Title: A Song of Legends Lost
Series: The Invoker Trilogy #1
Author: M.H. Ayinde
Publisher: Orbit
Genre: Epic Science-Fantasy
Length: 592 pages
Goodreads – The StoryGraph

A SONG OF REBELLION. A SONG OF WAR. A SONG OF LEGENDS LOST.

In the kingdom of Nine Lands, only warriors of noble blood can summon their ancestors to fight with them in battle. But when Temi, a commoner from the slums, accidentally invokes a powerful spirit, she finds it could hold the key to ending a centuries-long war.

But as secrets long buried come to light, Temi will learn that not everything that can be invoked is an ancestor, and some of the spirits that can be drawn from the ancestral realm are more dangerous than anyone can imagine.

Now this was great! I went in with no expectations, honestly, I just knew it sounded neat when I first preordered it (I try to preorder the most intriguing fantasy/horror books throughout the year, within my budget of course) so when I requested it on NetGalley I just knew it was on my preorder list. Well anyway, allow me to offer you some quick expectations: A Song of Legends Lost is the first in a new epic fantasy trilogy by British author M.H. Ayinde. This is very West-African inspired (with a bit of a mix! I certainly noticed a little Indian culture in areas), it’s a multi-POV story with four parts, and each character offers the story something different.

This is a world with a lost people, the Scathed, wiped out millenia ago by their own creations: the greybloods. These are kind of mechanical people, made out of the cursed techwork people are told to keep away from, and humanity has been at war with them for as long as they can remember. Here in the Nine Lands, humans are ruled over by the Royal Ahiki clan, the golden clan with golden eyes painful to look upon. And within this world, only those called upon through specialised rituals within the Nine Clans can invoke their ancestors, a power used to defend against the attacking greyblood armies. Only… Temi begins hearing a voice in her mind, somebody who is not her ancestor, and the ancestors turn away from those who do not use the gifts they are given. Sounds good right?

So we’ve got a kind of arcane techwork that must be “cleansed” by a Royal Monk, it is forbidden for anybody but them to touch it as it is allegedly cursed. There are … oh there are just so many moving parts to this book I couldn’t even begin to explain it to you, just trust me. Each perspective moves the story along in its own way, and by the end paints a whole picture, and the way everything comes together, man, I couldn’t stop reading. I have read the most I’ve read all year so far over the past 3 days because of this book. It’s so unique, complex in a very good and satisfying way, and I loved all the characters. I wish I could dive right into the next book! But I will have to be patient.

I can however urge you to consider checking this one out! Especially if you’re looking for queernormative epic fantasy written by an amazing black woman. It released yesterday on the 8th April 2025, and I cannot wait to see how the rest of this trilogy pans out and yes I was naughty and went off and preordered the special edition from Goldsboro Books. Hey I may want to revisit this one, may as well do it in style, right?

The post Book Review: A Song of Legends Lost by M.H. Ayinde appeared first on The Dragon Chronicle.

So what’s been going on with me since August 2024? Well… to quickly recap, at that point I was streaming (mostly World of Warcraft), I was playing WoW of course and the expansion had released so I was levelling up and getting my character raid and mythic+ ready, and amidst all of that, trying to retain my reading habit and just really having the desire to put aside all projects and work on my cross stitch a bunch. With blogging that month added in, I did not have the spoons for a whole lot of anything and blogging fell by the wayside, as did my streams.

Alas, I am concerned consistent streaming just isn’t for me, at this point in time, but I have other hobbies that are very important to me that I work to keep up with! Oh and healthwise I was waiting on an appointment to talk to a surgeon about potentially having my stupid little stone-riddled gallbladder removed, which I was nearing a year of waiting for any kind of actual help for, few years longer with the pains.

That has been a fun old time, let me tell ya!

But let’s get into what I’ve been up to since.

Foo Fighters in June

Okay okay this one isn’t a since thing but I never got around to sharing with you our little trip to Cardiff in late June to see the Foo Fighters, one of my alltime favourite bands.

This had been a big bucket list item for me. I’d missed their previous tour due to financial constraints, and there was a one-off concert they did at Wembley, I think it was while Taylor was still alive, I missed that because both getting to London and the costs around that would have been extortionate. Then Taylor passed and I thought I’d missed my chance. Couldn’t make the memorial concert either. So when tickets went on sale for a proper UK tour for their most recent album, and I could swing the cost of them (it was around £120 for two seated tickets) and they were going to be doing a leg in Cardiff? I leapt at the chance. I grabbed tickets and we dealt with everything else.²

And let me tell you: this was one of the greatest experiences of my life. It was a gorgeous few days in the Welsh capital, lovely sunny summer days, we had just missed Cardiff Pride so there were still rainbows and lovely messages everywhere, and we stayed in a hotel in the stunning Cardiff Bay area. Ugh. My heart just fills with so much love thinking of these days.

We had a little time to wander around, do a little shopping and explore somewhat, have a lovely meal in a Japanese restaurant (I was recovering from the flu so I couldn’t taste it but it was great!) and just chill out together. We don’t get nearly enough time to do that these days. Oh and the little place we went to for breakfast was divine as well. The cost was steep, they always vastly over-price hotels for big events like this one, but we managed it. We got talking to another couple in the hotel bar who’d also come up to see the Foos, and yeah, just great memories.

And then the concert itself, oh the atmosphere. There were people everywhere in Foo Fighters and Nirvana T-shirts, glittery face paint, you just can’t beat an atmosphere like that, you know?

It was tough for Dan who struggles with crowds, but we got through and because I had my walking stick with me they let us skip the queues so we could go up in the lifts which was really nice because we were sat quite high up in the Millenium Stadium (or whatever we call it these days) and I’d have struggled with that.

