Interview with the Literary Titan

Following their review, today I am interviewed by The Literary Titan on Typhoon of Fire.

“A Creepy Science-Gone-Wrong Scenario…”

In Typhoon of Fire we follow Ace Mcdagger who teams up with Captain Loxwell of November squad to rescue her teammates scattered in the forests of Malaysia. What was the inspiration for the setup to this thrilling novel?

During Call of the Conjurer, when the characters were new recruits to the hidden world of modern, magical combat; they spent a lot of time in a regulated, clean environments. The characters were usually safe. I wanted to go the opposite way in Typhoon of Fire. I wanted the situation throughout to be very rough, challenging and dangerous. My very first thought, visually, was of Vietnam era war films like “Platoon” and “Apocalypse Now”.

The jungle is wild and hostile, and Malaysia is a location brimming with different environments which greatly inspired the events throughout. The characters explore flat, arid plains and damp rainforests, a rundown laboratory overrun by plants, an abandoned mine, a floating fortress above the clouds… I had a great time using colour schemes to set the mood. The use of natural environments also helped me to emphasise major themes in the book. Subjects such as ‘corruption of life’, ‘man versus nature’ and ‘Hell on Earth’.

I felt that the novel was very well paced and kept me engaged throughout. Did you plan the novel as you wrote or did it all happen organically?

It happened organically, for the most part. From my perspective, Typhoon of Fire is a prequel to another book I have written – but I decided it would be better to publish them chronologically. Certain events had to happen in Typhoon of Fire, and with that in mind I just had fun writing what I wanted: a creepy science-gone-wrong scenario!

Developing the supporting cast and their stories happened organically as well. They were new characters, who would not necessarily be seen again; so their personalities, roles and fates were all blank slates. I enjoyed unravelling these characters, adding little twists to their personalities to surprise the reader. A lot of the characters are very different people by the end of the story, for better or for worse. I suppose in essence, the main plot of Typhoon of Fire was an after thought for me. The subplots, however; the individual character arcs which pave the way for future instalments, are the real meat and bones of the book. Away from all the magic and sci-fi, this is a book about humanity and frailty.

Ace, Shimon, Tiffany, and Loxwell have brilliant dialogue and they feel like living characters. What things did you focus your character development on to bring your characters to life?

I absolutely adore writing flawed characters. I like my characters fumble their dialogue, on occasion, or misunderstand information given to them. It makes them more human, to be far from perfect. I enjoy the concept of the “unreliable protagonist” and bear that in mind when I write. Sometimes the characters make mistakes, and sometimes they lie, even to themselves. They are supposed to be human, despite any super human magical powers they possess. Careful dialogue keeps them grounded and relatable.

What is the next novel that you are working on and when will it be available?

Tricky one! I actually have two books in the proof reading stage now. One is a direct follow up to Typhoon of Fire, called Bloodfest, which was the book I had written before this one but decided to release later. The other book I’ve completed is a supplementary story called The Sardonyc, which focuses on the Science Department mentioned throughout Typhoon of Fire. The Sardonyc is a very different book to what I have written before, but it is still within the same self contained universe.

Bloodfest will be a straight up action horror / macabre comedy, continuing the adventures of Ace Mcdagger. He is more grown up and world weary by now, and is deployed to a mysterious island to dispatch a rising army of the undead. Definitely one for zombie fans!

The Sardonyc is more of a psychological thriller, about a troubled new character named Sidney. He is part of a research team stuck on a ship in the middle of the ocean, and everybody is slowly going mad. Sidney must figure out why it is happening before he succumbs as well, and there are plenty of twists along the way.

I hope the Literary Titan will review my next book soon – whichever one is out first!

Character Bios: Rafaela Loxwell

Apr27

Steely, long serving captain of HGA November Squad. She demands strict control, especially over herself.

00012 Rafaella Loxwell

Rafaela Loxwell was born in 1968 into a wealthy Brazilian family. She lived in a secure, isolated mansion outside of Rio de Janeiro, where her parents had already planned out her life. They were both members in the Hidden Government Army, and their daughter was going to follow in their footsteps.

Rafaela had other ideas. Through a combination of teenage rebellion and a warm desire to help people less fortunate than her, Rafaela often travelled deep into Rio’s slums. She knew orphans lived on the streets, and wanted to help them any way she could. Rafaela gave herself the responsibility of taking care of them all.

