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Worldbuilding: African Elves?
Black History Month seems as good a time as any to write a little about how African mythology intersects with the story world of Shadow of the King.
I’ll begin with a disclaimer: I feel it’s important to make a distinction between the “sacred” and the “spooky,” a piece of wisdom I learned from an excellent book called Iroquois Supernatural. “Spooky” is the realm of folk tales, ghost stories, and such. They’re the things that even a lot of outsiders know if they know anything about the mythology of a different culture.
By contrast, “sacred” has to do with matters of the the deepest cultural significance—either positively or negatively. This is why I won’t be writing about a particular cannibalistic spirit whose name in Algonquian cultures must never be spoken. As an outsider, I strive never to encroach upon the sacred, and I strive to understand where those boundaries lie. So even though I know a little about African spirits such as loa and orishas, I consider them off limits. Even if I knew a considerable amount about these figures from Vodun, Santería, and other religious traditions based on African spirituality, as an outsider to these cultures I place them in the category of Not My Story to Tell.
The spooky is another matter. When it comes to African myths about “little people,” forest spirits, and the like, I feel these creatures need to be in a story set in North America precisely because people of African descent are my neighbors, and they have been telling their stories on this continent for centuries. For them to be absent seems to me the height of colonialist whitewashing.
So, how much African-inspired lore will you find in Shadow of the King? One fairly central item of worldbuilding, and some background stuff that you’re likely to miss.
First, the background stuff. There are, of course, African legends about the kind of creatures that populate Saynim, the “faeryland” from which Rune, my protagonist, hails. There are the Yumboes, diminutive Senegalese creatures who love nothing more than feasting and dance; the Bori of Hausa legend, whose myths early on became intermingled with those of the Muslim Jinn; and the Iwin, a Yoruba word that can be translated “ghost” or “faery,” sprites who live in rocks, forests, and hills.
There are also the Bisimbi, or “Cymbees” as they are called in the South Carolina Low Country. Enslaved Africans in that part of the world believed that their local springs and pools were inhabited by Cymbees just like the ones their forebears believed in across the sea. Cymbees live in rocks, gullies, streams, waterfalls, and pools that they adopt as territorial guardians. For the first African Americans, the presence of these spirits in this new world was culturally significant because it meant that they might also make their way here despite the hardships they faced. An old Kongo proverb states, “Where your ancestors do not live, you cannot build your house.” But the Cymbees were here, they believed, and so there was reason to find courage.
A central conceit of Shadow of the King is that European elves, dwarves, and the like have immigrated to their analog of North America just like European humans did in our world. They were here bit a bit earlier, and though their relationship with the Indigenous population was not perfect, the Indigenous mythical creatures fared better than their mortal counterparts. Likewise, African elves and such eventually journeyed across the sea as well and established their own faery kingdoms, mainly in the Southern Lowlands. Rune would have encountered merchants and diplomats from these realms quite regularly while growing up along the Mother of Rivers (i.e., the Mississippi).
Furthermore, it is simply a fact that persons from all over the so-called Old World lived in Europe since before the fall of the Roman Empire. (This YouTube video provides an excellent summary of the evidence.) They lived in England before England existed as a country. And their legends about jinn and peris certainly influenced aspects of European faery mythology. So when Rune’s ancestors sailed to his world’s analog of North America, there’s no reason they weren’t in the company of African or mixed-race compatriots.
All this means that whenever you read about a crowd of Saynim folk, feel free to assume that some of them are of African descent. And although there are no explicitly named “Black elves” in Shadow of the King, that will change in future books. At the same time, there are numerous African Americans from the mortal realm who play important roles in Rune’s story. Some aspects of their stories are also Not Mine to Tell, but they’re there, and they help make Rune the person he is becoming.
Now, about that major piece of worldbuilding. Human souls work differently than the souls of elves, goblins, etc. in Saynim. Most Saynim folk have souls that might be described as “simple.” As embodiments of the elemental forces of nature, their will is not quite as free as ours and their motivations are not quite as conflicted. But humans are different. Their souls are complex. They have “too many moving parts,” as one character notes. This makes humans unpredictable and perhaps dangerous.