We caught the end of the first support act, The Himalayas, a young generic rock band. Think Royal Blood with with actual talent. And then the big support act came on, Wet Leg! If you haven’t heard of Wet Leg yet, they’re well worth checking out. British indie rock fronted by two young ladies, with lots of attitude. They were great.

Then finally, the guys came out. I will admit to shedding a few tears. There’s just so much emotion built in with seeing an artist you have loved so much for so many years, you know?

I just sat there, singing my little heart out for… however long it was. 2? 3 hours? They put on an incredible show, as I knew they do. We got a little Taylor memorial section where they played Aurora as the sun was setting, and the way the light was hitting the edges of the roof, just glancing up at the blue sky above, the seagulls flying overhead…. that’s a memory that will be lodged in my memory for a long, long time.

They ended on Best of You, the crowd crying out their “WOOOOA-OOOAAAAH WOOOOOOA-OOOOOAAAAH”s until they came back on for their encore, where they played my favourite song from the new album, The Teacher. Then brought out Taylor Hawkin’s son to play drums with them for This Is a Call from their first album. And of course, finally ended on Everlong, which we all stood for.

I’m so so glad we got to see them live at last, and who knows if we’ll ever be able to again with everything that went down just a couple months after. But I have my memories and the tour shirt I bought, and years and years and years of music.

The Gallbladder

So to get the crappy bit out of the way, my father-in-law drove me to the hospital to have a consultancy about getting my problematic gallbladder removed… I want to say September? It was certainly in the autumn. Long story short, waited a while to be seen because … well it’s healthcare, when isn’t it backed up? When I finally got in to see the doctor it went by fairly quick. He told me all the potential complications and how people get surgical regret (which can’t be reversed) and basically sounded like he was trying to talk me out of having the surgery at all. I’m sure it’s all stuff they have to say to cover themselves lest any of these things actually happen and then the patient’s all “Well they never told me this could happen!!” But never to fear, eating food is pain, discomfort and nausea for me so I said that of course I still want the surgery. This thing is not getting better and my quality of life is kinda awful with all this going on and I just want it fixed. I… really hate the idea of having no gallbladder knowing what happens inside you without one shudder but everybody I have spoken to who has had theirs removed says it changed their life. I want that! Hell. To be able to just eat without worrying I’ll be doubled over in agonising pain and then vomiting later on, that would be enough. I’ve cut most fat out of my diet, and it’s still not great. Hell, I went a weekend just gone without the meds that help me manage it and I was just suffering.

I don’t plan to bring dollops of fat back into the diet, maybe a rare treat here and there, perhaps I could balance things a little better with just a speck more fat and a lot less sugar, you know? So yeah, we got that confirmed, they took my vitals and measurements, I filled out a form. Then I bought myself a seasonal coffee from the Costa in the waiting room as a little treat to perk myself up a bit and my father-in-law drove us home.

Aaaand I’m still waiting to get my appointment for the actual surgery, so I struggle on, meanwhile. The good news is I’m not in constant pain, so long as I take my relevant meds and am very careful about what I eat and drink, I get by. But some days it just decides to throw a tantrum and heck it sucks. I just want it gone so that’s one less thing I have to worry about. It took a year from the time I first went into the doctors about the pain to getting in to see a doctor about surgery, with all the messing about, forgetting about me and all that, so I’m just hopeful it won’t be much longer as I was told it’d be “in the new year”.

Books!

Once I wound down the World of Warcraft playing I got my reading habit rolling again and ended up finishing 2024 with [25?] books read. I’m pondering still doing a little best of 2024 post, actually. I had thought nah, it’s a bit too late for that now but I think it’ll still be fun, yeah? So we’ll see if I can finangle that.

I ended up getting through a fair few horror novels and novellas, but also focused on continuing books I’d already started and paused for something else and series I’ve started. I have a bit of a time limit with series with my awful memory. If I don’t continue within 2 or 3 years then I might as well either DNF the whole series or restart it. Same for books I set “on pause”.

So one of my main goals for 2025 is to work on those a little more. Keep on with the series I have started and see which ones I’m able to wrap up, and also “reclaim the bookmarks” aka actually read and finish or DNF all of the books I put on pause. I’d ideally like, yes, access to all of my bookmarks again. I do have a lot, I collect them, but even so! But also I’ve love to have more of a clear reading plate. Just a handful of series I work through at a time, no books waiting for me to get back to them – well one or two is acceptable, I have many more than that right now, just nice and clean. Makes things a lot easier for my brain, much less chaotic and scrambled.

So far in 2025 this has been going pretty well! I’m doing my best to work on series and books on pause, I did pick one back up (Dragonfly Falling, book two of the Shadows of the Apt series by Adrian Tchaikovsky) and finished it and I tried to get back to finishing up the Clocktaur duology from T. Kingfisher but either the prose in those books isn’t working for me any more, or I am very much in the wrong mood for it right now. I’ve already got 10 books read (which is a lot for me!) and 2 DNFed so I’m very happy with how I’m going. Lots of horror, and lots of epic fantasy, as my reading mood fell firmly in that area back in February. I feel like all of this organisation has been really, really helped by me starting and maintaining a Reading Journal!

A Reading Journal

Nicknamed my “BooJo” by me as it’s not quite a “BuJo” (Bullet Journal) and I got tired of typing reading journal constantly. My friend Kit suggested BooJo (short for Book Journal, of course) and I’ve stuck with that cus you know I love me some ghosties.

