writing entire POVs and writing entire chapters. So he's taken on much more of a uh involved role than that. Uh, he even wrote a number of the short stories in our collection, and then I edited them for him, and we had like a complete reversal, and he's working on a short uh sort of horror novella spinoff as well.
SPEAKER_05:That sounds nice. So Michael D. Mel Wassel is your pen name. How did you come up with that pen name?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, uh, so I translated my name into Elvish. Michael's my actual name, uh, and then Mel Wassel is based on Elvish, uh, Tolkien's Elvish, and then it was manipulated. So it loosely translates in Cindarin to Friend of the Wind, um because I wanted to kind of have the I was trying to get as close to breath the fresh air as I could. Um, and friend of the wind was as close as I could get with that. Um, so it's based on Cindar and Elvish from the Tolkien Legendarium, and meaning that. So, and then Michael being my name and D for Dave being his name, that's how that all kinds of ties together.
SPEAKER_05:You guys had shopped around with publishers for this book before you released it, and you ended up going independent publishing. Do you have any um regrets going independent publishing? Like, is there anything that you think feel like that you may have missed out on, or um you think was easier going traditional or going indie publishing?
SPEAKER_02:I think the only thing I missed out on was not publishing sooner. I w I wish I'd gone indie sooner. Um we uh were in our third year publishing and we broke in even on the first book and are paying for book two with the profits from book one, uh, which is about all you can want, really. Like if this is as far as we get, I'm happy with that as long as we're paying for the next book, but I think we're gonna go a lot further. And the only real difference, I think, traditionally speaking, is having more people on my side, but then I would have had less creative control. And I really like the creative control elements. You know, a traditional publisher probably would have had a split book one, which is something we discussed, but I didn't want to do that. I liked how it was. I felt like if we split it, we would have ended up with just two equally large novels. Um, and so uh I don't think the self-promotion would have changed at all. You know, like most traditionally published authors these days are very much having to do the same kind of self-promotion as indie authors. So I think really, if anything, we would have missed out on the community the way we get to engage with them as indie authors.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, I do see some of the uh traditionally published authors uh that I know of are still out there, like constantly posting on social media and constantly doing promos for their books. So it's really not that much different uh than an indie published author, really. All right. Paragon Exordium takes place in Georgia. Uh in I think I saw so Paragon is a is a made-up city, and but it's kind of loosely based on Statesboro, Georgia.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, loosely.
SPEAKER_05:So is it Statesboro because of its geographical location? Because you know, they they do travel to Macon and then to Atlanta, or is it because you were just familiar with Statesboro?
SPEAKER_02:A little bit of both. I I went to college in Statesboro, I went to high school in Statesboro, so that was kind of the original inspiration. Um, the story is very much I wanted it to be, it had to be its own town, unlike Macon, Atlanta, because there's a history to it that's woven into the story. There's elements of it that aren't true, but I like the feel of a college town being the center point of this because it has a very diverse grouping. So that was actually uh one of the earliest beta reader feedbacks we got on the book was we it was so the characters were so diverse, it felt like it was a force. And like they're like, How do you have such a diverse cast of characters in South Georgia? It's like, have you been to a college town in South Georgia? It's a very like every person in this is loosely based on someone I've met in this environment. It's a very diverse group of people, and that makes for an interesting worldview and an interesting perspective to tell this story from because you've got all these clashing personalities and backgrounds and histories all coming together in this one place. So loosely based for a variety of reasons.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, I think that's very uh typical of a lot of college towns, is you're gonna get a ton of different people and a ton of different personalities. Um, I feel like with the way that you had set Paragon up in the book, I don't know if it was the character that we find out is a dwarven female, if she is the one who founded the city because maybe she knew what was coming or she had an inkling and she wanted to be prepared. Um so the spell that I guess caused this whole debacle to happen was I don't know if I'm pronouncing this correctly, that Theron Seleu. Theron Silu.
SPEAKER_02:Theron Seleu.
SPEAKER_05:Theron Seleu. So that was a spell cast a long time ago, right?
SPEAKER_00:Correct.
SPEAKER_05:At that point, humans and all of these uh elves and dwarves and and fee type of creatures, we all coexisted. So when this spell was cast, where did they go? So like we stayed here, yeah, but where were they?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, so that is essentially they were trapped in a pocket universe.
SPEAKER_05:Okay.
SPEAKER_02:Um so essentially what happened was the Theronsalu and the the prologue for book two actually is the casting of the Theron Salu, the initial casting of the Theron Salew from Dr. Walker's point of view. Um so essentially there was a flood coming, and so if you look at culture and history, every major culture across the world has a flood story in their mythology, every single one. So the idea was there was a giant flood that was caused by humanity, and so what humanity did to cause that is sort of up for debate by the characters in the story. But all the fantasy creatures, all the famia or the phalak gear, gather together, like, hey, we're just gonna remove ourselves from the equation. We're gonna step outside of the world into a pocket universe, for use ourselves in time, and then once the once the flood has receded, the spell will wear off and we'll come right back. Clearly, that didn't go correctly. Um, and so 10,000 years has passed before the spell breaks instead of breaking 40 days later, and humanity has survived and progressed, technology and stuff. And so what went wrong is a major thread of book two, because it's one person's fault that it went wrong, and that's what book two is about is stopping that person and their agenda.
SPEAKER_05:Is that the person that's kind of talked about right at the very end of book one?