She still has fond memories of the friends she made, though the memories are often mired by sadness. A lot of the children she met – some only a few years younger than her – disappeared without explanation.

Her forthright disobedience was not unsupervised, either. Rafaela thought she was being clever, sneaking in and out of her home while her parents were constantly busy, but over the years Rafaela realised that the Hidden Government had always kept a close eye on her. By the time of Typhoon of Fire, Rafaella Loxwell is Captain of November Squad and has been so for several years. She likes her position; because despite the heavily monitored military she belongs to, Rafaela is able to exert some control and influence to get her own way. She still chooses carries to carry responsibility, and to stand up against any opposition.

Loxwell may come across as mean on first impressions, but she always has the welfare and safety of everybody around her foremost in her mind. She does not abide by sloppiness. Sloppiness leads to mistakes, and mistakes can lead to trouble. She gives everybody a chance to prove themselves, and her ways of encouragement are brash, but fair.

The powers which made her eligible for the Hidden Government Army are remarkable. For as long as she could remember, Loxwell has been able to heal wounds with self control. This adept self control ability extends to every small function of her body; from maintaining steady heart rate and breathing, to forcing certain muscles to immediately overwork or relax through conscious command. She can force herself not to perspire, and control her own fatigue and hunger, holding them back with steady regulation. Her ability clearly plays into Loxwell’s formal, take-charge personality. She is a woman who can make herself relax, but refuses to. In fact, she rather likes staying constantly alert and on her toes. She has massive responsibility after all, as captain of her squad.

In combat, Loxwell favours physical, close range attacking. She uses a unique sword, named Fulvia – named after the ambitious Roman political figure and the electromagnetic substance. A technological weapon powered by Thunder magic, Fulvia can be charged with electricity to cause shock and burn damage. Or may seem viol, but Loxwell prefers a job taken care of.

She rarely uses Combat Magic, or fire arms unless necessary. Loxwell’s sword is enough, and she expects her team to contribute. Loxwell’s prowess and command have see her offered many promotions to become an officer, but she consistently declines. The battlefield is her place, where she can keep a close eye on everyone and everything.

Author’s Notes #2: Into the Fire

Apr5

Let’s talk about Typhoon of Fire, the sequel to Call of the Conjurer.

2016-design-copy

This book was always in the back of my mind. At the very least, I had drafted some of the major plot points as early as 1999.

Another prequel before the Bloodfest series really begins, Typhoon of Fire is a notable mark in the lives of the leading characters in the series. New soldiers Ace Mcdagger, Shimon Akasone and Tiffany Milich have been through a lot more combat since their graduation in Call of the Conjurer, and have enjoyed a gentle, serene tour with Sierra Squad ever since.

But things had to change.

New Setting

In retrospect, I would like to write more about the cast of Sierra Squad more. They get a brief look in during one of the Typhoon of Fire‘s flashback chapters, but the morose collective in November Squad and their head strong leader Captain Rafaella Loxwell were the more battered, despondent, colourful bunch to tell a story about. Newbies Ace and co – including plucky unlucky fellow “green” soldier Gill Pillson – are dropped into the ‘fire’ of the sweltering Malaysian wilderness and put to the test by their stern new captain.

Captain Loxwell is a marked change from Captain Mason in Call of the Conjurer. She is strict and intimidating, and doesn’t seem to understand the ‘fuss’ over Ace Mcdagger. He tries hard to impress, but not as hard as he should do. Tiffany shines at least; Captain Loxwell regards her highly as fellow woman in the military. It’s a highly pro-feminist attitude, and one I’m glad to encourage. Where Ace had Captain Mason beforehand, Tiffany is given a mentor in Captain Loxwell.

Captain Loxwell’s stern leadership brings a change to the group dynamic.

Several new components to the Bloodfest series lore are introduced in this book, including other branches of the Hidden Government Army and a better examination of the way Magic works. At the start of the story, November Squad have lost a large number of their team mates following an unprepared assault on black listed Hidden Government facility, only known as the “D” Laboratory. The blame for the failure is constantly passed around between the leading officers of November Squad and the higher command; the Air Force soldiers, who are introduced in this book as the secret armed force’s own “Eyes in the Sky”. The Air Force wield a lot of power and authority over the Ground Forces, which keeps November Squad as the respected underdogs. I love an underdog tale, and the Bloodfest series is full of them.

