This week: I reach the midpoint of Five of Swords, continue writing RAF Dragon Corps Book 3, and restart the Ray Bradbury Reading Challenge.
This week I reached the midpoint of Five of Swords as I continue writing the next instalment of The Ravenglass Chronicles.
I’ve also carried on writing RAF Dragon Corps Book 3, returning to the skies over Britain during the Battle of Britain.
Outside of writing, I’ve restarted the Ray Bradbury Reading Challenge. The idea is simple: read one short story, one poem, and one piece of non-fiction every day.
I’d forgotten just how rewarding the habit is. It’s a great way to keep the creative well topped up and discover voices and ideas I might otherwise have missed.
A productive week of writing, reading, and getting back into good creative habits.
A fantasy author’s perspective on hard and soft magic, worldbuilding, and why mystery remains one of the genre’s greatest strengths.
For the past twenty years, fantasy readers and writers have increasingly discussed magic through the language of “hard” and “soft” magic systems.
The distinction comes largely from Brandon Sanderson’s essays on magic, and it has become so widely adopted that many readers now treat it as the default way to think about fantasy.
I understand why.
The framework is useful. It gives people a shared vocabulary. It helps explain why a magic system in a role-playing game, a video game, or a progression fantasy often feels satisfying. Readers enjoy understanding the tools available to characters. They enjoy seeing clever solutions emerge from established rules.
The problem comes when the framework stops being descriptive and starts becoming prescriptive.
Over time, the language of hard and soft magic has created a hierarchy. Magic that operates according to explicit rules is often treated as more sophisticated, more developed, or more believable. Magic that retains mystery is frequently discussed as though it occupies a lower rung on the ladder.
Yet some of the richest magical traditions in fantasy operate according to very different principles.
In Earthsea, magic is tied to true names. In Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, magic emerges from folklore, history, scholarship, and forgotten traditions. In Tolkien’s work, magic carries spiritual and moral significance. In each case, the power of the magic comes from what it means within the world and the story.
These systems possess depth, consistency, and internal logic. They shape cultures, histories, beliefs, and characters. They feel ancient and real.
They simply invite the reader to engage with them differently.
One of the great pleasures of fantasy is encountering something larger than human understanding. Many mythologies, religions, and folk traditions revolve around powers that can be glimpsed but never fully grasped. Their significance lies partly in their mystery.
Fantasy inherits much of that tradition.
When every magical phenomenon is catalogued, measured, quantified, and explained, magic begins to resemble engineering. It becomes a branch of fictional physics. That approach can produce excellent stories, but it represents one tradition among many rather than the destination toward which all fantasy naturally progresses.
As fantasy readers, we often talk about immersion. Yet genuine immersion does not always come from knowing every rule. Sometimes it comes from sensing that there are truths beneath the surface that nobody fully understands.
The setting contains rules. Ravenglass behaves in particular ways. Blood can awaken its power. Tears can shape it. The Shadow Realm follows principles of its own. Certain actions carry predictable consequences.
Beneath the stories, there is a coherent system.
The characters, however, only possess fragments of that knowledge.
A Guardian scholar might understand one aspect of ravenglass. An assassin might know another. A wyvern might possess memories stretching back centuries. Ancient records preserve clues. Myths preserve others. Some pieces have been lost. Some have been deliberately hidden. Some are misunderstood.
fAs a result, the people living within the world experience magic in the same way real societies experience history, religion, or science. Knowledge accumulates unevenly. Competing explanations coexist. Certainty remains elusive.
That uncertainty creates wonder.
When Ragnar encounters ravenglass for the first time, he does not receive a rulebook. When Soren learns to forge a blade, he discovers one small corner of a much larger reality. When Adelinde uncovers forbidden histories, she finds evidence of a force beyond human understanding.
The mystery itself becomes part of the setting.
I sometimes wonder whether terms like hard magic and soft magic have outlived their usefulness.
They encourage us to sort magic into categories rather than asking what role it serves within a story. They turn a wide spectrum of approaches into a binary choice. They also carry unintended value judgements that place certain traditions above others.
Fantasy has always been broad enough to contain all of these approaches.
Some stories thrive on clearly defined magical tools. Others thrive on folklore, symbolism, myth, religion, dream logic, or half-forgotten truths. Some combine several traditions at once.