SPEAKER_02:Yes, Narcidian.
SPEAKER_05:Okay, okay, because it they did you do show a little bit of that of that ritual at the end of book one and kind of how it goes awry. Where it goes wrong.
SPEAKER_02:Right. Um, which is and all that was in our our original prologue. So the original prologue was just that world dump that I just gave you. Um, but we we ended up going with something that's much more impactful and leaves that bit and that information to be woven into the story and hinted at and explained as the story goes on.
SPEAKER_05:I I read that and was like, well, now I need book two. Now I can't wait. Uh so you have a lot of what we would consider mythical creatures in the books. You know, you've got a vampire character, you've got orcs and ogres and treants and all kinds of stuff. Is there anything that you are gonna be introducing in book two that was not in book one?
SPEAKER_02:Ah dragons race-wise, like anything named Dragons is the answer. Um, we have so the way the system works is they're phalagir and phamea. And phalagir are the original species, and we do uh we're doing a special edition with a bunch of epigraphs that dive real deep into this. Uh, but essentially there was elves, dwarves, orcs, and humans are the four original races. Um, and those were created back in the Garden of Eden, and there's a whole reason where they come from, what created them, and how they vary. Everything else, the Famia are offshoots of that, either created by the phalagir or created by nature and magic naturally corresponding. Um there's literally nothing off the table, but those are the four primary races we'll run into. And we have eolin in book one, which are an offshoot of elves. So they sort of are an in-between of those two things, and there's reason for that, and that makes things a little more complicated.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, and when the eolin is introduced in book one, I never thought, I'm not I'm trying to do this without spoilers. I never thought that it was a figment of Peter's imagination. Um, but I also couldn't tell whether they were good or bad.
SPEAKER_02:Right.
SPEAKER_05:It's very ambiguous.
SPEAKER_02:Correct.
SPEAKER_05:They're so good. Thank you. So good.
SPEAKER_02:That's what we were striving for.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, I really even even at the end of book one, I still can't tell.
SPEAKER_02:I don't think she knows.
SPEAKER_05:That actually tracks. That makes sense.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, Jadis, Jadis has been through it. Jadis is arguably my favorite character. Um, and then her connection to Narcity and and all this. I I've book two is very it gets very deep into that. It's very interesting.
SPEAKER_05:Her character was probably one of my favorites. Um, and when you meet her, she has been in this situation that she is in uh for so long that I don't understand how she's not just crazy.
SPEAKER_03:Who said she's not?
SPEAKER_05:Okay, fair enough. Fair enough. Okay. I mean, when you're by yourself for that long, right, and I think yeah, and I think that at one point uh she even mentions that there's no color, like everything is just grayscale. How does she not go crazy? I was like, this doesn't make any sense to me. I'd be so excited for someone to show up.
SPEAKER_02:Right? Yeah, yeah. I I yeah, I think she was excited, um, but I think she her life experiences have led her to be cautious with excitement. Um I I think there was a there's a lot of fear in in that interaction, and I think that translates. I hope that translates is there's a lot of fear on her part that she's very carefully covering up because if things don't go exactly how she needs them to go, who knows how long it'll be before she has another chance to get out.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, and I mean, and so her appearance is tied to the sword that he carries around, which we learned very early in the book. Um so I'm not giving away like a huge plot point there. Um I would also imagine that her fear is that if he loses the sword, she's just gonna be alone again.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:For who knows how long.
SPEAKER_01:Right.
SPEAKER_05:So she she's trying to her, she's trying her her hardest to like train him and and make sure he survives.
SPEAKER_02:Right.
SPEAKER_05:I think she likes it.
SPEAKER_02:But there's no guarantee that if someone else picks it up, they're gonna be as amicable, which isn't a word that I would usually use to describe Peter, but I think in in juxtaposition to Jadis, I would say is an appropriate term.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah. Yeah, that fits. I can't think of a better word for that. Um, so the world building in this has actually been really, really good. Like you you did a really good job of using our our kind of present-day world and showing what it would be like if something like the shattering actually happened. You know, people don't always get along. You're gonna have cities like Paragon that are great, and then you're gonna have cities like I think it was Macon that that was the first city they went to, uh, where things are not so great. Although Carrie is one of my favorite characters.
SPEAKER_02:I love that you called him Carrie too. That's good. That I love when people call him Carrie, it's so funny to me because it's like a throwaway line that Peter has. And I I think I reference in in book two because I think it's really funny.
SPEAKER_05:Well, his nickname, that's I mean, that's his nickname in the city of Macon.
SPEAKER_04:Right, yeah.
SPEAKER_05:Um, and so it his actual name is just much harder to pronounce, so it's easier to scary. It's like Pataracus.
SPEAKER_02:Uh Caratacus. Caraticus Whitaker, yeah.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, so it's hard to pronounce.
SPEAKER_02:Which is a chitty chitty bang bang reference for those who pay attention. It's a chitty chitty bang bang adventures in Odyssey double reference.
SPEAKER_05:Fantastic.
SPEAKER_03:If anyone's listening that knows those.
SPEAKER_05:I don't know many people that are gonna get those references, especially as you trend more towards like the YA side of things.
SPEAKER_02:Right, right. Yeah, no, that's a yeah, show my age a little on that one.