There may be other spiritual traditions with similar concepts, but I first learned of it while studying African spiritualities. You may be most familiar with ancient Egyptian conceptualizations of the soul comprising several parts: the ba, the ka, the shadow, the name, etc. In fact, many spiritualities across Africa have similar ideas about humans’ psychic complexity. Some of those parts persist on earth after death, either for good or for ill. Some of them go on to whatever afterlife a given culture believes in. All of them reflect some aspect of that person’s character or essence.
I hope that in Shadow of the King I have pulled back the curtain on a world as big and diverse as the one we live in. I’d be honored if you’d give it a read and, if you have something constructive to add, teach me how I can do better.
Don’t Take My Word for It
Here is a very gracious review of Shadow of the King from Brandi of Dragons and Spaceships.
How Did I End Up on a Podcast?
Apparently because there was an empty slot on the podcaster’s schedule! I had a nice conversation with MasterSwagKing on his podcast, the MSK Show. We talked about life, creativity, writing, media adaptations, and of course Shadow of the King. Check it out if you’re into that sort of thing.
Shadow of the King: First Page
Rune hefted the satchel that held everything he owned and one thing he didn’t. Sweat trickled down the back of his neck.
It wasn’t only the early-autumn heat. The stench of grime and rust and smoke combined into a noxious haze. The screeches and bellows of motorized carriages wheedled their way into the back of Rune’s brain. His whole head throbbed.
He stopped for a second on the residential sidewalk to settle his breathing. Settle down, he told himself. But he couldn’t help looking over his shoulder one more time, just in case.
He took a breath, then stopped short in a fit of coughing. This world smelled wrong. Maybe he’d get used to it. Hopefully soon.
Rune forced himself to relax and tried again. His lungs expanded, and he savored every bit of air as it entered his body. And along with revitalizing oxygen came the airy chaos, the elemental engine of creation that was as much a part of Rune as his bones and his blood. It pulsed through him and swirled around him, and with the slightest effort of will, Rune let it clear his mind and expand his senses.
It only took a moment, but everything was suddenly sharper, more coherent. To his relief, his heightened senses brought no sign of pursuit: no skulking shadows, no furtive footsteps, no flash of knives in the falling night.
The sun finally set, and darkness cooled the air. It was a clear night, but where were the stars? The garish lights of every storefront window had driven them away.
He had lost track of time. He was tired, hungry, and cold.
At least he had finally shed the last of his scales.
All he could do was press on…
* * *
Want to read more? I can help you with that.
Shadow of the King: Q&A
How long did it take to write Shadow of the King?
Way too long! I first got the idea of Shadow of the King when my daughter was in high school, though best I can remember she had already graduated before I started working on it in earnest.
A quick look at my laptop informs me I created the Scrivener file for the book in September of 2019. The first chapter went through some truly awful iterations before I landed on something I was happy with, and there were definitely some plot points early on that needed not to happen. Then, of course, COVID hit. Which I think means that was about eighteen years ago.
Fortunately, book two, Dead of Night, went significantly faster. I’ve gotten it back from my editor and look forward to diving into her suggestions. And I’m a bit over 20,000 words into writing the conclusion, Twilight of Avalon.
What’s next for Rune?
Rune’s arc is all about finding a place where he belongs, and the obstacles he must face to find it. In the first book, those obstacles come in the form of entanglements with the magical realm from which he came. In the second book, he’ll contend with supernatural threats native to his new, ostensibly mundane, realm. Finally, the third book will pit factions of both worlds against each other, and Rune is going to have to make some hard choices. His loyalties will be tested, and the lines between allies and enemies might even get a little blurry.
All in all, I’m very happy with how the story is progressing. My editor thinks book 2 might be better than book 1, and that’s something every writer loves to hear! I hope you’ll stick around for the whole ride.
It’s Here! It’s Here!
Shadow of the King is now live!
If you’re looking for fun, smart, and uplifting fantasy fiction, I’d be honored if you’d give it a try. You can buy your paperback or ebook version HERE.
The shadow has fallen!