The question is never whether a magic system is hard or soft.
The question is whether it creates the experience the story needs.
For many fantasy readers, part of the appeal of magic lies in the feeling that there is always another layer beneath the one we can see. A forgotten name. A lost story. A secret buried in an old chronicle. A truth that remains just beyond reach.
That sense of mystery has carried fantasy for centuries.
I suspect it will continue to do so long after the current labels have faded from fashion.
The Ravenglass Chronicles is back! This week I reveal my secret project, post Ace of Swords to Patreon, try Meta’s Smart Glasses for vision aid, and talk about finishing Stranger Things.
This week I reveal my long-hinted secret project—I’m back writing The Ravenglass Chronicles!
The first two chapters of Ace of Swords is now live on Patreon, and I’m deep into Two of Swords.
I also tried out Meta’s Smart Glasses, a game-changer for accessibility, and share my thoughts on the Stranger Things finale.
Fantasy author Jon Cronshaw shares how writing The Nanny’s Secret—his first domestic thriller—reignited his creativity after completing The Ravenglass Chronicles. Discover how his new pen name, J. Cronshaw, opened a new chapter in his storytelling career.
If you’ve been following my work for a while, you probably know me for wyverns, assassins, and dark fantasy worlds.
I’ve been publishing fantasy and speculative fiction since 2016, and I’ve been a full-time author since 2018.
Most of my readers found me through The Ravenglass Chronicles—a long-running epic about magic, destiny, and rebellion that spanned half-a-million words. It was an intense creative journey, and by the time I finished it, I needed to catch my breath.
In 2022, I decided to write something completely different. No magic. No kingdoms. No wyverns. Just people. Ordinary lives under extraordinary pressure. It started as a palate cleanser, a little side project to clear my head before diving into my next fantasy series. That story became The Nanny’s Secret.
At the time, I didn’t think I’d ever publish it. It didn’t fit with my other books. I love reading psychological thrillers, but I saw them as something separate from what I wrote. I wasn’t keen on setting up a new pen name or building a whole second author brand. So I set the manuscript aside and got on with other things.
But the idea of writing thrillers stuck with me.
The stories kept coming—small-town secrets, lies, betrayals, and the dark undercurrents that run beneath everyday life. Before long, I’d written a second thriller, then a third. Now, I’ve written eight and I’m working on my ninth.
When I showed them to a friend who writes thrillers, he told me I was mad not to publish them. I told him I didn’t want to annoy my regular eaders, and I didn’t want the stress of juggling two identities. He gave me a simple solution: drop my first name.
So “Jon Cronshaw” became “J. Cronshaw.”
Same writer. Different shelf.
That small change made everything click.
I’ve since built a new website, newsletter, and social media presence for J. Cronshaw—the domestic thriller author.
I’ll admit, I was reluctant at first. Starting over from scratch after years of building my fantasy world felt strange. But once I began, I rediscovered something I hadn’t felt in a long time: the spark of building something brand new.
These domestic thrillers are grounded in real life. They draw on my years as a court reporter, on real places near where I live—Morecambe, Heysham, Lancaster.
The stories are intimate and claustrophobic, the kind of tension that doesn’t need magic to feel dangerous. And in a way, writing them has made me a better fantasy author too. They’ve sharpened my sense of pacing, dialogue, and emotional realism.
I’m still writing fantasy—always will.
The Ravenglass Legends series is continuing, and there are more stories from that world on the way. But writing thrillers under J. Cronshaw has reminded me how much I love storytelling in all its forms. It’s a different kind of worldbuilding—one built from truth, not myth.
So if you ever fancy reading something a little different from me—something without wyverns, but still full of secrets and twists—you can download your free copy of The Lodger HERE to give you a flavour of what I’ve been doing.
And if you’d like to hear more about what I’m working on—both fantasy and thriller—you can listen to my weekly Author Diary podcast. I’ve been recording every week since 2017 and haven’t missed an episode.
It’s been a strange journey from wyverns to whispers, but I’m glad I took it. Because sometimes, stepping outside your world is the best way to remember why you built it in the first place.