I was talked me into starting one late last year and seeing theirs sparked something within me. I love journals and scrapbooks and little arty books that have your personality, your stuff, it’s just yours. And I’ve got my reading hobby to a point where it very much is my favourite hobby. I do my best to prioritise getting in several hours of reading per day because I have so many books I want to read, and I’m a slow reader, yet I find a lot of the online tracking tools like Goodreads and its ilk don’t quite work for me the way they do others, focusing way too much on quantification and gamification of a hobby that for me, is all about just sitting down and absorbing a good story. That style of tracking works really well for many, but I always feel boxed in by it, and kinda made to feel bad that I “only” read so much in such an amount of time, right?

Not the way with my BooJo! In here I have TBRs, a Series and Time Spent Reading Tracker, little reviews, hauls, what I read on which days calendar. It’s exactly what I need it to be, it’s a way for me to create art around my favourite hobby and have a lovely visual log to look back on as a memory in the years to come. It brings me a lot of joy!

Video Games

As for video games, I did my best with WoW’s most recent expansion but the time spent back at home and then in Cardiff in June really sapped the passion I had for the game earlier in the year. But I had the expansion and I felt I should give it a good go, and I did! I got my Mage up to max level and I joined my guild for raids and Mythic+ but after a while I found myself only wanting to log in for those things. And gone are the days where you can realistically do that… the game truly is a different beast nowadays and every time I go back I’m looking for something that just isn’t there any more. I love love hanging out with my guild, but the game… I dunno.

I kept on for a little while, purely because I wanted to play with my friends, but I stopped raiding once we got to Heroic level, that’s generally where it gets way too spoon intensive for me, and I left Mythic+ behind once we’d got our 2k rating, with the caveat that I’d pop back in to help if needed. And come January, I cancelled my subscription again. To get back to my reading. You see the cycle here?

The problem is, with all the travelling in June, Blaugust, the new expansion in WoW and my streaming, stuff had to give back there, I cannot keep all of that up. Streaming I couldn’t manage to fit in with the energy I had, blogging also had to fall off, and I’d really hoped those would pick back up after I set WoW aside. Well, I have come to realise that consistent streaming may not be for me. I’d love to say I’ll get back to it some time but it’s so draining and I have barely any desire to play games at all right now, so it wouldn’t be any time soon. And I’ve also often considered getting into BookTube, but that brings a lot other problem of getting video ideas, jotting down talking points, recording a video, editing, making thumbnails… At the end of the day, with social media in the mess that it’s in, I think I’ve just realised that I should stick to my lanes. Which I feel is in writing.

I’ve had a few months away from games on the whole, but I am dipping into things here and there as of this week. I’m working through a few demos I have installed and I’ve picked my Dragon Age 2 playthrough back up. I could barely remember what was going on but I’ve already restarted it a couple of times so to hell with it, I’m just going to finish it so I’m done with the game and can move onto Inquisition when I’m ready. It doesn’t take up much of my time though. With the amount of sleep I need, my priority for reading, journalling, and writing, (all dependent on how much energy I have to offer at any given time) and then my beloved cross stitch, there’s just no time in the day. But it’s nice once in a while!

My Writing

My hope here is to blog a little more. I don’t yet know how regularly or consistently I can manage because my energy levels fluctuate wildly and I never know from day to day what I’ll be able to do. It’s taken me several days to write this post, although in fairness this is a bit of a monster, but you get me. My aim would be shorter posts. Maybe little updates from me here and there, thoughts on certain topics I come across, maybe the odd book or movie review, sharing things I’m making. I’d love to just incorporate my life, my love of books, my cross stitch and journaling and viewing habits and tabletop adventures and all the things that make me me. Usually this veers towards a bookish focus but I have never striven for this space, not since it was Dragons & Whimsy, nor now it is The Dragon Chronicle, to be anything more or less. We’ll just have to see how I do at making that work the way I imagine it. But I long to just have this as my little space to present all the things I love, and the things that happen. It won’t be an ‘all laid bare’ affair, of course, but I am always open about the things I feel happy to be open about.

Of course, blogging is not my sole means of writing. I think ever since I was a little girl, I longed to have a book published. I have memories of… getting very hyperfixated on the Tudors in year 8, going to the library and photocopying all of the information and images I could find and basically scrapbooking them into a booklet I made myself out of paper my dad had brought home from his job at the printing press. I was so proud of that thing, I’d made a book! It makes me chuckle thinking back on it because of course that’s not quite what I mean when I say I want to write a book these days, but the sparks were there. They just got a little dimmed for a time, certain older people telling me I wasn’t any good at it and the general ability to force yourself to do something that is so hard that you just can’t see yourself ever being any good at (thanks ADHD). But with the years comes wisdom. You learn how other writers ply their craft, you note what they do that’s so good, what others do that isn’t, and you practice. Oh lordy is that something I had no concept of in my youth. Practice.

So late last year I got into a little Witcher hyperfixation, as one does, and I started planning out a fan-fiction about how Jaskier (I’m kind of mixing show/game/book canon as it suits me, fan-fiction is fun that way) finds himself with the spark of Wild Magic. Yep, like in Dungeons & Dragons. A Wild Magic Sorceror. And he does not understand how to wield this power and it backfires on him. A lot. I didn’t get super far into it but I had started plotting it, and writing a couple of scenes here and there and you know what? I really like what I’ve got. However the hyperfixation scattered and then I became overwhelmed because well… every time I have a story idea, I note it down. And by this point in time my ideas log is massive, and that’s overwhelming! How do I choose what I’m in the right mindset for? Which one is right for me to start with?

