Apprenticing in Albion
An overview of apprenticing (and training of various sorts) in Albion. Includes a guide to the demographics, different educational paths, and apprenticeship itself.
Filter posts by category
Victorian Albion
While writing the Mysterious Fields trilogy, I spent even more time in the Victorian era. Here’s a look at Victorian Albion.
Architecture and magic
What is architectural magic like in Albion? This post takes a look at some of the theory and practice, including how it affects the demesne estates and land magic.
A look back at 2023
Let’s take a look back at 2023: books that came out, things written, what’s been happening on the Patreon and Discord, and some website and wiki notes.
All the information you might want
A guide to where to find things on the website. (As of the update of June 2023.)
The naming of characters is a difficult matter
(Look, I couldn’t resist the T.S. Eliot reference, I’m only human.) To be more serious, the names of characters are something I spend a lot of time thinking about. I got a great reader question about it this week, and that makes it a wonderful time to share some of how I do this. To be honest, there’s a lot of staring at my list of names and sighing a lot. But I also have established patterns that help me sort out what I’m doing with the names. (As a note, links to character names in this post will go to their WorldAnvil pages so you can see where they appear most easily.)
Lords & Ladies: A guide to the land magic
Are you curious about the land magic? Carillon’s background? What it means to be a Lord in Albion? Did you know there’s a new novella out? It’s my treat if you sign up for my newsletter. (Feel free to unsubscribe when you need to, of course. But I hope you’ll stick around, at least for an email or two that will let you get all the other treats I share with my newsletter subscribers.) Ancient Trust is all about what happens when Geoffrey Carillon inherits the title on his brother’s death. It has quite a lot about the land magic customs at Ytene. It also led to some interesting questions from a reader. (I love reader questions. Sometimes I haven’t settled on my final answer about something. But I’ll let you know if you ask something I can’t answer yet. Or if you ask something that’s too much of a spoiler for something that’s coming out in the future.) The questions: It got me thinking, how do the Lords of Albion engage with the House of Lords? Is attending Westminster an additional responsibility for Carillion? Do Albion peerages result in having the right to sit in the House? And what about the women? How does the Land Magic recognise women? These are great questions – and also some that I haven’t quite found the right place to get into text. Let’s take this one by one in an order that should help.
Welcome to Schola!
I had a fabulous time working with the map designer who did my previous two maps to do a map of Schola.
A little bit more… (topics and magic in Albion)
 Today in our ongoing tour of the authorial wiki, a bit about some other topics. Today, we’re taking a look at the topical pages, which come in two groups, Magic and Topics.
People together (groups and organisations)
Welcome to the next stop on the tour of the authorial wiki. Last time we talked about characters, so now it’s time to take a look at groups and organisations. Groups There are a number of common group connections in Albion – notably related to the Five Schools, but also secret societies and professions. Read more about the professional and social organisations in general over here.
Character Connections
We’ve talked about extras, maps, and timelines in our tour of my authorial wiki. Now it’s time to talk about characters. Every point of view character has a page. (That means everyone who’s been the point of view in a novel, novella, or extra…)
Maps: The place where it happens
Time for stop 3 on our tour of the authorial wiki, maps! Today we’re going to look at two sets of maps, one for Albion as a whole, and one for Trellech, the main magical city. My maps are by Michael MB, who did a fantastic job taking my sketches and making them usefully informative.
Timelines: Who, what and above all, when!
Welcome to the next stop on our tour of my authorial wiki (public version). Today, I want to talk about timelines and finding out when particular events happened. One of the reasons I like WorldAnvil (the software I use for the public wiki) is the chance to create maps and timelines. With books ranging across the 1920s, a few Edwardian titles, and a couple during or just after the Great War, being able to put the books in order is key. I’ve currently got five different ways to get timeline information, read on to learn more about them!