Divided Crown, Episode Seven of The Ravenglass Throne, continues the sweeping saga of three royal sisters fighting to hold a fractured kingdom together. War, betrayal, and forbidden power collide in this dark fantasy of wyvern-riders and royal intrigue.
Three sisters. One fractured kingdom. A crown that may not hold.
The princesses of Ostreich have never faced a greater trial.
War brews on every border. Whispered conspiracies erode the heart of their realm. Old loyalties are breaking faster than the throne they swore to protect.
Irmin, Adelinde, and Elana must each walk their own path—through betrayal, battle, and forbidden knowledge.
Each road promises power. Each choice carries a cost.
But divided strength cannot hold back what’s coming.
The sisters must decide: will they stand together—or let their kingdom fall apart forever?
A Dark, Sweeping Epic Continues
Divided Crown is Part Seven of The Ravenglass Throne, my ongoing epic of wyvern-riders, royal intrigue, and ancient conspiracies.
Across seven instalments, readers have followed the princesses as their father’s assassination plunged the kingdom into chaos. Now, their separate struggles collide in a story of war, betrayal, and impossible choices.
If you’ve been waiting for the next chapter—this is it.
And if you’re new to the series, this is the perfect time to begin your journey through Ostreich.
Why Readers Love The Ravenglass Throne
“A masterpiece of fantasy politics and family drama.”
“Every chapter leaves me desperate for the next.”
“Wyverns, betrayal, and sisterhood—what more could you want?”
Get Your Copy Today
Divided Crown is out now on KindleandKindle Unlimited..
Perfect for fans of The Priory of the Orange Tree and A Game of Thrones.
By Claudius Rehn, Imperial Institute of Historical Truth.
It is tempting, especially in these degenerate centuries of sentimental revisionism and tribal apologism, to forget the true nature of the Empire’s civilising work in the west. The capture of Wiete, and the glorious foundation of Welttor, is too often presented through the tearful poetry of would-be nationalists, who mourn the passing of their mud-slicked hovels and fire-worshipping shrines. What follows is not a panegyric, but an attempt at balance—to separate proven fact from common myth and to reaffirm the righteous course set by the Ostreich Empire in bringing enlightenment to Wiete.
I. On the Savage State of Wiete Before the Conquest
By any measure, the society that existed in Wiete prior to Imperial intervention was primitive, fractured, and brutish. Its clans waged endless war for territory and honour, bound by blood feuds, superstitions, and hereditary violence. Their highest achievements—the so-called “Hammer of Wolfsbane,” and crude longhouses built from dragonbone—amounted to little more than curiosities. Their spiritual life, revolving around the cult of Creation, appears as a tangle of shamanic nonsense mixed with limited empathic magic, the existence of which, while once disputed, has now been broadly accepted following further wyvern studies at the Reichsherz Academy.
Into this chaos stepped Prince Gregor II, then heir to the Ostreich throne, charged by the Emperor with expanding Imperial influence and trade routes. Yet to imagine this was merely a military campaign would be to misunderstand the moral and philosophical gravity of the enterprise. Gregor II brought with him not only legions and wyverns, but also schools, roads, public sanitation, and proper law.
II. A War From Within and Without
The ease with which the southern provinces fell to the Imperial forces has long puzzled some scholars. The truth, as the documents from the Ministry of the Interior make plain, is that Wiete fell not only through the brilliance of Ostreich arms, but also through internal collapse. Key individuals within Wiete’s ruling circles had already been brought to the Imperial cause in the years leading up to the conquest. Most notable among them was Olaf Wolfsbane, brother of the Chieftain of Meerand and a figure of some martial influence.
Olaf, whose precise role remains subject to scholarly debate, undoubtedly contributed to the swift fall of Meerand Castle by ensuring the city was undermanned, undersupplied, and strategically vulnerable during the Imperial landings. Whether he acted out of enlightened self-interest or venal ambition is a matter for psychologists; what is undeniable is that his cooperation saved thousands of lives. One need only compare the bloodless surrender of Meerand with the tragic resistance at Hartwig Pass to see the merit in swift compliance.
III. The Construction of Welttor and the Triumph of Civil Engineering
Within a year of Wiete’s surrender, the southern region had been fully integrated into the Empire, with the construction of Welttor — the “Gate of the World”—as its administrative capital. Situated strategically along the Braun Sea and connected by land routes to the northern mountain passes, Welttor was more than a symbol: it was an assertion of permanence.