SPEAKER_05:Speaking of, this book is very YA friendly. Um, I even as an adult, I absolutely loved it. You know, you have a little hint at some romance, but nothing really outright. Um, you know, some people kind of dance around it a little bit, and then you really don't have a lot of uh foul language. You have uh they're the dwarves preferred curse word, um which is my favorite word now, and I'm gonna be using it.
SPEAKER_00:That's awesome. I love that.
SPEAKER_05:Like I I probably will find myself at some point uh just being like, ah, Chrisk.
SPEAKER_03:I'm gonna get pins or or buttons or something for that for when we blow up. That's good.
SPEAKER_05:I would use a pen that just said Chrisk on it. Uh so you do in the book, some of the other races speak in their native language. You've got the greetings that the elves do, uh, the curse words for the dwarves. Did you only come up with the words that you knew you were going to need, or do you have like a whole rule set set up for the like the rules of the languages that you need in case you need to come up with other words?
SPEAKER_02:That is that is one area where Tolkien has it all for me in a high scot it over me in a lot of areas. No, I can't. Language is not I'm good with English. I'm not great with like I've tried to invent languages like multiple times, but I haven't. I have I know what all my fantasy words mean, um, but I don't have strict I have some loose rules. Well, I I'll admit I have some loose rules about how and what it looks like. Um, but I don't have like a like an alphabet charted out. We're actually working on a Dwarvish alphabet now that I mention it. Um, but I don't have like a full-on Tolkien-esque level inheritance cycle level of of thing like that. Um even when we do have those fantasy words and names, we try and have like cultural meaning behind them, like with krisk being uh forgotten. So like for context for the readers, the dwarves say crisp which means forget or be forgotten, because in their culture, the worst thing that can happen to something is for it to be forgotten because their culture revolves around the exchange of information and the gathering of knowledge, to the degree of it being a currency to them in many ways. Um and then the elves have their curse word, which is Lur, which is their god's name backwards.
SPEAKER_05:Do they use that in book one?
SPEAKER_02:I believe they use it once or twice.
SPEAKER_05:Okay. I don't recall hearing that, but I might have missed it.
SPEAKER_02:It would have been it would have likely been brief. They pro I would be surprised if someone doesn't say it in the Nightmare Child chapter. Um, but maybe.
SPEAKER_05:That would be the most appropriate time to say it. I was reading that while I was in bed and I was like, this is kind of creepy. It's a little scary. It's like it's a little scary there for a second.
SPEAKER_02:I'll get I'll give you an exclusive. We have for our special edition we're doing on Kickstarter, one of the stretch goal stretch goals is an end paper with the nightmare child. Of like the scene where like they open the door and it's hanging there or sitting there.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:From a it's it we got art of I really hope we get that one because it's really cool.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah. Yeah. We're gonna be talking about the Kickstarter later because that's exciting. I'm excited for that. Um, I'm following it. So everyone else, everyone else should be following it as well. Uh so you do a lot of TikTok videos, and uh one of the things that I've noticed is in some of the videos, and when you when you signed my book, you sign it with um, or sometimes you end your videos with, uh, may you walk under blue skies. But that is not, I didn't notice that anywhere in the book. Where did that come from?
SPEAKER_02:So they say lumeni in the book, the elves that's the elvish greeting, and it's their greeting and their fell and their farewell. Um, I that's always been its meaning. It's just not explained in context in the book. They just say it, and no one asks them what does that directly mean? They just assume it means high. We do technically explain it in book two because everyone's like it it I realized that I I had it and I had a meaning for it, but no one else did. Um, so the origin of that is a another token reference with uh a red sun rises, blood has been spilled this night, uh, which is where Legolas references the sky rising and knowing that there was there is violence. So that was the inspiration kind of behind May You Walk Under Blue Skies. Um, but the overall concept and idea being when you greet someone, you want to wish them well. And what's a what's a universal sign of goodness usually or things going well is when there's clear blue skies above. Right. And so when you say goodbye to someone, you're hoping that they're gonna have clear blue skies above, and it also is a fun parallel to the imagery used to describe Peter's eyes, which are described as stormy skies frequently.
SPEAKER_05:That turn gray when he's angry.
SPEAKER_02:That's right.
SPEAKER_05:Which is I it's kind of funny because they say that, but there aren't clear blue skies overhead anyway right now.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, the irony. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, I I read the whole book. And I was like, where, where like it doesn't play in the book anywhere. Yeah. But yeah, I just assumed that Lumeny meant hello also. You know, like Aloha can be hello and goodbye. I just kind of assumed that also meant the same thing.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And I I think I usually include, I say, as the elves in my books say, Lumeni, which means may you walk under blue skies. That's my usual sign-off.
SPEAKER_05:Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_02:But the subtitles never get it right. They think too many loop hole. They don't know what's going on. And I don't I don't have time to edit my own.
SPEAKER_05:The subtitles are not always great.
SPEAKER_02:No. But they're funnier if you just leave them, in my opinion, so I do. Sometimes they also don't know paragon exordium.
SPEAKER_03:They can't get those words through their head, but whatever.
SPEAKER_05:I mean, paragon's a pretty easy one you would think for an AI to get, but yeah, I'm not surprised that it would get exordium wrong. I'm not surprised by that at all.
SPEAKER_02:That's how I keep the AI at bay, just nonsense words. They'll never catch up with my vocabulary.
SPEAKER_05:There was one scene in the book where Peter wakes up and he opens his eyes and there's a little mushroom guy.
SPEAKER_00:The Mises. Okay. Let's talk about this. Excellent.