New Bonds

Ace’s desire to prove himself before Captain Loxwell is tested further with the introduction of his estranged cousin (or should that be strange cousin) Damian Hassler. The young lad is a handful. He’s arrogant, destructive, disobedient, and perhaps even insane; but he looks up to Ace as an older brother. It’s a new dynamic, creating a great duo pairing to coincide with Ace and Shimon, and Shimon and Tiffany.

In fact “duos” is a major theme of Typhoon of Fire. Close bounds form the story together, from friends, lovers, comrades and rivals. All the characters meet their match both good or bad in this book. Ace stresses over Damian, the lovers Shimon and Tiffany face relationship turmoil as they juggle duty and romance, Loxwell and her trusted ally Lieutenant Bordestein keep each other grounded. Even the villains and their motivations are driven by the common theme of “duos”. Trying to spot them all in the story will take some time.

A sketch of Damian, introduced to Bloodfest as a hot headed renegade / borderline psychopath (who you want to keep on your side).

The other major theme of the book is Hell – fire and discomfort, suffering and tragedy. The river journey early on was the first part of the book I wrote, as a starting point for the visuals: the general colour palette and mood I wanted for the book. There’s a lot of orange haze and burned out decay, in-between scenes of vibrant green life. Admittedly I was heavily inspired by Apocalypse Now and other Vietnam war films for the setting – which in turn was based on the book Heart of Darkness. The Kalimantan region of Malaysia is beautiful and wild, but also dangerous and unfamiliar. When draped in a constantly fire scorched sky, it can be quite a daunting landscape. The jungle setting of the Kalimantan is also a far cry away form the clean comforts of Myrtle Beach in Call of the Conjurer. In the Kalimantan the soldiers are truly living – surviving – day to day on rations and requiring to be on guard at all times.

Malaysia is not the only backdrop to the story. The cast venture off all over the world, reaching as far as Canada, New York, Warsaw, and the Huayna Potosi mountain range in Bolivia. These soldiers do get around.

There’s another theme throughout the book – life, and whether ‘Life’ is always a wondrous miracle. Sometimes ‘Death’ may be the kindest alternative, but I’ll leave this interpretation to the readers. I’m not inciting an anti-life movement here, but I enjoy a skewed look on the world.

New Danger

A sequel needs to raise the stakes, but this book is still a prequel to what is to come. The main cast are still young and inexperienced, and their adversaries need to be a raised threat, but still not as bad as what may come in the future. Juggling this balance was an interesting challenge. The immediate antagonists; the mad scientist Dr Weiss and traitorous witch soldier Nathan Edgrech, are only human despite their dangerous capabilities. Dr Weiss is a man spoken about in legend, and Edgrech stirs nothing but contempt among his former comrades. He’s sick in the head and deviously cruel, but he can only fight dirty, which shows how much of a coward he is.

Even the early monsters encountered; the Mirezyns and Towermen, are relatively docile and easy to defeat. It’s when the story reaches a point-of-no-return around chapters 16 and 17 that the stakes are unevenly raised, and by chapter 20 all hell is literally breaking loose. The encounters are more visceral, mixing science, nature and magic in ways it should not. If Call of the Conjurer seemed tame on the horror aspect, Typhoon of Fire kicks it up a notch. It kicks its teeth out.

Pen scribble of the kind of ‘living hell’ organisms in the story.

Overall, Typhoon of Fire is a story about challenge and change. There are several moments for the characters to take a breather away from the battlefield and relax. There are always moments of light comedy throughout (and some moments of dark comedy), but things tend to get harder before they get any better, and there is a tremendous tonal shift by the end of the story. I’m proud of how it came out, and preliminary reviews say it is better than Call of the Conjurer.

For the full experience, you’ll just have to read on.

Typhoon of Fire is available on Amazon Kindle right now.

Character Bios: Damian Hassler

Jan19

He’s like a movie action hero… with the creative imagination of a ten year old boy. Some say Damian can make anything into a lethal weapon, and he certainly does try.

00005 Damian Hassler

Damian is a master of weapons. He has a destructive streak and a wickedly creative mind. Born in 1987 and growing up in East London, Damian was barely raised by his dad, and never even met his mother. It is suggested that something out of the ordinary happened between his parents; to the extent that his dad refuses to talk about it and appears afraid of bringing it up.