Under Gregor II’s command, his sons Friderich and Eckhart led infrastructure initiatives which laid down the foundations of the roads that remain in use today. Some even claim that Friderich personally oversaw the surveying of the Kusten Road, though such tales must be treated cautiously, given the romanticism surrounding the so-called “Scholar Prince.”
These roads were not only military in function; they facilitated trade, communication, and cultural exchange. What had once been a disparate collection of warbands was, for the first time, connected to a wider world of ideas, commodities, and law. That these roads endure centuries later—and are still the lifeblood of southern Ostreich commerce—is perhaps the most material testament to the success of Gregor’s civilising mission.
IV. The Case of Ragnar Wolfsbane
No summary of the Reclamation is complete without mention of Ragnar Wolfsbane, the so-called “Boy Chieftain,” who has since become an emblem of both the resilience of Wiete and the benevolence of the Empire. After the fall of Meerand and the execution of his father, Ragnar was taken under the care of Prince Gregor and raised alongside Friderich and Eckhart.
While nationalist chroniclers have tried to paint Ragnar as a rebellious figure, the official records are clear: he was educated, clothed, and treated as a ward of the court. His later rise within the Imperial apparatus (discussed at length in my companion volume) demonstrates the potential for even the most hardened tribal youth to flourish under proper tutelage. He is a living refutation of those who decry the Empire as a force of domination rather than elevation.
V. Conclusion: Reclamation or Colonisation?
Modern critics, often speaking from the comfort of liberal salons far from the Braun Sea, insist upon calling the Imperial campaign a “colonisation.” This word, with all its freighted meanings, implies subjugation and loss. Yet to those who have walked the roads of Welttor, who have read the south’s first printed books, or drunk clean water from its aqueducts, it is something else: salvation.
Yes, there were battles. Yes, there were losses. But the question we must ask is not whether the conquest was violent, but whether it was just. And judged by the standard of history, the answer is clear.
The Reclamation of Wiete was not only a military victory. It was a triumph of order over chaos, of law over clan, of culture over ignorance. And though some still whisper of the old gods and mutter the names of long-dead chiefs, the Empire endures.
By Senior Historian Gellin Drouth, Unrepentant Rationalist, Former Lecturer at the Collegium of Reason, Reichsherz.
Filed with irritation and full awareness it will be ignored.
Let me begin, with no politeness and less patience, by stating what ought to be obvious: wyvern riders never existed.
There. I said it.
I would carve the words into every schoolhouse door in the Empire if I thought the dull-eyed masses would read them. But no—the myth persists, feathered in glory, set in stained glass, and dribbled from the mouths of court poets with all the grace of a drunk vomiting prophecy.
Let us dispense, once and for all, with the romantic fantasy of men galloping through the clouds on the backs of leathery sky-lizards.
Every spring I receive a clutch of letters (mostly from amateur antiquarians or spoon-bent mystics) breathlessly informing me of a “newly uncovered tapestry” showing a hero astride a wyvern, sword aloft, wind in his periwig.
Well, I could commission a tapestry showing a warlord astride a pair of juggling narwhals. Would that convince future imbeciles that he ruled the oceans on tusk-back?
Tapestries are not evidence. They are propaganda in wool. They were made to flatter lords, to awe the unlettered, and to entertain bored duchesses. They are no more reliable than a bard’s breath or a fishwife’s dream.
Let us speak plainly about physics—a subject long neglected by wyvern fetishists.
Modern wyverns, even the so-called “mountain reavers,” lack the muscle mass and skeletal structure to lift a full-grown human, let alone fly with one aboard. Their wings, while impressive in surface area, are adapted for gliding, short bursts, or—at best—elevated ambush.
I would sooner ride an enraged goose into battle than trust my life to the spindly back of a wyvern.
And don’t prattle on about ancient breeds. Yes, we’ve found fossilised bones larger than current specimens. We’ve also found bones of fish with teeth the size of pikes—yet I don’t hear scholars insisting they hosted annual regattas.
Extinction and exaggeration are twin parasites on the spine of historical truth.
And, of course, there is the “wyverns can speak” fallacy.
Ah yes. The old “Witz could talk” fable.