Anyway long story short I’m not starting with any of those juicy horror ideas I have, I’m plotting out an epic fantasy series I need to worldbuild for and plan so many different details and research and learn. But when something is right, it’s just right, isn’t it? And I truly think this was always where I was meant to start. By cannibalising all of my previous high fantasy worlds, characters, and ideas and churning them together in a great big stew pot to write a story that I believe will be a lot of fun to write. Will it be what people want to read? Will it be worth publishing? I have no idea, but you truly have to write what lights you up and feels right. Those are the best stories. And hey, it probably won’t be that great at first, while it’s not technically my first book³ it’s been so long since I wrote anything that I almost feel like I’m completely new at this and so I am treating it that way.

I have a couple non-fiction books on writing to read through and work through, a bunch of YouTube videos to do the same with (including a series of lectures by Brandon Sanderson I’m very excited for, I listen to a 3 hour long podcast interview he did recently and I learned quite a bit from that!). I’m researching history, starting to pull in all of my old notes to sort through and turn into something great and yes, I probably will worldbuild “too much” but I find it very helpful to know what’s in the world and where to know what might happen within it, what’s at stake when it’s threatened, who responds to such things. Perhaps learning about fantasy worldbuilding from D&D wasn’t the best for this but it is what it is!

So yeah. That’s… half a year’s worth of life, haha. I would dearly like to post here a little more than I have been. I’ve been having some revelations about social media and where I share things to and the websites I interact with and rely on and I think I’d really like to utilise my blog more. After all, this is my space! Not subject to the whims of others. It does take up time and energy I rarely have but keeping things chill and lowkey should hopefully help with that. I’m not sure how consistent I will be, or frequent, but I’m going to see what I can do. And sort out my Feedly to make it easier for me to check on my favourite blogs from friends and others. That said, I would love to hear your favourite blogs, and if you keep a blog, anything that might be relevant to my interests, you know? Feel free to drop a comment, I’ll keep an eye on my spam folder!

Onwards to the next adventure!

1. and I was going to add in a second one but I spent so long putting off finishing going through all the releases coming out to see what I was most interested in that well… we’re in month three now so perhaps it’s a little outdated for now
2. and holy shit the upcharge costs on hotels for things like this are fucking ridiculous…
3. my first book was a 50,000 word story I wrote for NaNoWriMo in 2012, it was absolutely terrible and no I will not be bringing that one out but yes I do still have it, I do not throw things away

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Wake Up and Open Your Eyes by Clay McLeod Chapman

Horror – 7th January – Amazon UK

Bat Eater by Kylie Lee Baker

Horror Thriller – 7th January – Amazon UK

Witchcraft for Wayward Girls by Grady Hendrix

Horror – 16th January – Amazon UK

At Dark I Become Loathsome by Eric LaRocca

Horror – 28th January – Amazon UK

Landlocked In Foreign Skin by Drew Huff

Science Fiction – 28th January – Amazon UK

Girl in the Creek by Wendy N. Wagner

Horror – 18th February – Amazon UK

Shroud by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Science Fiction – 27th February – Amazon UK

The Radiant King (Astral Kingdoms #1) by David Dalglish

Epic Fantasy – 4th March – Amazon UK

Six immortal siblings. Five sworn to peace. One demands a throne.

Radiance, the mysterious power of life and creation, is theirs to command. Death cannot claim them. For hundreds of years, the ever-living ruled with ease. Yet when the world is nearly broken beneath their reign, the humbled six swear a vow: They will sit upon no thrones, wear no crowns, and no longer teach humanity the gifts of radiance.

But after centuries of peace, Eder rejects their vow, anoints himself Voice of Father, and spreads a new, cruel faith across the land.

Faron cannot allow such indiscretion. Returning from a self-imposed exile, he swears to crush Eder’s kingdom, and he will not do so alone–Sariel, their cold and calculating brother, knows all too well that an ever-living’s dominion is bound for brutality and destruction. But to overthrow a nation, they will need more than each other. They will need an army and a ruler who can take the throne their own vow forbids. And so, they pledge themselves to the fanatical Bastard Princess, a woman with incredible powers she insists were given to her by the goddess Leliel.

But Eder’s conquest is not what it seems, and it will take more than a holy war to stop an immortal who has heard the desperate plea of a god.

The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones

Historical Horror – 18th March – Amazon UK

Blood on Her Tongue by Johanna van Veen

Gothic Horror – 25th March – Amazon UK

Cold Eternity by S.A. Barnes

Science Fiction Horror – 8th April – Amazon UK

A Song of Legends Lost (The Invoker Trilogy) by M.H. Ayinde

Epic Fantasy – 8th April – Amazon UK

When the Wolf Comes Home by Nat Cassidy

Horror Thriller – 22nd April – Amazon UK

The Staircase in the Woods by Chuck Wendig

Horror – 29th April – Amazon UK

The Devils by Joe Abercrombie

Historical Dark Fantasy – 6th May – Amazon UK

A Steep and Savage Path by JJA Harwood

Fantasy Romance – 8th May – Amazon UK

Dungeons & Dragons: Ravenloft: Heir of Strahd by Delilah S Dawson

Epic Fantasy – 10th May – Amazon UK

Six Wild Crowns (Queens of Elben #1) by Holly Race

Epic Fantasy – 10th June – Amazon UK

Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil by V.E. Schwab

Horror – 10th June – Amazon UK

Awakened by Laura Elliott

Horror – 10th June – Amazon UK

The Last Vigilant (Kingdom of Oak and Steel #1) by Mark A. Latham

Epic Fantasy – 24th June – Amazon UK

American Rapture by CJ Leede

Genre-Bending Thriller – 26th June – Amazon UK

Tenderly, I Am Devoured by Lyndall Clipstone

Gothic Fantasy Romance – 1st July – Amazon UK

The Starving Saints by Caitlin Starling

Medieval Horror – 3rd July – Amazon UK

The Bewitching by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Horror – 17th July – Amazon UK