In his youth, Damian spent as much time as he could at his cousin Ace’s house. He was at ease there, and happy filled the niche of ‘annoying small child who breaks everything but gets away with it because the older child takes responsibility’. Despite this, Ace put up with him quite willingly. Ace’s friend Shimon Arkasone was round often, and Damian had terrific fun terrorising him physically; but only because Shimon always fought back.

Damian still looks up to his older, wiser cousin, but is reluctant to admit that. He pretends not to have feelings at the risk of appearing weak. He is utterly non-politically correct and quite content with that. He hates authority, only listening to those who he respects.

He often mocks people, or lashes out with his short temper, but usually feels bad about it if he respects them. Damian wants to be liked, and he looks out for the people he cares about.

Damian confronted the teenagers, clutching his rocket launcher and staring them down his fiery brown eyes, almost alight with fire.

“Move,” he grunted.

“Who’s this big fella?” Will whimpered.

“He’s my cousin, Damian,” Ace answered.

“Ok. Why’s he looking at me like he wants to pull my head off?”

Ace couldn’t help but smirk. “He does that to everyone. Don’t worry about it.”

“Just don’t make any sudden movements around him…” Shimon grinned.

While Damian possesses magical abilities, like all Hidden Government soldiers; Weapon crafting is his primary focus. He wants to create the most dangerous tools known to mankind, no matter how ridiculous they may be and has certainly succeeded more than once. He enjoys making bombs, challenging himself to come up with more elaborate designs. Detonating these things is the ultimate pay off. Damian loves explosions. It is a form of art to him. His greatest joy however is modifying the RPG, to see what else can be ‘rocket propelled’ to good effect. Some of his best efforts include the RPNB (Rocket Propelled Nail Bomb), the RPBFOA (Rocket Propelled Beaker Full of Acid), and the RPBOLOT (Rocket Propelled Box of Liquid Oxygen and Thermite).

Damian is not a force of nature. He is something else. Damian actually thinks before he acts, which does not mean he necessarily thinks with much consideration for trifling things such as property damage, cost of repair, mental anguish, etc. His mind is on getting the job done, and his objective always involves creating the biggest explosion possible.

He just does what the voices in his head tell him to do, whoever those guys are.

004 Damian Character Sheet

Creation Facts:

Damian’s character was clearly inspired by any action movie you’ve ever seen, but also pretty much every character portrayed by Adrian Edmondson in the 80’s and 90’s.
I feel that, despite his temperament and aggression, Damian often speaks for the audience. He is usually the first character to speak up in protest when things don’t make sense. He often demands further explanation when plot points or key moments of the series pop up, barking off a short “Explain,” for clarification. He’s a great narrative device in that sense.
Damian also pulls a lot of faces to express his thoughts, despite this being a written medium. That’s just part of his character though – he’s a rule breaker; a truly metaphysical rule breaker.

Always have a Battle Plan

Jan5

I have been working on the Bloodfest series for a long time now and I feel the need to explain myself; how the series works and what the ultimate goal is.

Stage 1: establishing the world

At the time of this post, I have written three books: one firmly self published on Amazon while the others are in the copy editing phase (I keep referring to it as ‘post production’).

In order to rebirth the series from a long slumber, I decided to write three original stories to firstly; practise writing again, and secondly; develop the characters for a modern era. These three books are all prequels to the “main event” called Bloodfest.

Call of the Conjurer is set in the year 2003, and follows the initiation of British born “magic soldiers” Ace Mcdagger and Shimon Arkasone. They have been ushered into the secretive organisation known internally as the Hidden Government, and are to be trained up in the art of magic combat. Several other characters find themselves in the same position, and a large part of the story is about team work.

Ace and Shimon are key to the whole Bloodfest series; or at least how it begins. But for Call of the Conjurer I wanted to write a bigger story, and invented the character of Calbert Mason – a figure for Ace to look up to – along with many others for Ace and Shimon to form close ties with. Some of these characters will make further appearances in the series.

Despite the establishing set up with Ace and Shimon, Call of the Conjurer became more of Calbert Mason’s story, and this formula of multiple viewpoints continues into the next book.

Typhoon of Fire continues the exploits of Ace, Shimon, and their close allies three years later in 2006. New key characters are introduced, and life changing events will affect the main cast for years to come.

