Star Spun Souls

This post is part of a series to augment the Codex of the Known World available for free download. The best and latest worldbuilding resources are gathered here at www.DNFrost.com/codex . Find more content navigation in my Resource Directory . Check out these TotKW worldbuilding categories: For the prophetic portents from the saga, see www.DNFrost.com/prophesy . And for the books of the Known World, see www.DNFrost.com/books . A Note on Unpassed Prophesy: NEW POST! The elusive merfolk publish their prophetic verses into books of epic poetry, known as story books. While these portents are certainly riddles, they do by nature contain spoilers. You have been warned. Read more of this post here... ...

This post is Part 1 of a series to augment the Chronicles of Mother's Gate available for free download. This and other published stories are gathered in my Books Directory for you to explore. Find more exclusive content in my Exclusive Directory . Scribe Ascribed Prologue of Set 1 The story of Farwen the Apprentice in the prologue of the Chronicles of Mother's Gate Download the free prologue Scribe Ascribed : This short story is the prologue of the Chronicles of Mother's Gate series, the first set of books in the Tales of the Known World saga, and it can be read at any point in the series. It's a great little introduction to the saga, a bonus story set apart from the full-length narrative. Scribe Ascribed  follows the story of Farwe...

Download the free sample! First Bookend: Scribe Ascribed & Tribe Untied Prologues of the First Chronicles & Book I The stories of Farwen the Apprentice in the Prologue of Mother's Gate & the Prologue of Awakening This two-part novella contains both the prologue to the Chronicles of Mother's Gate series and the prologue to the first book of that series. It is the first bookend of the Tales of the Known World saga, and can be read at any point in the series. It's a great little introduction to the saga, a quick bonus story set apart from the full-length narrative. It recounts the story of Farwen the apprentice, who scribes his old master's memoirs, and the story of Darek the shifter, whose family suffers persecution for his magical gifts. ...

This post is part of a series to augment the Codex of the Known World available for free download. This and other mapping resources are gathered in my  Cartography Directory  for you to explore. Find more website tag definitions in my Index Directory . Cartography is the science and process of creating maps. The two-dimensional representation of a three-dimensional world is a science as well as an art. There are cartography schools to train professional map-makers, and there's a lot of survey equipment and math involved in drawing a real-world map. I must confess, I know little of the science of surveying in the real world. While I apply topographical principles to my own maps, fictional map-making is an entirely different beast than the real-life surveying and mapping of geography. So while I use the word cartography to refer to my own map-making, please keep in mind that my own cartography i...

This post is part of a series to augment The Worldbuilder's Handbook available for free download. This and other world workshops are gathered in my Worldbuilding Directory for you to explore. Find more map-making content in my Cartography Directory . Hello, there! Thanks for your interest in my mapping techniques. My name is D.N.Frost, and I'm a fictional cartographer, fantasy author, and world-builder. I began creating digital fantasy maps for my Tales of the Known World saga, and after making over twenty maps for my first book, I started offering map commissions to fellow storytellers. How exactly do I map a fictional world? Through tutorials on YouTube, hours of experimentation, detailed notes, and a lot of trial and error, I taught myself how to use Photoshop to create professional fantasy maps. To help you make your own publish-ready maps, please enjoy this collection of short mapping i...

This post is Part 3 of a series to augment the Codex of the Known World available for free download. Start with Part 1 here . This and other mapping resources are gathered in my Cartography Directory for you to explore. Find more maps and atlas content in my Map Directory . In Part 1 of this series , I began planning the 19 maps for my first book. I wanted my maps to look authentic, so for every Photoshop technique I employed, I envisioned how an old-world cartographer would produce the same visual result. This guidance helped me keep my style on point, and the idea of this old-world cartographer took on a life of its own. As I used Photoshop to fade the lines and colors behind text labels, I considered how an old-world cartographer would have had to plan the whole map ahead of time, reserving space for each label before even inking the map's coastlines. I contemplated more old-world analogues for my Phot...

This post is part of a series to augment the Codex of the Known World available for free download. The best and latest cartography resources are gathered here at www.DNFrost.com/cartography . Find more worldbuilding content in my Codex Directory . Also check out the maps for the TotKW Saga at www.DNFrost.com/maps . What is Cartography? On this website, the cartography tag refers to ideas about making maps, especially regarding fictional maps. The cartography resource series focuses on my Known World, and the cartography workshop series focuses on your own world. Read more about this tag here... Codex of the Known World: a free download Immerse yourself in the Known World with this collection of notes and resources. You'll learn about the world's cultures and prophesy, plu...