The Library at Hellebore by Cassandra Khaw

Horror – 22nd July – Amazon UK

Seven Recipes for Revolution by Ryan Rose

Epic Fantasy – 22nd July – Amazon UK

Hemlock & Silver by T. Kingfisher

Fantasy – 19th August – Amazon UK

It Was Her House First by Cherie Priest

Horror Thriller – 22nd August – Amazon UK

8114 by Joshua Hull

Horror – 26th August – Amazon UK

Katabasis by R.F. Kuang

Horror Fantasy – 28th August – Amazon UK

We Are Always Tender with Our Dead (Burnt Sparrow #1) by Eric LaRocca

Horror – 23rd September – Amazon UK

Michael McDowell’s Blackwater meets Clive Barker’s The Great and Secret Show in the disturbing first installment of a new trilogy of transgressive literary horror from the Bram Stoker Award® finalist and Splatterpunk Award-winning author of Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke. The lives of those residing in the isolated town of Burnt Sparrow, New Hampshire, are forever altered after three faceless entities arrive on Christmas morning to perform a brutal act of violence—a senseless tragedy that can never be undone. While the townspeople grieve their losses and grapple with the aftermath of the attack, a young teenage boy named Rupert Cromwell is forced to confront the painful realities of his family situation. Once relationships become intertwined and more carnage ensues as a result of the massacre, the town residents quickly learn that true retribution is futile, cruelty is earned, and certain thresholds must never be crossed no matter what. Engrossing, atmospheric, and unsettling, this is a devastating story of a small New England community rocked by an unforgivable act of violence. Writing with visceral intensity and profound eloquence, LaRocca journeys deep into the dark heart of Burnt Sparrow, leaving you chilled to the bone and wanting more.

The Isle in the Silver Sea Hardcover by Tasha Suri

Fantasy Romance – 28th October – Amazon UK

King Sorrow by Joe Hill

Horror – 30th October – Amazon UK

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Of course I will be slowing down more going into September. I need a rest! I have streams to fit in, and I have to prep a TTRPG adventure to trial the Tales of the Valiant system!¹ And hopefully some other things to start, harder things. We’ll see. But I’m also hoping this Blaugust has kickstarted a new semi-consistent blogging thing for me. Maybe? I don’t have a lot of steam these days and you may be able to tell I’m struggling today because I’ve already used the word “thing” twice. Going great, folks!

I’m happy though, and very proud. I became a Mentor in the Discord this year to help the others out a little. I’m always on Discord so I’m only happy to help, and I’ve been doing this blogging thing for nearly my entire adult life by this point. And we’ve met some great new people! It’s been really lovely seeing some new faces in Discord and around the blogosphere, exploring what they do and getting to know them a little. You’ve all done a great job, too, by the way.

At its core, Blaugust has always been about the blogging community. Yes there are prompts and themes and awards for blogging a lot, but we do it because we all get to come together for a shared event, and we all do it in our own ways, and I love that. Some thrive on pushing themself to blog daily, some enjoy just blogging a bit more, some barely scratch the surface, and we all have our methods of how we do the thing. It’s just awesome to see everybody doing their thing.

And of course there will always be those that feel they must reach some kind of target, that Blaugust puts a pressure on them whether they mean to take that on or not, and I do hate to see people getting stressed over it. That’s why I wrote about how you don’t need to overdo it the other day. But inevitably, words can only do so much and I just hope that the end of the month brings a load off and you’re all able to take a breath. If you need a break, please take one! We’ll still be here when you’re ready. But keep plugging away when you’re able because we do need you!

So for my last post, I wanted to revisit the naming of the mascots, kindly suggested by Roger earlier in the month. I received a few great suggestions for names for the lil guys in my header image and I’m going to pick my favourites from the bunch, so here goes!

Our cheerful spirit is Peter Geist, suggested by Roger. Our curiously mischievous kitty is Jiji, named for the Kiki’s Delivery Service catto, suggested by Eldae. And our recently summoned magical wyvern friend is Lunaris, suggested by Stargrace.

Thanks for the idea, Roger! And all the great suggestions everybody. Hope you all enjoyed this little thing. And of course, thanks as always to Belghast for  creating and continuing to run Blaugust year after year, allowing our little community to grow and live on. We appreciate you and all that you do!

1. Kobold Press’ answer to the OGL scandal a couple years back. It’s basically 5e, with their own improvements, and I really want to see how it plays as I backed the Kickstarters for their Player Guide/Monster Vault set and the following GM Guide, both in physical copy because I was that excited about it. Oh this is a long footnote. cough

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So in essence, all I want to say is that if you have tried to do Blaugust, you’ve already “won”. Whether you’ve posted daily, every other day, once, or not at all. Blaugust is not about pushing you to blog until you break, nor will you be ostracised for not posting. At its core, Blaugust began as a challenge to blog every day throughout the month of August, and many still go for that and that is great! Anybody going for the Rainbow: I believe in you, you’ve got this! We’re almost at the finish line! But over time it has evolved. Blaugust, these days, is a call to community to come together, blog a little more, and interact. Whether you blog games, tech, books, life, the universe, anything! You are welcome to join us.

I’ve seen way too many people stressing on either end of this and I just hope you all know that Blaugust is supposed to be fun, it’s supposed to be about driving community, and getting to know people we didn’t know before. Making new friends! Finding new ways to do this thing that we do.