Shadow of the King: Building a World (Languages)
I know enough about linguistics to know that time devoted to building a constructed language is time I might better spend on other, more satisfying aspects of worldbuilding…or, you know, writing.
But people, places, and things need names, and I have a strong preference for those names sounding like they fit. So I usually end up doing at least a little bit of work fleshing out the languages my characters speak. Call me a reluctant conlanger.
In Shadow of the King, some of the conceits of my premise shaped the direction my languages took. For one thing, the contours of my protagonist’s Otherworld home arose from the myths and legends of real-world cultures. And those real-world cultures had languages from which to draw.
But not only is Rune’s world inspired by real-world cultures, the world itself is a close analog to our own. It is an alternate earth where magic is real and humans share the world with elves, merfolk, water panthers, and other fantastical creatures. You can think of Saynim as our world but in a different key. The continents and landmasses are similar—a mountain might be taller or shorter, a river might run a few miles to the east or to the west of where it would be on our maps, but everything is mostly where readers would expect to find it.
In this world, European settlement began quite a bit earlier than in ours but proceeded more slowly and, for the most part, more peaceably. The mound-building cultures of the Lower Mississippi remained intact, and the “Five Civilized Tribes” of the Southeast continue their traditional ways of life. Though there has been much warfare and conquest, the newcomers from the east (“Easterlings”) have largely been forced to live alongside the Indigenous population as equals, and largely only east of the Mother of Rivers (i.e., the Mississippi) and north of the Southern Lowlands (i.e., the Deep South).
In Rune’s part of the world, there are three important languages.
Miskoese, Rune’s native language, is Germanic. It is mainly Scandinavian but with a fair bit of Old English influence as well as a fair number of loanwords not only from Gaelic but from Algonquian and Iroquoian languages. The word Miskoese itself comes from the Ojibwe word misko’o, “he wears red,” a reference to the “Redcloaks,” the earliest Easterling settlers.
Teilic is derived from Medieval Welsh with loanwords from the Indigenous languages of the lower Mississippi, mainly Choctaw.
Aavish, commonly called Trade Jargon, is an English creole with borrowings from a host of languages both European and Indigenous. Of all the languages of this part of Saynim, Aavish is so far the only one to appear in print.
All this, plus some cursory investigations into personal names in a few of the Indigenous languages of the region, helped me name people and things in ways that fit the setting without stressing overmuch about, say, noun declensions and subject-verb agreement. Which is good, because I’d still be writing the book if I’d stopped to do that!
The shadow falls on October 1.
Shadow of the King: Building a Protagonist (Part 3)
Morty pushed his empty bowl of stew to the side. He leaned in, all business.
“I know some folks who might can hire you,” he said. “Nothing permanent, you understand, at least not right now. But there’s always somebody from the old neighborhood who could use a hand.”
“Thank you,” Rune said.
“Don’t go thanking me,” Morty said. “I hook you up with the right people, maybe you can do a favor for me down the line.”
“Of course.” The honor game had rules, even on this side of the Mere. Give, and receive in return. Keep the favors flowing. A hasty “thank you” might imply a one-time transaction, but this Morty obviously had his eye on the long term.
“You got skills. You told me a little about that, being trained with—” He looked around. Everyone was listening to the musicians, but he lowered his voice anyway. “With them people…and all.”
“The Haw wasn’t a bad place,” Rune said, a little defensive. “Intense, but not all bad. Whisper seemed happy to have me around.”
“Whisper,” Morty said. “He’s the one that runs the joint?”
“That’s right. He said he’d always wanted to see what I had it in me to do. He’s the one who really taught me magic. Of course, my mother and stepfather started me out when I was young. But it was Whisper who pushed me to show what I could do.”
“I expect you can do quite a bit.”
“I try to be resourceful. Think on my feet. Having the biggest sword doesn’t matter much if you don’t know how to use it. And it helps to have the right people behind you.”
“Did you? Have the right people?”
“It was a good team,” Rune said. “Even if they weren’t always doing good things.”
“I aint’ here to judge,” Morty said. “Folks don’t get a say in the cards the Good Earth deals ‘em.”