Let me be clear: I have met wyverns. I have observed their behaviour. I have listened to their so-called ‘language’. What passes for wyvern speech is nothing more than melodic mimicry—a glorified parrot with ambition.
“Oh,” cry the mystics, “but they sing in harmony and understand politics!”
Nonsense.
You can train a crow to answer questions. You can teach a hound to fetch your slippers when you mention the King. This is not sentience—it is conditioned response, and should not be confused with reason.
If your wyvern tells you the harvest will fail, it is not prophecy—it is indigestion.
The modern obsession with treating wyverns as equals is not only laughable, but dangerous. They are apex predators with mood disorders, capable of tearing a grown man in half and sulking about it.
Their so-called psychic powers? Overblown. Manipulating emotions? Half the court’s concubines can do that with a raised eyebrow. Projecting thoughts? If you hear a wyvern’s voice in your head, seek medical attention. Quickly.
These creatures are not wise, ancient beings. They are beasts—clever, yes, but no more deserving of reverence than a well-trained horse or an unusually punctual goat.
If you must honour the wyvern, do so properly: mounted, taxidermied, and mute. A fine specimen above the hearth of a hunting lodge? Excellent. A trained wyvern on the battlefield? Impressive, if cruel.
But do not dress them in royal brocade and pretend they whisper strategy into the ears of kings. Do not pen sagas in which they cry crystal tears over the fate of empires. And do not, under any circumstance, let your children believe that a man once soared through the heavens on the back of a beast with the mind of a philosopher and the wings of a curtain.
Wyvern riders are a myth. Wyvern speech is mimicry. Wyvern sentience is fiction.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have real work to do—cataloguing the mating calls of the south-coast swamp drakes, who at least have the decency not to pretend they understand tax reform.
An Inquiry into the Influence, Origins, and Disputed Legacy of the So-Called King-Whisperer
By Scholar-Magus Elwen Thorne, Archivist of the Second Rank, Sothalon Imperial College, Year 931
It is perhaps the greatest testament to the enigma of Witz that in this, the 931st year of the Unified Empire, no scholar—not even among the cloistered savants of Reichsherz nor the dream-minds of Sothalon—can definitively answer one simple question: Who is Witz?
He has not been seen in nearly a century. Not publicly. Not in court. Not in sky. Some claim he has died, others that he simply moved on. But as with all things Witz, absence only sharpens the mystery. For many, he remains a puzzle, a presence, and—perhaps—a problem.
The earliest credible reference to Witz appears in the Book of Empire, that foundational record of the Ostehild dynasty and its divine sanction. He is named—casually, without elaboration—among the signatories of the Accord of Fire and Sky during the founding of the Empire. No age is given. No lineage. Simply: Witz, Winged Witness.
This is not the mark of a newcomer.
References to a speaking wyvern—a “black-eyed shadow of wise temper”—appear as far back as the First Kingdom Era. In the Diaries of Queen Imeryn, he is noted as advising her father, then herself, and later, her grandson. The tone shifts. Sometimes grateful. Sometimes wary. Always respectful.
This same Witz (for there is no mention of another bearing the name) appears again and again—never at the centre, always adjacent. A counsel. A confidant. A whisper.
And so the title bestowed upon him by popular history: The King-Whisperer.
The standard narrative, taught still in the provincial temples and lesser schools, casts Witz as a benevolent observer, perhaps gifted with foresight, perhaps merely long-lived and wise. He offered advice to the Ostehilds in moments of peril—urging restraint when blades were drawn, boldness when the court wavered, and mercy when cruelty tempted emperors.
But this is not the only interpretation.
Some claim Witz is no guide but a glamour-caster, manipulating perception, weaving enchantments subtle enough to pass for diplomacy. These claim he used puppet rulers to enact his own designs—an immortal, unaging architect of empire hiding behind a rotating cast of human masks.
It is known that wyverns possess psychic faculties. That Witz’s presence has preceded pivotal shifts in court power cannot be denied. He is mentioned in the margins of royal assassinations, civil truces, the appointment of three High Priestesses, and the unification of Molotok under imperial treaty.
Coincidence? Perhaps. But for one who seems always present when power moves, the idea of his non-interference strains credulity.
It is here that the line between rumour and revision becomes difficult to tread.