SPEAKER_05:Spooks him on the nose.
SPEAKER_00:Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_05:Why do we not see more of the mushroom guys? Where are they? What's going on with that? I want more of mushroom guys.
SPEAKER_03:What's so funny is like they have such a cult following in the Discord. You're like the eighth person who's brought this up to me that they're doing this.
SPEAKER_05:It's probably one of my favorite scenes in the entire book.
SPEAKER_02:They're called Mises, uh, which is a reference to like mycelian. Um, but they're like a species they're called Missies. There are there are more Mises in book two, don't worry.
SPEAKER_06:Good.
SPEAKER_02:There is there's an elf girl who I anticipate being a fan favorite with a mushroom cap hat who carries a bunch of Missi around on her and in her outfit, and they come and go, and she uses them to gather things. And she probably doesn't eat them.
SPEAKER_05:Uh-huh. Yeah, that's just I read that. That was probably it immediately became one of my favorite scenes of the whole blood. So in this in this world that you have created, uh, because we have gone for so long without magic, uh, you mentioned that we've kind of a lot of the disabilities that people have are because our bodies are trying to cope with not having the magic that they should have. So, like for Peter, it was the issue with his legs. Uh, for Sarah, it's she no longer needs to wear glasses.
SPEAKER_02:So is it it's not just glasses. She mentions early on this a lot of people miss this. Um, she's a hemophiliac. So her blood sickle cell count was off, and so she should be bleeding out very easily.
SPEAKER_05:I did miss that.
SPEAKER_02:It's very, it's very brief. She doesn't get into a lot because she's got a lot going on, but she's like, I should be in a lot more trouble for getting beat up initially.
SPEAKER_05:She she takes a real good beating right there at the beginning of the book. Do you think that the worse the condition the person has, uh, the more magic that they're uh that they would have had if we had magic?
SPEAKER_02:That's a prevalent theory within the world. Magic is not definable necessarily. It it it it can vary. Um it it it's not set in stone, but most likely, yes.
SPEAKER_05:But I mean it kind of makes sense. If like if our if if a disability is the absence of magic, it would kind of make sense that the worse the disability, the more magic we just have to do.
SPEAKER_02:The more magic they'll have, yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, because your body's trying to compensate that hard.
SPEAKER_02:The tricky thing is, is that's Dr. Walker's understanding of it. Um and so like our world has like magic systems and magic rules, but in my opinion, magic can have rules, but those rules are simply people trying to put rules on it and rules of use so that there's safety, like science has certain procedures you follow, but that doesn't answer everything. Um, so there's not necessarily a completely definitive answer. I know that sounds like a cop-out. Um but that's not what it is. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, it makes sense. And so Dr. Walker, she is the kind of doctor for a paragon who has been there forever. Um, you know, was the doctor when Peter was a kid, helped raise everyone. Like, but you find out when the shattering happens that she is actually a dwarf. Um, the scene where she gets introduced as the dwarf is pretty cool. It has to do with the basilisk.
SPEAKER_02:Another fan favorite character.
SPEAKER_05:The basilisk?
SPEAKER_02:Shadowfang has a fan club. Oh I think Shadowfang is more popular than Dr. Walker.
SPEAKER_05:It was a good character.
SPEAKER_02:Much to my chagrin.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, it was a good character. Uh, but she has been around for thousands of years.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, a whole millennium.
SPEAKER_05:So what is it about the shattering? Because you find out once the shattering hits, um that she kind of starts to age again. Do we find out later in book two why it had such an effect on her?
SPEAKER_02:You see if you're paying very close attention, kind of um, there this is one of the tricky things about telling a story. Um, is not everything is always gonna get clear answers because there's no spot for the characters just to sit down and be like, hey, that character, why did this happen? And no one really understands. Um, so she was an anchor when the Therence Lewis cast. Um and so she was supposed to basically guide magic back into our world, right? When things went wrong with the spell, and that ties back to Galvorn and Jadis and people related to Jadis. When the spell breaks, the spell has been literally keeping her alive past her natural lifespan. Um, and so there is a final climactic moment that is the final bit of that connection breaking. So when one character enters, that's the last of the tether. And there's and and that's another thing where you have to pay very closely close attention between chapters, um, because that there's a direct reference to things that are happening that are connected, but it's not explicitly stated, but it is there if you're looking.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, I did notice that in book one when a specific character enters the world, uh she unfortunately uh has a bad time. Yeah. Dr. Walker is not having a great time.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah. And it and it makes sense because of earlier in the book when she is cat when she is part of the Theron Sulu and that whole thing goes wrong, um, that other character is there. And so Sarah is this whole time when they're in Atlanta trying to take Atlanta back from the orcs. Uh Sarah is back in Paragon trying to continue to train herself. She's using Dr. Walker's journal because Dr. Walker was kind of her mentor and was teaching her how to use the magic that she realized that she had. It's getting real rough for her in Paragon.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:You're you got that typical like Southern Bible belt. People think she's a witch and is communicating with the devil kind of thing going on. That's that's gonna get rough. I don't I don't like where that's going.
SPEAKER_02:Excellent. Excellent. Let's just well, book two is Paragon Attrition, and let me just say it has earned the title Attrition.