Rune just nodded. He was coming to like this Morty Grindle.
“Any of ‘em you’d call friends?”
“One. Goodfellow. Avice was the team leader. She tried to make things hard for me. She succeeded in making things hard for me. But Goodfellow always took my part.”
“Most have been hard to stand up to her, being the team leader and all.”
“Goodfellow’s family was as well-placed as mine. It limited what Avice could do to him…openly. And, to give him credit, he was fierce in a fight. You didn’t want to cross him if you could help it. But being my friend cost him at least one relationship—another Nightwalker he’d taken a fancy to. I suppose I’ll always owe him for fouling that up for him.”
“D’you think you’ll ever see him again?”
“I don’t think that would be a good idea.”
“But suppose you did. What would you tell him?”
Rune stopped to think a minute. “I’d say thank you. I’d tell him… he taught me a lot—about loyalty and perseverance and…compassion, I suppose you’d say.”
“He sounds like a real friend.”
“He is,” Rune said. He swallowed. He looked down and pushed his own half-eaten bowl of stew to the side. “He was.”
Shadow of the King: Building a Protagonist (Part 2)
Rune’s contact seemed unimpressive: short and apparently uncomfortable in his ill-fitting clothing—an outfit meant for a human form, though this Morty Grindle was anything but. Some might take his heavy brow and broad back as evidence of limited intelligence, but Rune saw the glint in his eye.
The waymaker said he needed to meet this man. If he wanted to get along in this new world, he’d need contacts, and Morty Grindle had the reputation of knowing just about everybody.
“You settled in, then?” he said. He swallowed a bite of stew. On the other side of the room, a band played “Creep” by Radiohead on tin whistle and hurdy-gurdy.
Rune just shrugged.
“It takes a while,” Morty continued. “The Fallow ain’t like home, but it ain’t bad. Have you tried ice cream yet?”
“Just last week,” Rune said. “My landlord’s daughter calls it ‘comfort food.’”
“That ain’t far wrong. You got a favorite flavor?”
“So far I’ve only tried strawberry. It was quite good.” Rune took a sip of his yaupon tea, grateful that Gamaufry Tavern had at least some of the pleasures of home. “I’ve always loved strawberries. My mother kept a strawberry patch. Or I should say, the servants did, out behind the carriage house. I used to sneak away to visit them. Clervie fed me strawberries.”
“You won’t have no problem finding strawberries around here in the summer. Servants…that’s another thing.”
“I understand. Fallow folk have machines to do their work. Servants are…out of fashion, I suppose.”
“Yeah, that’s a nice way of saying it. But I could tell from looking at you you’d come from a house with servants.”
“We had three cabins full,” Rune said. “Clervie and Malunthy and their children. And then there were Dollick and Caelia who looked after the grounds and gardens. And then when Caelia was expecting their first baby, Mother brought on Quamp and Cabma to help them.”
“And you got with them all? ‘Cause I gotta warn you, folks in the Fallow will judge you if you start acting like you’re better than other people.”
Rune paused. Things had changed, and quite abruptly, when he took leave of the King of Shadows. Back home, he’d now be considered an outlaw. Clervie and the rest were now his betters, at least by Saynim’s strict code of honor.
“Just fine,” he said. “Maybe too good.”
Morty sat there, waiting for him to say more.
“I was young. I didn’t understand that the son of Herdis of the house of Claea wasn’t supposed to rub elbows with the help. Let’s just say strawberries were a rare treat.”
“A little rebel, huh?” Morty chuckled. “I hope hanging out with the help didn’t get you in no trouble.”
“Not…directly.”
“Not directly?”
Rune sighed. “Clervie and Malunthy’s youngest was about my age. Jussie. We would play together in the vineyards. Somehow Mother got it into her head that… I mean, it’s ridiculous. We were only thirteen years old.”
“She thought there might be something developing between you two?”
He nodded. “She turned her into a fawn.”
Morty’s mouth dropped open.
Rune stared at his stew. His face warmed.