Finally The Sardonyc changes perspectives entirely, focusing away form the action of the battlefield and onto the introverted scientist Sidney Gaterling. Set in the year 2010, this is one for the geeks. The pace is different; far more technical and steady. The Sardonyc is more of a psychological thriller, with a group of characters trapped on a ship and slowly going mad. Through these remarkable circumstances, Sidney faces his own battle against a mental threat, and his story gradually ties the prequel trilogy together.

Ultimateley, these three prequel books are not essential reading to understand Bloodfest, but help deepen the main characters’ motivations and hint at future events.

Stage 2: the Main Event

Bloodfest is a planned saga, currently shaping up to span five books. The first one has been written completely, and I am piecing the rest together all at once. I admit it is taking a while…

Set firmly in 2012, Bloodfest is an expansive story about savage battle, fatalism, bloodlines and mortality.

The conclusion has been planned, and I know what kind of story I want each book to tell. The series may be one saga, but each novel has its own collection of themes and arcing plotlines. I hate to leave a story on an unsatisfying cliffhanger, and want each one to have a concluding story.

Stage 3: the blog

Suffice to say the overall story arc has been mapped out over a number of years. Small changes have been made over time and continue to be made, but my primary intention is to put this series out and leave a little bit of me to the world.

Not only me: but my friends who helped directly create and inspire the series. A fellow called James is the key partner in crime here; co creator of the original home movie and continued contributor of ideas. He also writes, and is already penning a side story to Bloodfest that is totally original. I have no input on his tale and I love that. Even if he never finishes it, I love the idea of an expanded universe.

More about the origins of Bloodfest can be read here. I like to elaborate, and I want to answer questions and build up a reference source for the series with further texts and concept art.

Being a writer means constant practise. Some nights on the train ride home from London, I jot down mini stories built around the world of Bloodfest and I plan to post them on the blog as little treats.

For now, I hope you enjoy the character bios and develop an interest in the series. Please stay tuned as this blog fills with information!

Character Bios: Tiffany Milich

Nov24

… she preferred to keep her head down in active duty situations. Whilst on base, Tiffany seemed to come alive more – offering to fulfil the mundane tasks that needed doing day to day. She loved to take care of the little jobs, the ones nobody would notice.

A bright, quiet young woman with a fantastic mind. She remembers everything in perfect detail, choosing to employ this skill to learn as much as she can.

When introduced in ‘Call of the Conjurer’, Tiffany comes across as rather avoidant, maybe even a little abrasive towards anyone trying to get to know her. I tried to keep her out of focus, until she slowly opens up to the rest of the team and becomes a vital player in ‘Typhoon of Fire’.

For years Tiffany had no idea that she was special. Everybody around her generally regarded her uncanny mind to just ‘being smart’. Everybody said so; friends, family, and the jealous bully types.

Tiffany had a humble upbringing. Her family were ordinary, and she had hoped to become a doctor, but couldn’t due to the costs of studying. Instead, she entered the military to become medical personnel. It was only when she was ushered into the Hidden Government Army that Tiffany knew she might be more than just ‘smart’. She is told that her memory is perfect, able to recall the smallest details that one might not even notice at the time. Tiffany also displays adept magical combat, demonstrating a natural talent right away.

Despite all the praise, she tries to keep a low profile, fearing that people will regard her as boastful and bigheaded. Still, she has a nervous compulsion to correct people when they are mistaken and feels embarrassed for doing do. She tries to keep her head in books, learning all she can about any variety of subjects – with the ulterior motive of avoiding social situations.

I’m always spouting facts! It’s like… it needs to escape! I’m always rabbiting on. It must be very annoying.

Thankfully the other recruits are receptive and welcoming. Ace in particular wants to bring the group together and tries to encourage some confidence out of Tiffany, acting as wing man to his smitten buddy Shimon, but doesn’t quite succeed.

Thankfully, Shimon manages to speak up, and the two of them mesh right away. Tiffany takes to Shimon quickly, naive in romance and charmed by this boy who shows her interest. For all that she can read in books, nothing compares to first hand experience.

Where Shimon is darkness, Tiffany is light. Together they are like ying and yang; an ideal pairing who need one another and play off each other perfectly. But with Tiffany’s ambitions, Shimon’s unique abilities, and their relationship embroiled in the sercret military service, the two might be separated at any time. Their lives are at the whim of higher powers. Can there be a happy ending?

