Introduction Blog Post: The Imagient King- Journey with the Princess of the East.

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The reason why everyone is probably reading this blog, and coming to this site is because this is the official blog site for my books. The stories that I want to tell can be summed up in grandiose style, and I have a lot, and I mean a lot of ideas. I want to turn these ideas into stories and tell them to people across multiple multimedia platforms and genres. Then I thought I needed to start somewhere, so the best way to introduce you into this universe I want to create to tell these stories is with the Imagient King, a story that has grown and evolved to it's own monster over the years. In this blog I will discuss the Imagient King, what it is and what it means to me. Then I will talk about it's own evolution as an idea and what the book itself is about. Finally, I will attempt to explain what I want to do with the series, and this blog.
The Imagient King, a story within a story. The idea for the book series itself can go back to my elementary school years where my friends who pretend to role-play various heroes and villains during recess. Although, the term Imagient was probably manifested by me in middle school the stories and the games we played in my early years helped shape ideas that would later be used in the Imagient King series.
It is in essence my idea of going back to my childhood dreams and stories that I have always wanted to tell. I have tried to tell stories about characters in my head, as many friends now whenever I try to explain my “big idea” story Dino Wars Army to them, it comes off flat and they are confused. I have so much lore and so much to explain, that it goes over many of my friend's heads. But I am not here to talk about Dino Wars Army, although I can discuss that monster on another blog post.
Imagient King itself manifests itself as a dream to tell stories that I have wanted to tell my friends, and indeed some of my close friends now about Imagients, and a bit about them. They are magical empowered individuals very similar to psychics and psykers for Pathfinder or Dungeons and Dragons fans might know. I only use those terms because they are close to what Imagients are, but they really are their own thing that I have created over time. The fact that I am actually working on a series discussing the Imagients, and their own lore to fit my greater universal lore, is fitting and at the same time monumental to me.
It's a big task to explain Imagients, Imagientechs, and many terms that most people reading this blog won't understand. But, hopefully once I get this book written, rewritten and edited over a hundred times then this blog will be in retrospect something that is very powerful and representative of a big risk that I am taking in trying to tell a story of characters who are just stepping stones in more extravagant stories to come.
For me, Imagient King is the easiest way to explain and open the door to something greater. My idea of the Computus Lore, which is a huge set of lore and setting where all of my stories interconnect and relate to each other. Spanning millions of years, centered with thousands of characters I want to tell the story of these worlds and these people. And with Imagient King, I can finally do just that.
So you might be thinking, what in the world is Computus Lore? Well that is a story a bit more complicated that I might explain in a later blog post. For now the easiest thing to explain is Imagient King, the Imagients, and the Imagience where they live. And to do that I will first have to explain to you what in the world these terms mean, the origin of it, and in essence what you are all getting into when you eventually read The Imagient King: Journey with the Princess of the East.
The origins of Imagients as I so briefly discussed earlier comes from two different distinct sources. One is that childhood recess escapades where I took the stories and imagination of my youth and coined the term in retrospect Imagients. Me and my friends were the Imagients who fought against the Bullies and other bad things that all elementary aged boys fight such as cutties, aliens, and bad homework.
This is the origin of Imagients, but it is not what I eventually used as the plot of my book, Imagients in their more modern form came to me as a young anime fan trying to find a way to make individuals more powerful than saiyans. Yes, saiyans as in the alien race in Dragon Ball Z, which the main character Goku and many others are members of. How does one make something stronger than someone who can destroy a planet? Well, in my youth I decided that people who could manipulate reality using their imagination, just might be able to do that. Imagients evolved to be able to control the world we know it by tapping into their imagination and making it into reality.
Imagients were originally created in late middle school/early high school for a very juvenile purpose. So I created Imagients to fill my current stories at the time including Dino Wars Army. But, they didn't really have any lore or backstory at this point. So, after being inspired reading Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time and a few other fantasy series I worked on the lore for the Imagients. Their origins, and their homeland. I created the Imagience originally as their homeland, a place between existence and parallel worlds.
This was eventually expanded upon a bit more in high school and it forced me to create a cast of characters to fit this world and lore. So all of the main cast of Imagient King were created for this world. A princess on a quest to find a lost heir, a blacksmith who doesn't really have any goals in life, his cousin who he sees as his sister, and his soldier friend who is really a spy. These archetypes and story was then created in high school in it's most early and archaic forms.