“I’m sorry. You mean she just…”
“You heard what I said.” Rune took another sip of tea and collected his thoughts. “She kept her that way for a week. Her parents were beside themselves. When Mother finally turned her back, she told me I should be grateful she didn’t do worse”
Morty took a long drink of his beer. “That’s…something.”
“That’s my mother.”
Shadow of the King: Building a Protagonist
“Is this a bad time?” Zoey said.
“Not at all.” Rune took a step back and welcomed his landlord’s daughter into his mother-in-law apartment. She had a stack of linens in her arms.
“Mom thought you could use these.” She handed over the linens and pushed her spectacles up to the bridge of her nose. “Said you’d probably prefer plain white bedding to the yellow flowers. Those were my Grandma’s. We just never bothered to change ‘em out.”
“Either are fine,” Rune said. “Thank you.”
“So, I guess you’re staying here a little longer?” Her voice was bright, hopeful.
“One step at a time,” he said. “I’m seeing somebody tomorrow about a job. Someone from…back home, I suppose you’d say.” Zoey was the only living soul who knew that Rune wasn’t from here, that technically speaking he wasn’t exactly human. So far, she had adjusted to that news surprisingly well.
“A friend of yours?”
“We’ve never met, but I’m told he’s well connected. If the wind blows right, I’ll be able to pay this month’s rent. After that, who knows?”
“Well, you know you’re welcome to stay as long as you want, right?” She bit her lip. Her eyes never left his face.
“Is something wrong?”
“Huh? No.” Zoey’s face warmed. “It’s just…funny how the wind seems to blow through your hair. I mean. Here. Inside, where there isn’t any wind.”
“I hadn’t noticed.” He pulled his ponytail tighter through the leather barette that held his hair in place. “Please thank your mother for the bedding.”
“Sure thing.” She didn’t turn to go. “Are you…okay, then? Anything else you need?”
Rune sighed. He was on the run, low on supplies, and in possession of stolen property that could get him killed. He still had a half-healed stab wound in his side and a phantom pressure on his throat from where his cloak had tried to kill him. What didn’t he need? “I’ll be fine.”
“Is there anything you miss? Something to make this place a little more like home?”
He clenched his jaw. “I don’t suppose you could do anything about the stars?”
“The stars?”
“Back home, the night sky was filled with them. Thousands of them. Here, you can only see a few dozen.”
“I see.”
Rune wasn’t sure she did. “The stars… It’s hard to explain. They’re constant. Ancient. Inscrutable.”
“It sounds like you’re talking about living things.”
“Maybe I am. They’re connected to everything else in the universe, products of the same elemental forces that surge within all of us. They may not possess life or intelligence, but they reflect it.”
“I never thought of it like that.”
“It may be something your people lack,” Rune said. He noted Zoey’s frown and continued, “No offense. Maybe it’s because you don’t have magic, but you don’t seem to be aware of all the life and energy around you. Do you even know what phase the moon is in tonight?”
“Uh…”
“In Saynim, everybody knows. It’s the little things. We feel the pulse of elemental chaos. Maybe that makes us more attentive. When I look up at the stars, the moon, it reminds me that I’m part of something bigger than myself.”
He lay the bedding on the arm of the sofa in his small sitting room. “I’m sorry. I should have offered you a seat. Would you like something to drink? I have…water.”
“It’s okay.” Zoey took a seat on the sofa.
“I’m not a fit host, I’m afraid. Back home, we had servants to…” He trailed off when he saw Zoey’s confused and suddenly withdrawn expression. “Well, anyway…” He found a plastic tumbler in the cabinet of his tiny kitchen, dropped in a couple of ice cubes from the refrigerator, and poured it full from the tap in the sink.
“Thanks,” Zoey said when he offered her the drink. She took a sip. Rune sat down on the other end of the sofa.
“Rune? What do you see when you look at the night sky?”
He thought for a second. “Beauty,” he said. To his own surprise, his voice cracked a little. “Stillness. Rest.”
“Seems like your life hasn’t had much stillness or rest lately.”
He sighed. “And that’s why I miss the stars.”
* * *
The shadow falls October 1.
Darrell J. Pursiful 