SPEAKER_05:Her and Steve are gonna have to leave. They're just gonna have to go. Like, I'm when you get to the point where people are actively trying to ruin the defenses of the city by spray painting over runes. Right. Uh they I don't I mean, I'm assuming it's people from Macon. I and you know, they had a bad experience with the person from Macon who was using magic, so I can't really blame them right to an extent, but like they've seen where they're coming from. They've seen she's not the same. Um, I'm also not a huge fan of Mara. I do not like Mara.
SPEAKER_01:We always get there. We always get there. Yep, no one does.
SPEAKER_05:She is the most conniving. Like, there was I had a brief moment, and I still don't know if this is if this is true or not, but I had a brief moment in Macon where I felt like the leader in Macon was Joshua.
SPEAKER_02:Jason.
SPEAKER_05:Jason. I felt like she was the one pulling the strings behind Jason. And I and I had a brief moment where I was like, I don't think that's Jason's magic. I think that's her magic. I was like, I think Jason's just like an unwitting, like stooge for her.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:And now she's coming into Paragon and she's I feel like pulling the same stuff.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:And you're like, I'm not gonna confirm or I'm not anything.
SPEAKER_02:Listen, Mara has a hate club. Uh, I don't think anyone likes any of my characters as much as people hate Mara.
SPEAKER_05:Except for the mushroom guy.
SPEAKER_02:Except for the mice, yeah. Yeah, no, Mara is Mara is a a character in and of yeah, she's she's fun. I like, I enjoy, I enjoy writing Mara.
SPEAKER_05:Uh sometimes can almost seem like it's just the end of everything because they they do have that moment. I'm getting off on a little bit of a tangent here, but they do have that moment where they're headed towards Mankin and they stop at the diner and they notice that they don't see people. Like you would assume that there would just be dead bodies and and there'd be bones everywhere, and you know, you're going through cities, like, where are all the people, but you don't see any of that, which I think makes it a little bit lighter than if there were just dead bodies everywhere. Uh that'd be very, very dark. But uh you haven't written a book where all of the characters are safe, you don't lose a ton of people. Um I can really only think of three in the book that die. Um, but when they do, it's very impactful.
SPEAKER_02:Right.
SPEAKER_05:And it's not just like, oh well, that person's dead. Okay.
SPEAKER_02:Right.
SPEAKER_05:Like they're all very impactful.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Well, I I have a saying, um, there only there's only one character in the series with plot armor. Potch. Potch, the dog. Your boy.
SPEAKER_05:He's a boy. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Because I can't hurt him because if I do, my wife will hurt me.
SPEAKER_05:I feel like that's true in a lot of books. Like if any character is going to be safe, it's gonna be the animal. Yeah. Because we're just so overly protective of animals.
SPEAKER_02:It's the level of innocence that people associate with pets.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah. Yeah. Like we're we'd have to protect them. They're the only ones that are safe. And I'm I'm so agree with that.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I mean, yeah, it just depends on the story, you know. Um, I'm fine with it because I I'd like there to be a degree of magic to the world in in the storytelling, and I like there to be a degree of whimsy and stuff, and just be being able to say, like, hey, look, the dog's fine. Because that's also for a lot of people, that's a line too far, which is so interesting to me from a psychological perspective. Is like, hey, you can kill 18 different human characters, but if you harm one animal, I'm not reading the book, which is like, okay, you got your own priorities, and I I get it, but it it's an interesting dichotomy. It's also a great marketing tactic to be like, hey, there's a dog in it, he's okay.
SPEAKER_05:Right. I mean, you know, I read a story where a room full of goblin kids gets brutally murdered.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:Don't murder the pet.
SPEAKER_01:Don't murder the pet.
SPEAKER_05:Roomful goblin kids. Totally okay.
SPEAKER_01:Right, yeah.
SPEAKER_05:So you've got uh book two is coming out at some point. Uh, how many books do you think are going to be in the series?
SPEAKER_02:Ah, lovely question. Uh, the Galvorn saga will have three official main uh books in the series.
SPEAKER_05:And so you've got your collection of short stories as well. I know that you have said that you would be open to other authors writing stories in your world that take place in other countries, other cities. Yeah. Things like that. Uh, do you uh think that there are ever any authors that you may reach out to and be like, hey, do you want to write a story in my world? Or do you think that it's one of those things where you'll just wait to see if an author wants to and approaches you?
SPEAKER_02:Um I mean, I've already extended a sort of vague offer to one or two people who are fans um that are that are very invested. Um so so yes, it would would be the answer to that. There's there's a balancing act with that, and like our ultimate goal is franchising. Um like the Galvan saga is three books, and we have a follow-up series that would take place later that we want to write. Um, and then there's like I would like to do a short story collection with multiple authors in this world. I think that'd be really fun to explore, which was the original idea with Apocrypha, it just didn't work out with timing. Um and we're gonna do we want to do at least three Apocryphas. We want to do an Apocrypha between each major major book, um, just because that's that's a fun thing to to explore. And we really like writing the short fiction. Um, so yeah, it's uh Exordium, Attrition, Absolution, and then Apocrypha Volume 1 is out, Apocrypha Volume 2 is is still in the drafting phase, and then Days working on Paragon Odyssey, um, which is his own offshoot.
SPEAKER_05:And that's the kind of horror one.
SPEAKER_02:That is a uh Southern Gothic horror novella uh inspired by the Odyssey. That would be fun, which is going to follow Rory and his crew who leave Paragon and what happened to them.