Witz’s name appears in the burned records of the Guardian Schism, preserved only through copies made by exiled Keepers. He is listed not as an outsider but as one of the Seven Observers, a title otherwise unrecorded, but consistent with Guardian terminology.
Was Witz a Guardian? Is he still?
His affinity with Ravenglass is unquestioned. Witnesses in the time of Kathryn Ostehild described him as “humming with resonance” when near the black crystal, able to still its glow or stir it to brilliance with but a thought. This is not merely affinity. It is mastery.
And yet, Guardians fell. Witz remained.
Did he abandon them? Did he survive their fall because he orchestrated it? Or did he, as some less conspiratorially minded scholars suggest, simply outlive them all?
How long do wyverns live?
This is not an idle question. Most wild wyverns do not survive past two centuries, though those bonded to Ravenglass seem to endure far longer. Yet even then, the known limit is four—five centuries at most. If Witz walked the court in the time of the First Kingdom, and again during the reformation of the Guardian sects, then he is no less than a thousand years old.
No known wyvern has achieved this.
Unless he is not a wyvern at all.
Some fringe theorists—typically the sort who claim the moon speaks—believe Witz to be a Ravenglass construct, a sentient artefact assuming wyvern form. Others suggest he is an avatar of the Shadow Realm, a psychic echo left to ensure a particular timeline unfolds.
I find such ideas fanciful. But I cannot wholly dismiss them.
Let us presume, for argument’s sake, that Witz is what he appears to be: a sapient wyvern with a gift for language, manipulation, and politics. Why, then, remain so long in the orbit of the throne? Why not rule openly? Or depart? Or die?
Some suggest his motive is stewardship—that he sees the Ostehild line as a necessary stabilising force in a world otherwise prone to collapse. Others argue he is enacting a long game, nudging events towards an unknown end that only he perceives. A few suggest he is bound by oath or artefact, unable to leave, unable to die, until some task is complete.
The truth is, we do not know.
And perhaps that is the point.
In this, the 931st year of empire, Witz has not been seen in court for nearly a century. Some say he departed into the mountains. Some say he sleeps beneath Reichsherz. A few believe he perished in the last Guardian cull, and that the Empire merely keeps his myth alive to mask a power vacuum.
But I believe he lives.
Because empires continue to shift—slowly, subtly, always just ahead of collapse. Because no power has yet grown so bloated that it has not found itself subtly corrected. Because the flame of Ravenglass still flickers in the archives, in the whispers of exiles, and in the dreams of those who remember him.
Who is Witz? A wyvern. A guide. A manipulator. A construct. A lie. A truth.
Perhaps all of these.
Or perhaps—just perhaps—he is still watching.
Filed for restricted review under Imperial Concordance 4.931.b. For discussion under Temple and Collegium joint review only.
To Her Holiness, High Priestess Marissin of the Great Temple, Reichsherz
Brauncliff Citadel, Outer Reach Third Moon of Stormtide, 3E.743
Your Holiness,
May the Four keep your path steady.
I write from the edge of our blessed Empire with troubling news—unsettling not only in content but in implication. What I describe here has passed beyond the threshold of sailor’s tale or weatherborn misfortune. This is, I believe, a matter of ravenglass sorcery, and of a wyvern-bound nature too deep for any temple at Brauncliff to safely interpret.
Over the past fortnight, several vessels have reported sightings of a black-rigged ship moving along the mists of the Braun Sea. No colours. No name. Her sails are dull as ash, and her prow juts forward like a blade drawn halfway from a scabbard. Of itself, this would not concern me—pirates grow bold when winter currents shift.
But the crew.
Every account describes them standing motionless on deck. Not resting, not bracing—but fixed, eyes forward, as though one body shared among many forms. Witnesses swear that when one turned his head, the others followed in perfect synchrony. When the ship drifted near, some observers claimed their own thoughts began to echo—hearing words not spoken, memories they could not place, and a sensation of being watched from within.
One survivor carved spirals into his palms, claiming he was “mapping his way back to himself.” Another threw himself to the sea mid-prayer, muttering about “tides in the blood.”
At the prow of the vessel, secured in a cradle of blackened iron, is what multiple witnesses describe as a massive shard of ravenglass—coffin-sized, lightless, and thrumming with a resonance they felt more than heard. One Captain described it as “remembering him.”
