My New Project: Outsiders of Xykesh

Series logo by Jon Adrian Alafriz

Let me start by saying I am immensely proud of my novels. I know only one of them is out at time of writing, but I’ve written two and half of them now, so I’m going to refer to them in plural because I promised myself I would stop minimalizing my own creative output. Anyway, I’m proud of the Glintchasers books. I think they speak to a part of me and a phase of life that I really wanted to explore.

But I’d be lying if I said they’re the only kind of story I wanted to tell, or that they scratched every creative itch I have.

More and more, I’ve been feeling drawn to long form, serialized storytelling. To stories about falling in love, becoming more powerful, and growing into adulthood. And I want to do all that. I want to make a story that is that.

So, here’s the pitch:

In the center of Asher’s most treacherous waters lies the island nation of Xykesh. Hundreds of years ago, the tyrant Digax fled to it as a refuge after his defeat. Since then, his power has shrouded it in storms and wards which let few people in, and none out. Nearly the whole of the island is now his domain, and what is left is wilderness full of monsters. Though the Mad King himself is a distant figure, his Chosen rule with unquestioned power over their subjects.

But their hold is not absolute. On the day Digax claimed Xykesh as his, a blind prophet foretold that an outsider from beyond the island’s shores would come, and they would end his reign. And so the King has dreaded their arrival ever since.

Many outsiders have arrived on Xykesh, either by accident, or in search of the truth behind the mysteries and myths that have sprung up around the island. The populace has been long conditioned to distrust these new arrivals, but so far, none have proven to be the ones the prophet spoke of.

At least, just maybe, until now.

And if that’s all you needed, here’s your link to the page with all the currently available episodes.

If you’d like a little more insight to my thoughts on the project, stick around, and let me ramble about this idea that’s been kicking around in the back of my head for, if I’m being honest, years now.

Ethos and Intent

Cards on the table: there are a lot of tropes that I am an absolute sucker for, and I really enjoying shipping fictional characters. I’m going to be putting a lot of that into this. My aim for this is to be a fun romp of adventure and romance that will, hopefully, occasionally punch your heart in the balls.

It’s still me writing it. I still aim for my fiction to have lean prose and minimal explanations of the world. I still want my dialogue to sound like actual people. But I’m gonna be having more fun with this one. It’s gonna get weird in places, it’s gonna get slapstick in places, and there’s going to be way more 18-20-somethings pining after each other and generally being 18-20-somethings.

I do still write every story like it’s a superhero story. So violence will be the solution to a lot of the character’s problems, people are going to be doing that violence to each other with lots of cool weapons and unique powersets, and getting a new costume or power will be treated as shorthand for character development.

This does take place in the same universe as the Glintchasers books. But it’s a big world, and Xykesh in particular is in a bit of bubble, story wise. So do not expect any canonical character crossover. I might do a non-canon what-if episode on like, April Fool’s Day or something.

Inspiration and Adaptation

When They Met in a Tavern came out, I had a lot of people ask me if the story or characters were based on a tabletop game I played in. And the answer to that was “No, it was a story I realized I couldn’t tell in tabletop, so I turned it into a book.” Outsiders is different. Outsiders is based on a campaign I played in. And I’m excited for that, but if you heard “based on a tabletop campaign,” and immediately got a feeling of dread, let me reassure you this is not a 1:1 translation of stuff that happened in that campaign.

That campaign had some great ideas that inspire me, but it was—by design—meandering, explorative, constrained by being a game, and largely pulled out of mine and my friends’ collective ass. It would make for a terrible read. What I’m doing is taking the best ideas from that campaign, and turning it into a serialized story with a beginning, middle, and end. Think the difference between Critical Role’s first campaign and The Legend of Vox Machina. Except I made a bunch more changes.

Structure and Release Format

The story of the Outsiders is going to be told within a structure of seasons, episodes, and parts. Four parts per episode, twenty-six episodes for the first season. I can’t tell you how many seasons exactly it’ll take me to get where I’m going—I’m going to throw out a complete guess and say five?—but I can tell you that this story has an ending, I do know what it is, and it is being written with that in mind.

New parts released Tuesdays and Fridays to start, subject to faster speeds if this actually catches on. I’m not going to charge full steam ahead on daily updates of screaming into the void when I also have novels to write and a day job to work, but if it’s for an actual audience, I’m prepared to kill myself enough to do an episode a week.

For the sake of exposure, I will be posting this story to other sites (Royal Road, Inkitt, Wattpad). Literally, as many as I can get away with. But my own personal website will remain at least one episode ahead of other websites.