SPEAKER_05:Because they don't come back, they do not come back, but you don't find out what happens to them. So that'll be interesting. That would be a good one to read, too. I I like the kind of offshoots of the people who have left and kind of branch out on their own. Uh, when is book two gonna be out?
SPEAKER_02:Theoretically, May 30th, but I anticipate it will be sometime in June. Um it is it is drafted. Uh we just have our final rounds of edits with our editor, Megan Gene Mosgrove. Um, and so it's just I know that's gonna take a lot of time, so I don't she gets it, she says she can have it done, but I I anticipate it maybe taking a little a little longer. It will be this year. It was supposed to be last year, but life kicked Dave and I in the shins um 18 different ways to Sunday. Uh I know that's the hustle. So yeah, so it'll be this year. It will hopefully be June at the latest. I we're hoping for May. May June. Yeah. We're hoping for May. Uh the audiobook will be longer.
SPEAKER_05:As long as the first book?
SPEAKER_02:No.
SPEAKER_05:Is it gonna be longer?
SPEAKER_02:No, it's shorter. It's 31,000 words shorter currently.
SPEAKER_05:I mean, that's still a pretty hefty book.
SPEAKER_02:It is, yeah. No, I mean it's still a 200 200,000 word book um with almost as many chapters, and we have an extra, an entire extra POV uh added to the story.
SPEAKER_05:For a new character or an existing character?
SPEAKER_02:A new character. And an existing we actually have there's there's we get uh Jenny Arc um in book two, um which I think people are really gonna like. I really like Jenny's arc and her POV chapters. Um, and what will what I highly anticipate our most popular character for book two will be Acho the Orc.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, we haven't really seen much of the orcs uh outside of like fighting and combat. Um the only one that I've really seen that stood out was the weeping king who cries to use his magic, which is weird.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:Why does it does I don't remember the book saying why?
SPEAKER_02:Okay, yeah. So the the orcish system, so orcs didn't get magic when everyone else did. Um they stole it. Um, and so their connection to magic is more fragile and not based in the original source. Um, so their magic, so each each group has a castology, right? So dwarves use runes, humans use speech, elves use song for the castologies, and then eel and whisper. Um so orcs use just emotion, um, which all of them use emotion, but the orcs just use emotion. Um so the predominant emotion they use when casting is anger. That's what I was saying. That's their predominant thing. The weeping king is very clever. Um, and so he figured out at an early age that if he's crying, people aren't expecting him to do magic. In an orcish culture.
SPEAKER_05:Sneaky.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:Very sneaky. There was a cult that is mentioned uh that the orcs were a part of that were trying to. Yeah, they were trying to bring back the big bad character.
SPEAKER_00:Yes.
SPEAKER_05:And now the weeping king, I think, was not. I think it they thought that at one point he was part of that cult, but he's not part of that cult.
SPEAKER_02:He correct. He is a former member. He left.
SPEAKER_05:I was gonna say, when Jadis comes out, he did not seem very happy to see her. Uh, so that was interesting.
SPEAKER_02:Akko is a member of the Disciples of Awon. Oh, so he was I'm gonna sell everyone on Akko with one brief description. She is a Tennessee muscle mommy orc.
SPEAKER_05:Sold.
SPEAKER_02:Yep. Who is dealing with religious trauma? She she's got a Tennessee accent. She's huge, muscle bound, and dealing with religious trauma.
SPEAKER_05:I don't know anyone who wouldn't be sold on that.
SPEAKER_02:She's going to be my most popular character in book two, no matter what I do.
SPEAKER_03:It doesn't matter what I do with any other characters, she's gonna be the one.
SPEAKER_05:Do you know where you want the trilogy to end? Like, do you have like the whole thing, the whole thing is planned out? Yeah. So you're more of a player.
SPEAKER_02:I've sown the seeds for sequel series in book one. Yeah, I don't have it like chapter by chapter charted out, but I have the important major moments that we have to hit that have been set up and foreshadowed and laid out and set in motion. Every story evolves that has good characters. I think every story that has well-written characters and characters that are fleshed out has to evolve on its own. That didn't really happen to the degree in book one that it has happened in book two, um, where a character there's a character in book two who does a thing that completely derailed what we had planned. Um, and like everything still is gonna get to where it needs to go, but it dis it it changed the course because it was like, okay, here's the situation. What does this character do? Well, they're just gonna go take care of it. There's no other option for this character. Like, there's no reason they wouldn't just go in there and do the thing. So they go in there and they try to do the thing, and that changes the course of their entire journey to the end of this story. So there are elements of it that are flexible, but there are hard points, or like a Doctor Who would uh a Doctor Who analogy would be like there's fixed points.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah. I like that you kind of let the characters like not write their own story because it still has to fit within the parameters of what you want to happen, but I like that you let them become enough of their own character where you're like, okay, well didn't make sense for them to do this because that's not what they would do. That's not their personality. So now they're gonna have to do this and we're gonna have to write around this. Um, I really like that you do that because it makes the characters a lot more real. And why I hate some of them so much. So this world that you've created, have you it would make a great TTRPG? Like, yeah, it would be a fantastic setting for a group of people to just drop into and play in.
SPEAKER_02:Right.
SPEAKER_05:Is that something you guys have thought about?
SPEAKER_02:There are six episodes of a TTRPG DM'd by me set in this world somewhere on the internet.