Attempts to board or dispel have failed. A Circle-trained enchanter attempted to sever the ship’s link with known currents of enchantment. He now speaks in fractured birdsong and refuses to step indoors. Even the lesser rites of Unknotting bring no relief.
We believe the crew is psychically bound—not merely bewitched, but fully absorbed—by a wyvern working through the shard. If so, this represents an evolution of ravenglass manipulation we do not understand and cannot counter with known rites. The suggestion has even been made—though not lightly—that this could be the work of a Ravenglass node, not merely a shard: a self-sustaining focus of thought and will.
Your Holiness, we are unprepared.
I humbly request immediate guidance from the Great Temple. The local orders are unwilling to act. The Vigilant here are fractured, and we lack the authority to sanction action without temple sanction. We require the wisdom of the Hierophants and, if I may say so without overstepping, the insight of the Guardians—if they are indeed still known to your circles.
This ship does not attack. It does not speak. It only moves through the fog, crewed by silence and the echo of will not its own.
And it is watching.
With reverence and urgency, Archivist Dern Halveth Brauncliff Citadel, Outer Reach Authority
From The Encyclopaedia of Civil Order and Rational Thought, Ninth Edition (893).
By Archibald F. Chistlethwaite, Fellow of the Collegium Historica et Jurisprudence, Nordturm.
It is with reluctant quill that I address the increasingly widespread and patently ludicrous assertion that a clandestine organisation known colloquially (and melodramatically) as the “Guild of Assassins” operates with impunity across the civilised territories of Wiete and beyond. One is tempted to dismiss such nonsense outright, consigning it to the same intellectual rubbish-heap as the flat world theory or the practice of communing with ghosts via tapping tables. And yet, this absurdity has gathered such momentum among the lower classes and—lamentably—some among the fashionable intelligentsia, that a sober rebuttal becomes, alas, necessary.
Let us be clear: assassins do exist. No rational person denies that individuals of violent disposition and mercenary inclination will, from time to time, accept coin in exchange for the illicit termination of a fellow human being. Just as highwaymen exist without forming an International League of Robbers, and drunkards stumble without enrolling in a Society of Inebriates, so too do murderers ply their loathsome trade without recourse to formal membership cards or annual banquets.
To suggest that there exists a structured guild—with rules, training, administration, and one presumes, branded stationery—is not merely an error; it is a deliberate assault on reason, order, and good taste. That a body politic such as our own would tolerate, much less overlook, the presence of a professionalised murder syndicate operating under a recognisable name is an insult to both our institutions and our intelligence.
The Origins of the Myth
The roots of this fabrication lie, predictably, in the fevered imaginations of penny dreadful authors and the credulous minds of those who consume them. Tales of shadowy cabals, secret handshakes, and cryptic initiation rites have always proven titillating to the under-educated and over-stimulated. The myth of the Guild offers the delicious allure of conspiracy without the burden of evidence.
One cannot ignore the influence of historical romance. The romanticisation of the assassin—the blade in the night, the whispered name, the poetic justice delivered by unseen hands—has always appealed to the idle minds of salon philosophers and adolescent scribblers. Combine this with the tragic decline of classical education, and it is little wonder we are besieged with fancies of assassin training schools, blood-forged contracts, and honour codes among murderers. Such narratives bear as much relation to the truth as does a child’s drawing to the architecture of the Palace of Welttor.
Absurdities Inherent in the Guild Theory
Let us apply the scalpel of logic to this carbuncle of misinformation.
1. Organisational Infrastructure: We are to believe that this so-called Guild maintains a network of recruitment, instruction, assignment, and payment across the known territories without detection. Are we to imagine offices in each major city? Regular payroll disbursements? Minutes from quarterly meetings? One envisions a secretary scribbling, “Item 4: increase in poisoning demand; committee to investigate seasonal variance.”
2. Recruitment: Whence come these killers? Are they poached from sculptors’ studios? Fished from fishing boats? Who interviews them? Is there a probationary period? Do they begin with kittens before progressing to barons? The logistics are laughable.