If you thrive on pushing to 31 posts and Blaugust helps you do that? Yay! If you just want the community and need to plod along at your own pace? That’s great! We have Blaugustians at all ends of the scale, and blogging friends who do not partake in Blaugust at all that we love all the same. Please know you’re all valid and it’s awesome that you are blogging! However you are doing it.

People say blogging is a dying art. Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t, but as long as we’re all chipping away and interacting with each other, it’s alive and well.

If you tried this month: You did Blaugust. If you didn’t? That’s okay too, you’re still a blogger, and if you want to be one of us, you are.

I just need you all to know that if you are struggling, oftentimes, pushing yourself will only lead to burnout and exhaustion and nothing is ever worth that. I am proud of you however you have done this thing and it’s not just okay to slow down when it gets too much, maybe take a break, blog when you are able and not when it’s more stress than fun, but encouraged! We want more blogging friends in this little community of ours, and breaking yourself will certainly not help anybody.

However you are doing this thing: You’ve got this! And we will still be here once August is done with.

The post There Is No Such Thing As “Failing” Blaugust! appeared first on The Dragon Chronicle.

For the uninitiated, each month a group of bloggers take a look at what Choice has to offer and each pick at least one game to play through and write up a few thoughts on. The idea is to work out whether or not that month’s games present a good deal for your money, as several people were already doing a look at each month anyway. Krikket pulls each person’s posts together with a quote to bring forward the group’s overall feeling of the bundle. It’s a neat little thing, I definitely recommend you keep an eye out for everybody’s posts in the coming week or two! And if you’re a blogger and it sounds interesting, it’s open to new folk who’d like to join in each month on the Blaugust Discord.

August 2024’s Games

This month’s bundle of games in Humble Choice is a bit of a mixed bag for me personally. Though worth it for two of the games alone: Blacktail, a Slavic folklore inspired dark fantasy RPG I am excited to check out. And Universe For Sale, an indie point and click adventure game set on Jupiter where somebody has a universe for sale.

Obviously, I’m taking a look at Universe For Sale. I’m in the market for a little extra-dimensional space to store all of my books and tea, why not!

Anybody Wanna Buy a Universe?

So I am a pretty big fan of visual novels and point and click adventure games. They’re wonderful games when you fancy an interactive story but don’t have the energy to faff around with combat and puzzles and platforming and whatever else video games come with. However they are very slow in nature, there isn’t a lot of action. The stories can get pretty intense, not tied down by game mechanics, but I don’t know if you all get this too but when you go in to play a game, you expect a little action, excitment, whatever. Even if you’re just logging into your MMO of choice to check your auctions or heading over to Stardew Valley to work on romancing your favourite villager, there’s an expectation of gameplay, right? And I know going in what a visual novel or point and click plays like, but I do have to point out that they will likely feel slow. Or maybe that’s not a thing for you and I’m talking out of my arse. Either way! I felt it was important to get this part down and out of the way, because this is one of my issues with the game. Okay it’s not really an “issue”, more of a mood thing, but I disgress.

This is the section of the blog I wrote out and saved… and then discovered had just gone. Left. Vamooshed. I was not a happy bunny. But anyway here’s the rewritten lost section.

Why do I mention visual novel? Because it is one, really. Yes it’s also a point and click game, but the story is delivered through stationary cards and talking heads as you get in a visual novel. It also is not voiced, though the sound design is really nice. The music and ambience is fairly gentle but also sets the scene well. I actually found a video on Akupara Games’¹ Youtube channel of the game’s soundtrack with the Lo-fi girl scene, though instead it’s Lila working on a universe blueprint and one of the lomri watching over the slums of Jupiter from the window. I love it.

The animation style of the game feels very much like… well like an animated storybook, I’m not sure how else I can describe it. It’s beautiful, and charismatic. And the world feels so vibrant. Not necessarily in a literal sense, there’s just a lot of depth to it. The setting feels like a bazaar full of colourful characters on an alien planet, they did a fantastic job of presenting it in my opinion.

The story itself is the important factor in Universe For Sale. I was immediately charmed.

We begin in the bedroom of a little girl. Her mother (presumably) walks across the room – a nightlight projecting rotating stars across the walls as rain pours outside – to her daughter, telling her it’s time for sleep. The little girl, however, demands a story. And of course it is the same book they have read over and over. It put me in mind of being a kid wanting the exact same thing. The way this game evoked such nostalgic memories in me was really quite cool. The story they are reading is a kind of dark folktale about a shadow child.

And then we’re on Jupiter. It’s raining and we wake up, swathed in cloth, walking through the elements until we stand in front of a teahouse. We enter and this is where Universe For Sale really begins. As we talk to each character we unlock some incredible worldbuilding. There’s clearly a lot of thought and effort put into this setting and I adore it. There’s opposing religious forces, and a fairly modern cult that has people literally cut themselves into pieces to attain enlightenment – our guy’s head is floating off of his body, there’s a lady with floating ears, it’s fascinating. There’s the storms that plague Jupiter and how people shield themselves, all sorts of alien folk and flora and fauna, and a lady with tentacles for hair creates tiny universes and sells them. There is some setup to the world and its concepts, and hints of some kind of intrigue, though the latter I haven’t actually gotten to yet in my own playthrough. It is slow getting there, but I think this is a good thing. It gives you time to build up the world and learn who the characters are so that the story can comfortably flow. A story needs time in the oven to cook, after all, else it comes out feeling rushed and unsatisfying. Personally, I have to be in the right mood for this style of game, and I’m not sure I am right now, but I do like it.

If I have any issues with the game, it’s in its autosave feature and moving between scenes.

The first day I played, I got to the teahouse and spoke to the people sitting around and then ended the game for the day. I couldn’t find a save option so I figured it autosaved. And when I loaded it back up, it wouldn’t let me sit down and continue the story without once again going through the conversations with all the different people in the teahouse. So I suppose it autosaved on a scene change, though I never saw the game tell me this.