SPEAKER_05:Really?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. I've got character art and all. Uh I didn't didn't continue with that. I didn't have time. Um, but they're they're out there somewhere. If anyone ever finds them, I'm not gonna give them away to anyone. Yeah, we've got we've even got a fr an author friend of mine made like a TTRPG like character sheet that's like SW themed. Um that's really cool. That's really fun. Uh that's with like the digital art pack on our Kickstarter. I'm gonna send that to people too. Um, that's that's a an eventual goal for sure. For sure. That's absolutely something we want to do because it's it, and that's something we've looked into because Dave and I are huge TTRPG people. I've DM'd for like 15 years. Um, there's references to my campaigns, you know, like uh there's a character, just the elf that gets eaten. Um he's a reference to a character from one of my early campaigns um that gets eaten by the vampire child. Um, so yeah, no, but like on that subject, we are working on a board game. Um pairing on Apocalypse, which is gonna be uh it's not a TTRPG, it's like a survival um themed board game that we're doing play tests and stuff like my the box with it is actually under my computer right now. Um that's something we want to do and release eventually. Um that's it's a lot of fun.
SPEAKER_05:So is that like a co-op a co-op survival game?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, it's a co-op survival game. Uh technically one to six players is what we're currently building towards. Um it's kind of it's got influences from like Settlers of Catan and Betrayal of the House on the Hill, if you've played those. Um so the whole goal is to make your settlement, your paragon self-sustaining. Um, and you do that by upgrading buildings, collecting survivors, collecting equipment and stuff like that. Um so there's a lot of character overlap and stuff. And it's really extra fun if you've read the book, because you can have moments like, oh hey, Sarah's going out in the woods to fight giant grasshoppers with a machine gun, and she's backed up by Hodge with a spear. Right? And you get or like Breaky just had a heavy machine, like Briki's out there with a heavy machine gun and um General Almuray fighting a band of orcs. Like there's it it it's uh non-can exploration of insanity.
SPEAKER_05:I love that.
SPEAKER_02:But it's all collaborative and and stuff like that.
SPEAKER_05:Do you think that you guys will be doing a Kickstarter for that?
SPEAKER_02:Oh, yes. Oh, so that is that is why we're doing the special editions. Okay. Um, to get our toes in, get to get familiar with Kickstarter because that's the ultimate goal is to do a board game Kickstarter.
SPEAKER_05:So let's talk about that Kickstarter. Um you guys have a Kickstarter coming up. It's not yep. When does the Kickstarter launch?
SPEAKER_02:March 28th.
SPEAKER_05:Okay. So this episode will air before the Kickstarter launches. So that's great. So what is what is this Kickstarter? So you're doing special editions of the first book?
SPEAKER_02:The first book, yep.
SPEAKER_05:So what are they what are they gonna be like?
SPEAKER_02:So we're doing a number like a new cover, uh, it's gonna have a dust jacket, but it's gonna have a holographic foil on the front. Uh, and then when you take it off, it's gonna be blue foil uh for the underside. And so like the dust jacket's gonna have a galvern, it's got a new cover. You can see all that you can go there. But when you take the dust jacket off underneath the sword is Jadis. Um it's this cool, like you take it off, and Jadis is there waiting beneath the sword, which is just a fun little nod to the readers. Um, we're doing a new map, so we're we're building a better map. Uh, we're adding epigraphs, which get into like all kinds of deep lore, like the origin of species and some fun snow and SW stuff that are going to be added to every chapter. We're adding chapter headers, we're gonna do really pretty pretty end papers, um, just a whole mess. We're throwing in the original prologue with some like writer commentary so you can read what we initially had with some like, hey, this is no longer canon. Here's an author's note and stuff. We're adding a glossary with a character dictionary and language dictionary, which breaks down all the fantasy words and all the fantasy characters and all the character names and all that. And I've gone in and I've spent like a week on that, not just giving details on the characters, but adding little fun anecdotes about them too. Um, so it's it's very rewarding for people familiar with the series because there's all these kind of little nods and and references to things woven into it.
SPEAKER_05:Um that is so cool.
SPEAKER_02:And then we have an add-on, which is these little Galvorn enamel pins.
SPEAKER_05:Fantastic.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:So for the dust jacket, is that gonna be the same artist who did uh the original book one?
SPEAKER_02:Nope. It's a part of the book two art. Uh but it is so we got Polina Gip did the book two art. We didn't go with Serena Malon for book two because she's incredibly expensive. She did a great job, but she's very pricey. Um, and so all things considered, we're like, we can save costs a little bit here. Um, but the new artist we got is phenomenal. I think she matches the style really well. The book two cover has been revealed, it's out there. Um, and so the special edition is based on part of that. It's the shattered sky. Um, is what it is, with some with some additives. So that was a combination of her artwork, Car Blaine, who is another author who is helping like us get the Kickstarter rolling, and me collaborating um with Galvorne on it. Um it's a sketch of Galvorne that was done by uh Whitney Lanier, who's a friend of mine from high school, um, and just a culmination of different artists and stuff to kind of create that. Um and then the undercover for that with which is uh Jadis is by Yorzi Hernandez, who's like my favorite character artist who I've been working with for a long time.
SPEAKER_05:Nice. Do you think that you'll do Kickstarters for um each of the three books in the series?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, we're gonna do a special edition for each of them.
unknown:That's awesome.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I've already I've already got some plans. Special edition. Yeah, yeah. And if if we hit like the first scratch goal, we're also going to do the end paper at the front, it's going to be Shadow Fang. Ooh. My planet gip. Um, who is gonna do a phenomenal job on that? But the end paper at the back is gonna be the Yolmir or the Nightmare Child. So we'll have the first encounter and the last encounter bookending it.