Then I got accepted into college, and my situation changed. I didn't work on my lore and stories anymore instead I wanted to graduate school and be a historian. My goals in life changed and I left these stories to the sideline. It became clear around my third year that I may not be able to get into graduate school so I needed a back up plan. My first back-up plan was to create a business to publish and support local artists, including my own work. This plan would ultimately be shelved DE.I.C.E still exists as a business plan, but it has been pushed back until I can get more content for it to be successful.
I returned to Imagient King briefly during this time to make a hit content idea. Here I worked on my 'big idea' Dino Wars Army again, and redrafted the whole Imagience making it more to what the story is now. But, it still wasn't there. I still had a lot of time before the story would become what I am working on now.
The main push to create the Imagient King that I am working on now, happened during the tail end of my college life. I shared script ideas of Dino Wars Army to animation and computer friends, and they still didn't understand it. It came to me that Dino Wars Army was too big of a monster to handle at the moment. After all it is my epic, my baby and I decided to shelf it for a bit. To improve my craft first I needed a guinea pig, and Imagient King would be that guinea pig.
Imagient King became my guinea pig out of necessity. I went to Indiana Comic Con 2015 and attended various writing panels and it was here that I was inspired even more so to write a story. I researched how to make books, what I was needing for my book and how to write stories. I am a historian by trade, so I built a new lore and a new infrastructure for the Imagient King universe. I tweaked characters, empowered motivations, and pretty much destroyed my existing Imagient King story and built a new one by scratch.
The initial plot stayed the same, the main protagonist was a blacksmith named Lee, now named Leonli has no motivation in life except to stay in his humble small farming town as a blacksmith, but this changes when a princess from the east named Sumi now named Tsuna Liang encounters him and by way of chance involves him in a chase where he faces off against demons, the inquisition and the Cyphic military. The first book is essentially a chase scenario where Leonli the main protagonist, his cousin and assistant Kerrin, and his soldier friend Tyvan all end up helping this mysterious princess from an eastern Empire escape the clutches of their corrupt government.
I decided to flip things on the readers head by making the corrupt government hunters all unique characters that were also relatable. A bastard general, who is the unclaimed son of the king of Cyphic Kingdom which is where the first book takes place. He has a group of individuals including two inquisitors, his own eccentric brother who is the actual heir to the Cyphic dynasty, as well as his own soldiers and officers.
The book is essentially a high fantasy/coming of age story with the main characters who are engaged in one long chase sequence from their pursers who are the Cyphic military and inquisition. Strong themes such as friendship, propaganda as prophecy, responsibility, and life motivations are discussed. The book sets up the Imagience world, Imagients, and their abilities called Imagientechs. Which I try to distinguish from magic in my universe by bringing in mages so that there is a difference in place.
The Imagient King series which will be six books in total, with the Princess of the East ending on a good note, where a good majority of the plot is contained into the first novel. Yes, there will be more books after the Imagient King: Princess of the East. Not everything will be ended nicely in the first book, but there is at lease a lot of closure that it can be considered almost stand alone. Or at least that is my intention.
The first three books in the franchise form a trilogy of sorts which showcases the main character Leonli and his female co-protagonist Tsuna on a coming of age story about both of them facing their destiny. Tsuna's main story arc is one of accepting her responsibilities as a princess and as someone who helps guide Leonli through the story. Leonli's arc itself is one of motivation, as we enter the series Leonli has no motivation and with Tsuna he is given that. But, that is not his ultimate destiny, as you will read in the book itself, there may be a few things about Leonli that I hint about, but will not spoil. But, let's just say it may or may not involve the series title.
My goal with this is to not only write six books for the Imagient King, but to use it as a stepping stone to write other novels I want to write, outside of the Imagience and throughout the greater Computus Lore. Stories on such far off worlds as Mithrenok, Avesauria, and Neona. These names mean very little to you readers of this blog now, but I hope in the future to greater explain these worlds, and the characters that dwell here. Imagient King will hopefully prove to be the catalyst for this greater lore I want to tell, because I have more in store for you, not only in this blog, but as stories that I want to tell readers as a whole.
So, in closing the Imagient King is a book series that I am going to write and I have wanted to write these stories for a long time. Through trial and tribulation I have created a world rich with lore that I hope many will come to love. Eventually, I want to expand outwards into other mediums beyond novels especially into animation to tell even more stories. These are my goals, and a little bit about the Imagient King as a whole. I hope you liked reading this actual very first blog post about my book series and for you to come back to my blog in the future.