A little later in the game I had spoken to one of the characters and we were going to walk together. As I walked out, I was alone again and asking where they were. This was a little jarring, though when I went into the right alleyway, they were with me once again. Though not before I took a “wrong” turning and reached a dead end. I did get a Steam achievement for my tiny side adventure, but I discovered you had to walk manually to the edge of the screen to be able to move across to the next scene, and I found that a bit unintuitive.

Universe For Sale just has a lot of charisma. It has its issues, sure, but I didn’t come across anything that was gamebreaking, just a couple minor nuisances. There was a story here that I know I haven’t got to yet and I’m pretty intrigued to see where it goes. Maybe it’ll be fun, maybe it won’t, but I’m charmed enough by the worldbuilding and my desire to understand certain things that I will definitely be continuing my playthrough. The Steam reviews are pretty favourable. Some aren’t wholly impressed but on the whole, it seems that people’s thoughts align with what I’m already deducing. That this is a lovely game for those who just want to take in an intriguing little scifi story. It’s a point and click visual novel of sorts, not an action adventure game, so expect to take your time. That said, it doesn’t look like the game takes too long to complete, depending on how slow or fast you read, I guess, and how often you get distracted by other things. Now if you excuse me, World of Warcraft has a new expansion in a few hours!

1. Universe For Sale’s game publisher

The post Humble Choice August 2024: Universe For Sale appeared first on The Dragon Chronicle.

Pandaria Remix

So I’m done with Remix. Really, I already was for a little while, but yesterday I checked off the last sets on my silly collection spreadsheet and got one more character to 70, my Blood Elf ‘Dark Ranger’ Hunter, with many thanks to the guildy who kindly ran me through Temple of the Jade Serpent over and over again. There were still some transmog sets on the vendors but they lie, I have all the pieces for these and that’s enough for me.

Besides, worst case, I can just farm them in retail. Mog isn’t so bad to farm up. I did almost level up 4 more alts but I just don’t have it in me anymore. Remix lost its appeal when I went back to Leicester to visit family. That coincided with some difficult life things and around the time where people who didn’t farm frogs started becoming ridiculously overpowered.

Yeah, being overpowered to that extent just wrecks the game for me. It’s nice when you’ve geared your character up to a point where you can just annihilate open world mobs but soloing current group content? Eh… not my thing. I did partake for the sake of my collections but I couldn’t bring myself to spend the bronze and the time to join in with the being overpowered so I was mostly being carried. And I found my peace with that!

I got all of the Remix exclusive items, heirlooms, mounts, and toys. Plus the two titles, and all the mog sets I wanted, and then some. And I have 3 more level 70 alts now, too. My Panda Monk, Void Elf Warrior, and the aformentioned Dark Ranger.

The Quest Log Mess

One thing I’m always just existing within is the mess that is my quest log. I tend to work through main story quests, and then side quests and quests that unlock things perhaps or offers collectables, and then just everything else. But over time I end up with a mess of raid skip quests and legacy content quests I need to get done and all sorts that I hold on to so I can just pick them back up, retain my progress. I’ve got ADHD and a fatigue-having brain with awful awful memory, it’s how I cope with the overwhelm. Trouble is, with a new expansion I much prefer a nice clear quest log as I pick up anything and everything first time through. I’m also a completionist. But we’re limited to 35 quests at a time, which sounds like a lot but it gets me into trouble a lot!

I had 4 raid skip quests that only needed one more run to finish up, a lot of Shadowlands quests to work through and a few Dragonflight stragglers – things like the Whelp daycare, the recent mog unlock for the expansion, the Gilneas reclamation, stuff I just keep meaning to get round to. So I decided to get around to as much of it as I can.

In the past few days, I managed to find a partially completed Amirdrassil Normal pug which got that one done. And I also managed to find a Mythic Sepulcher pug last night and completed the skip quest there. Also picked up a couple shiny mog pieces for my efforts. I still have the Heroic Vault of the Incarnates skip quest, though the pugs I’ve seen require you to link an Ahead of the Curve achievement which I don’t have, Razageth was a nightmare for our guild, and Mythic Sanctum from Shadowlands which most people are just doing skip runs to try for the mount.

I’ve gone around Zereth Mortis wrapping up some loose ends and just not picking up the next threads as thankfully those quests are marked on my map so they should be easy enough to pick back up. Korthia too, and some general SL chores, callings and dailies and the like. I suppose those were distractions but I still need the reputation and anima and such.

I’m going to really try and clear up the SL things I’m doing, mostly in the Maw right now, so my quest log is as low as it can be going into the new expansion. I don’t need total completion, so long as I know where to pick back up when I get back to it. The Quest Counter addon is really helping me out here! It simply adds the quest log counter to your sidebar panel so you can see how many quests you have. Why Blizzard removed this when there is a limit to how many quests you can have is beyond me.

Pre-Patch Event

As for the pre-patch event, the Echoes of Azeroth, I’m almost done! I’ve levelled the most important alts to 70, got all of the cloth/leather/mail/plate mog sets, a few of the weapons, oh and of course the mounts, pets, and the heirloom ring.

I definitely want to run my Panda Warrior through and make sure I’ve got all of the weapon appearances. There are a few alts I’d still like to get levelled as well. The main ones being my Horde Paladin and Rogue, who have a lot of history and have been gathering dust for much too long. If I can be arsed after all of this, maybe I’ll finish up a few other alts. I’ve got a spreadsheet, I’ve highlighted the ones I’d most like to level. But I don’t wanna overdo myself and I have enough alts, for sure. It’d mostly be for Heritage reasons, if I do. Or… the sake of having them, I guess. We shall see!