SPEAKER_05:Tie it all in, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Can I ask you some questions?
SPEAKER_05:Sure.
SPEAKER_02:I like to ask everyone a couple of questions. First being, who are your top three characters?
SPEAKER_05:Top three characters would be uh in no particular order, Carrie.
SPEAKER_02:Excellent.
SPEAKER_05:Sarah.
SPEAKER_02:Dave's gonna be so mad.
SPEAKER_05:And I wanna say the Mesy, but I will go with Dr. Walker. Okay.
SPEAKER_02:Excellent.
SPEAKER_05:Um, but I will go with Dr. Walker.
SPEAKER_02:Excellent. Carrie is Dave's Dave's character beyond more than any other character. He's like based on Dave. Um, so he's gonna be so upset he missed the podcast where Carrie was in the top three.
SPEAKER_05:Well, you know.
SPEAKER_02:Um okay, excellent. Were your top three favorite moments?
SPEAKER_05:Uh Peter waking up with the Macy.
SPEAKER_02:Excellent.
SPEAKER_05:That's top that's top favorite moment. That is number one. Um I think probably the moment when Sarah I mean she doesn't realize that she has magic, but she uses magic for the first time. When she let there be light. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:She says like spark or fire or something, and she says light and the the frame tasted the powder and it was good. Sorry, it's one of my favorite lines I've ever written.
SPEAKER_05:That's that's one of my favorites.
SPEAKER_02:Okay.
SPEAKER_05:And oh well, it would be my third. That's tough. I don't know. Those are really the only two that stand out immediately.
SPEAKER_02:Nice. Mises and light. What a juxtaposition. That's so fun. Okay. Uh, and then what are you hoping to see or theorizing for book two?
SPEAKER_05:I am theorizing that Mara is gonna be one of the big bad characters. Okay. Uh she's gonna be like the main antagonist for Paragon. Uh I think that Jadis is gonna be bad.
SPEAKER_00:Okay.
SPEAKER_05:But I'm on the fence. I don't I don't know. I might be wrong. Uh I am very on the fence on that one.
SPEAKER_01:But excellent.
SPEAKER_06:I don't know.
SPEAKER_05:And uh I think well, I hope. I don't that but I have no idea if you'll do this or not, but I hope I know you said you're introducing dragons. I hope that they're good. I hope that they're good characters and not antagonists.
SPEAKER_02:Okay. Good dragons.
SPEAKER_05:Or that there are some good dragons if some of them are are bad. Because you know, like in DD, you've got the different colors of dragons. Some of them are lean more towards good. Some I think I I hope at least that some of the dragons are good.
SPEAKER_02:Cool. Excellent. Good picks. Good picks. Any any fantasy creatures you really want to see in the world?
SPEAKER_05:More Macy's.
SPEAKER_02:More Mises. Got it. Well, congratulations. There are more Mises.
SPEAKER_05:That was like literal, like by far my favorite scene in that in the entirety of it. I mean, like, it's not even a close contest by how much I liked that one more than any of the other ones. Um, I have one question that I ask everyone to wrap up in an episode. If you had stats or abilities, um like a DD character would, what would be your main stat or ability?
SPEAKER_02:Like if do I get to choose or am I like objectively?
SPEAKER_05:Either or it can be one that you wish were your main or one that you think adequately fits.
SPEAKER_02:I mean, it's the same answer, I think. Well, and I think it would be the most useful in our current society. That's charisma. I'm going maxing out my charisma stat.
SPEAKER_05:Okay. Okay. I said I could see it. You're very charismatic. I took it. You do good on TikTok. Your videos are funny.
SPEAKER_01:Like, well, thank you.
SPEAKER_05:So where can people find you online?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, uh, Michael Melwassel is my username for everything. Sometimes there's a D in it, sometimes there's not. Um, Melwassel.com is our website where you can get signed copies of our book now through our website instead of Etsy, because we made our own website. Um you can get our books everywhere books are sold. The audiobook for Exhordium is only available through Audible through because of how royalty shares and stuff work. But the uh audiobook for Apocrypha, when that releases within the next two months, hopefully, will be on IAX, uh, which is this new indie author platform that Atlas Creed is working on, um, that is going to give authors royalties of like 80 to 70 percent for their audiobooks as opposed to Audible, which gives you like 20. So keep an eye out for that.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, he is his book is on my TBR as well.
SPEAKER_02:Armitage.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah. Yeah, I see him all over my TikTok. Uh, so that is everything that I had for you today. Thank you for sticking around with me. Thank you for coming on. Um I loved your book. I'm going to link to all of your socials and website and everything. So everyone knows where to find you. Thank you, everyone, for hanging out with us. Uh, if you enjoyed today's conversation and you want more, you can check out my Patreon where I have the unedited episodes. You can get an early heads up on who my guests are going to be, and you can have the ability to submit questions for me to ask during the interview, or you can get a shout-out during the interview as well. Uh, I also send out a monthly newsletter of upcoming releases at the beginning of every month. And everyone will have a chance to win a free book from the authors that I have on. You can find that at patreon.com slash IOW pod. I will link to that and I will also link to my own socials. Uh, thank you, Jennifer, for being my editor and keep leveling up.
SPEAKER_02:May you walk under blue skies.