Creation Facts:

It took me awhile to stumble on a first name for Tiffany. While documenting her orignal design to computer many years ago, I noticed the ‘.Tiff’ file extension and settled on that.
‘Milich’ deviated from the word millet, mostly because it sounds nice, but also because millet is earthly and full of potential and growth.

Character Bios: Shimon Arkasone

Nov21

A cocky, confident young man who can back that up with powerful psychic abilities. Shimon has been through a lot in his life already, never feeling like he belonged in the real world, and taking to life in the Hidden Government Army with great enthusiasm.

But Shimon has a lot going for him now, meaning he has everything to lose.

00002 Shimon Arkasone

Everything about Shimon makes him an outsider. He comes from a dysfunctional family and prefers to stay distant from them. He had few friends at school, which he believes attributes to his subtle dark skin, though this is reinforced by his stand-offish attitude towards others.

I’m one eighth Italian and that was enough for some people. They’re either ignoring me or telling me to go back to my own country! Thankfully there was a kid at school with one eye, so he got to be ostracized along with me…

Ace formed a good friendship with Shimon early in their lives, and is the only person who really knows him (aside from Ace’s young cousin Damian; to a lesser, more irritating extent).

Shimon has many secrets. He realised at a young age that he had special abilities, percieving his psychic visions as dreams until it bcame clear that they always came true. Shimon learned that he could read minds, and move objects through sheer thought. His general disdain for people kept this bottled up and concealed from others. He did not want to share these amazing skills, concluding that it would only end in ridicule or humiliation.

Or maybe that they didn’t deserve to know.

Perhaps Shimon enjoys keeping his secrets. No matter how much people belittle him, he knows that he is something more. Shimon can say that he is above them. It’s a dangerous, arrogant attitude to have, but it’s also true.

Writing Shimon is always tricky. He knows the outcome of every story, in theory. It is difficult to surprise him. In which case it is important that he needs to be unsure of what he sees. Years of being beaten down has left him wary of the world. He doesn’t even trust his own mind.

For years, Ace was the only person Shimon had ever revealed his skills to, who kept silent about them out of unspoken respect. Entering the Hidden Government Army in ‘Call of the Conjurer’, Shimon finally feels free to express himself. They are surrounded by people with magical abilities, but it becomes clear that even now Shimon surpasses everybody else. He is beyond the ability of peers, and that brings him right round to feeling isolated again.

But here he meets Tiffany Milich, a young woman who has been in his dreams for years. Shimon is mesmerized, though stilted in striking up conversation with her. Again, he can’t be sure of his own thoughts. What if his dream girl is a farce? More of a cautionary vision, than a fantasy?

Shimon is uptight and fidgety. Ace jokingly describes him as ‘a drama queen’, but in all seriousness Shimon is twitchy, easily provoked, and knows how much power he posesses. The Hidden Government even allow him special privileges, given the rarity of his combined skills, and Shimon tries not to exploit that too much. For now.

Shimon has foreseen his own demise and it doesn’t frighten him. He is (or at least claims to be) confident that nothing can kill him until that day.

He has to learn to control his emotions before he can master his skills. Knowing the future is a dangerous thing. Do you act to prevent disaster, or do you ride it out, accepting when the worst is about to happen?

Creation facts:

Shimon is one of the first incidences of our number #1 rule; when naming characters, we can’t use the names of anybody we know. This is why Bloodfest characters have odd names, or use odd spellings. It used to be easy back in school when we knew, like, thirty kids in the whole school and you could still use normal, believable names for the charactes. These days it is not so easy. Luckily we realised early on that we’d have to scour around for uncommon, but not made up names, such as Ace and Shimon.
As a child he trained in Kendo and Jōdō fighting techniques, but his parents made him give them up due to expenses. Most of Shimon’s sword expertise is self taught, using video tapes of sword training and martial arts.
He avoids using guns and even ignores the magic spells he has been taught in the Hidden Government Army, prefering to stick with his telekinetic skills.
His blood type is ‘O’, if you are in Japan.

Character Bios: Ace Mcdagger

Nov2

His stoic, stone hard gaze peered into the distance. Ace’s brow furrowed only slightly, showing no lurch in emotion. Yet a sense of loss bore into him like a twisted knife. He knew that somewhere, one of his team mates had just perished.