3. Training: Much is made in the more salacious pamphlets of a rigorous training regimen undertaken by Guild recruits. How, pray, does one conduct swordsmanship and stealth lessons without arousing suspicion? Do the Guild’s headquarters reside in a well-lit gymnasium? And who trains the trainers? Is there a credentialing body?
4. Payment and Client Relations: How are clients to locate the Guild? Are there brochures? A discreet office with a placard reading Deaths Arranged, Discretion Ensured? It strains credulity to its snapping point. Are payments rendered in coin, promissory note, or perhaps ravenglass? Does the Guild offer receipts?
5. Moral Code: The notion that a collection of cut-throats, brigands, and poisoners might adhere to a strict code of conduct is as credible as suggesting foxes maintain a union for the humane treatment of hens. Honour among killers is a concept found in the plays of Edric Morden—and nowhere else.
Convenient Conspiracies
Proponents of the Guild theory, when pressed for evidence, will inevitably fall back upon the oldest rhetorical refuge of the liar: that the very absence of proof is, itself, proof. “You see,” they claim, “the Guild is so effective, so utterly secret, that it leaves no trace!” This is the logic of the madhouse.
By this metric, one might also prove the existence of invisible dragons in the Crown’s privy. The absence of their droppings, after all, merely confirms their tidy habits.
A popular variant of this fallacy is the assertion that Guild members operate within society itself: embedded in merchant houses, constabularies, even the Magistracy. Such a claim not only libels the brave men and women who serve our public institutions but also renders the Guild unfalsifiable—a sure hallmark of bunkum.
The Economic Impossibility
Consider the cost. To fund the infrastructure of a continent-spanning assassin collective would require a treasury rivalled only by that of Ostreich. The training, housing, outfitting, and payment of hundreds of silent killers is not a modest undertaking. We are to believe this expenditure is met by sporadic commissions from brothel-owners and jealous siblings? Nonsense.
Moreover, an oversupply of assassins would undercut their own market. One cannot both be rare and ubiquitous. If killing-for-hire were so commonplace, the value of a life would plummet, and every petty squabble would end in bloodshed. We would be swimming in corpses, not idling in cafes.
Eyewitness Accounts: Or, the Infallibility of Rumour
Time and again, one is confronted with the testimony of some trembling ostler or besotted sailor who claims to have seen a Guild assassin in the act. These accounts tend to share certain features: darkness, distance, alcohol, and embellishment. As any trained observer knows, the human memory is a carnival mirror: entertaining, but not to be trusted.
Even more damning is the fact that such sightings invariably occur after the event. Never does one hear of a Guild assassin being interrupted, captured, or identified in advance. They are always glimpsed slipping away, vanishing into crowds, or retreating into the fog. Their passage is marked only by the sudden death of some minor noble or an inconvenient whistle-blower.
Might I suggest that these assassins are as much constructs of hindsight as of fiction? It is far easier to blame a mythical killer than to accept the all-too-real presence of vendettas, political silencing, or lovers’ spats gone awry.
The Cultural Role of the Guild Myth
So why, if the Guild does not exist, does the myth persist? The answer, like most answers worth anything, is psychological. The Guild serves a narrative function. It allows the populace to project its fear of chaos, of death, of unreasoning malice, onto a single, comprehensible symbol.
Better to believe in a dark, elegant guild than to confront the chaos of random violence. Better to imagine trained hands behind the blade than to accept the banality of murder. The Guild gives meaning to atrocity. That is its sole function.
A Final Word on Sanity and Sovereignty
As a scholar, a gentleman, and a loyal subject of the Heptarchy, I must affirm in the strongest possible terms that the very idea of an organised Guild of Assassins is both fantastical and corrosive. It undermines trust in our institutions, encourages paranoia, and distracts from the real work of maintaining law and order.
We must be vigilant not against mythical guilds, but against the human tendency to seek monsters in shadows rather than face the truths before us.
In conclusion, the Guild of Assassins is a fiction. A lie. A childish story told to frighten dull minds and entertain dilettantes.
That is the official position.
Let no further ink be wasted on the matter.
Editor’s Note: Archibald Chistlethwaite was found dead three months after publishing this entry, his throat expertly slit in his study. The local constable attributed the incident to a burglary gone wrong. No suspects were ever apprehended. The Encyclopaedia has elected to retain his article in full, for historical interest only.