He felt it.

An enigmatic protagonist, writing out a bio for Ace Mcdagger is tricky without giving too much away. Maybe this was a bad idea, but there are a few facts on offer about his upbringing and in the creation of the character.

He wears an eye patch over his left eye, adorned with a golden cross; a leaving gift from his training instructor. Ace wore it to cover a disfigurement – his eye works fine, but it had been infected when he was a child – and Ace liked to cover it to spare other people the sight.

Ace’s earliest memory is of being brought up a laboratory. His parents were scientists. At some point when he was a child, his eye became infected with a virus, but Ace has no idea why or how this happened.

He used to visit England sometimes, staying at his grandmother’s house. On one seemingly normal day, his laboratory home was destroyed. His parents seemingly died, and only vague recollections of that day remain with Ace. These memories are partly repressed, partly diminished with time. Because of this, Ace tends to be rather rigid when it comes to his personal life. Otherwise, he is relatively loose and outgoing.

He was later raised by relatives in England, attending the same school as his cousin Damian Hassler, and his good friend Shimon Arkasone. The pair of them have stayed around for all of his life, and the three are as close as brothers. Ace was a typically British teenage lad, going to pubs and loitering around with his mates. He met girls, and had a few, brief relationships. But nothing serious.

Ace admits to smoking and a trying marijuana, briefly, but knew he needed to stay away from them in order to apply for the army. All in all, a lot of Ace’s adolescent life was spent killing time, waiting for some purpose of his being to come along.

When first introduced in Call of the Conjurer, Ace is a determined young man, sometimes up for a lark, but severely devoted to military life. His army career was decided from an early age. Both Ace and Shimon were set to join the military for a lack of any better prospects in their home town, but they did so gladly, and spent some time fighting in Afghanistan between 2002 and 2003, until Ace’s Awakening occurred.

Trapped a room and surrounded by hostiles, a grenade detonated. Ace survived, utterly unharmed, while the men around him all died. Ace was unable to explain his escape. This keeps occurring; Ace is able to survive otherwise mortal perils. It seems that he is unkillable, although he dares not to push his luck too much.

On top of this, Ace is becoming more aware that he can see the souls of the dead, moments after they have perished.

His weapons of choice are the shotgun and the scythe, both holding significance to Ace and his history. He is a competent fighter and gifted magician, able to wield the elemental forces with ease.

Most soldiers train to use Elemental magic by using military grade Auralithalain jewels. This is hardened magic. The very essences of the eight elemental forces of the Universal sometimes become so dense that they solidify. Scientists for the Hidden Government know how to extract this power, and hand them out to soldiers to fight off creature that may be impervious to physical harm.

Ace trained the same as any other Hidden Government soldier, and learned to use magic in the same manner, but it seems that he has better control of the elements than most; a magical capability far beyond his years. Perhaps he never even needed to learn these spells; he was born with them. He was born with an ability to manipulate the world around him, along with his invincibility and close association to the dead.

It seems that Ace Mcdagger is more of a force of nature than a man. Perhaps his place in the world, his purpose, is beyond the mortal coil of humankind.

Time will tell. One day he will know.

001 Ace Character Sheet

Creation facts:

• His full name is Ace Jagger Mcdagger. Seriously, if you thought his name was ridiculous enough already, his middle honorific is Jagger. I forget where this originated from, or if there was a reason at all, but his name Ace does have a lot of relevance.

First of all; he is the central, key character for the series.
He is a great shot, with a shotgun particularly.
He is a singular entity; the sole individual with a great, pre-written destiny ahead of him. A lot of his true role in the Universe has yet to be revealed, but things are trickling in slowly.

* Update Edit; James tells that Ace’s middle name is Jagger because has dad was a Rolling Stones fan. Makes the most sense.

• An explanation for Ace’s eyepatch does exist in the story, but the real reason is more of a homage to a real British hero.

• His specific shotgun of choice is the Benelli M3 Tactical.

• It is often remarked that Ace is particularly tall. He was the tallest of the recruits in Call of the Conjurer, and is 6’1″.

• While not often mentioned in the stories, Ace briefly attended a Catholic boarding school when he moved to England permanently. He has been scared of nuns ever since.

• His other greatest fear is nuclear war.

Designs of Ace between 1996 to 2014

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