And Classic Too???

Annoyingly the pre-patch event with its memories of Vanilla and Wrath of the Lich King content put me in the mood to play Classic. Awful timing for it, but I’ve been pootling around in Season of Discovery (purely because it has more life than Era, which would be my preferred version) trying to work out what the hell I want to play there. I’ve got a 32 Hunter, a 10 Warlock, 9 Mage, 7 Paladin, and a 14 Priest. I joined a casual guild with the Priest and I might stick with her, I just don’t know. Everything plays so differently with the Runes and I want to be everything. Mage is of course, me. It’s where I default to in most things. But I also love Hunters, Warlocks are fun, I like being able to heal. And then I was a Shadow Priest for so many years. I think a Priest with a Shadow and a healing spec (as we also get dual-spec in SoD) might be just fine. I’m so indecisive and with so much of my energy going into retail, very little time to actually finalise it. But hopefully I’m settling.

Overall, I’m feeling very satisfied with where I’m at going into The War Within. My bags and banks are sorted, I’ve done a few things that have been lingering, even quite a few I haven’t mentioned here. And I’ve been having fun with it. I feel like everything I want to do, I only need a couple days and the rest can be put on ice quite happily. So yeah, I’m ready for the new expansion. Fingers crossed there aren’t too many bugs or other issues, as that has been a pretty major problem in recent years, though expansion launches in general have been pretty smooth, so I’ve got a little bit of hope. Just gonna roll with it, have fun, not stress, and take breaks as I need.

I will also stream a little, particularly after the release on the 26th as there will be Twitch drops for World of Warcraft, as well as the “Support a Streamer” thing they have done before, where you gift 2 subscriptions within a stream broadcasting WoW and get a fun little owl pet in-game. Helps the streamer, you benefit! So if that interests you, chuck me a follow. I do share on Twitter and Mastodon when I go live though best place to follow what I’m upto and when is in my Discord. I’ll do my best as my health allows. See you underground!

1. It’d be a whole other post if I went off on my thoughts about Blizzard now doing Early Access, especially for an expansion launch but I don’t really want to

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Last night I watched MaXXXine, Ti West’s hyped followup to the throwback slasher flick X and its prequel Pearl. While I am no Roger when it comes to talking cinema, my newly found passion for horror generally has me sharing my thoughts over on my Letterboxd account. Though these “reviews” are usually my low-spoons post-movie impressions.

MaXXXine is a big one so I figure it’d be fun to share my thoughts with you! There may be minor spoilers for X and Pearl though I’ve done my best to keep it spoiler free because I honestly think that if you love horror, you should enjoy those movies free from the spoils of movie critics (or people like me). And I do recommend you watch X first, then Pearl, as the prequel film will spoil some major parts of X. Also of course, if you need them, check Does the Dog Die for trigger warnings.

Alright so MaXXXine is set 10 years on from the events of X, following Maxine Minx, a porn star who lands her first big break into mainstream acting. However, there is a serial killer on the loose in Hollywood and Maxine has a past she wishes to remain dead and buried.

The absolutely fabulous Mia Goth stars as Maxine, an actress I am continually eager to see more of. And we also have possibly one of the greatest actors working today (in my opinion, of course) as Teddy Knight, Esq, her agent: Giancarlo Esposito, most notably of Breaking Bad fame¹. We’ve also got Kevin Bacon, Lily Collins, Halsey, Elizabeth Debicki, just an absolutely fantastic cast.

The movie is set within 1980s Hollywood, during the height of the Satanic Panic and during the time of the infamous Night Stalker serial killer, who is used within this film’s plot. I do feel a little uncomfortable when movies utilise true crime to tell their stories like this when they could just create something new without real-world attachments, but it did work for the story. I also feel like this representation of the 80s is one of the better ones within Hollywood. We see a dark and seedy side of this period in history: adult film stars in peril, homophobia, peep shows, dingy video rental stores, all the “good” stuff. It presents a great aesthetic for a thriller that follows on from a 70s-throwback horror slasher. And there are some absolutely iconic scenes in here. I don’t think I’ll ever forget the car scene… wow. Brutal stuff.

The story itself is fine. I liked where it led and how we got there, but it is trying to present itself as a mystery thriller… however, there isn’t much mystery here, so don’t go in expecting a whodunnit.

As for the movie’s climax, I felt like it was a little weak. I loved what it was doing, but it felt like it was over way too fast and could have gone much harder. Though what we did get was still pretty good. None of this takes away from how much I loved this sequel. I really enjoyed myself and heck I want to watch the Pilgrim movies now?! Can we get those made next?

1. God I love this man as an actor, I pretty much want to pick up Farcry 6 purely because he is in it

The post MaXXXine: She’s a Star appeared first on The Dragon Chronicle.

With feeling so unwell this month, I’ve found myself playing much more World of Warcraft. And with the new expansion launching in like a week (eeeee!) I’m doing a lot of inventory cleaning and quest completion to tidy up my log a bit. Get myself good and ready for new adventures.

Well, the quest management isn’t going so great but I have cleaned out my banks pretty nicely. I’ve got 2 Warband bank tabs unlocked, sold most of the crafting materials I’d been hoarding across my various characters, netting me some decent gold. So all that was really left, was to make sure I’ve collected everything from the pre-patch – almost done, just need to get the leather set, a cloak or two, and check I’ve got all the weapons – and make sure I was happy with my class choice for main.

I mained Mage through Dragonflight, finally releasing myself from the Shadow Priest prison I’d put myself in for the past several expansions… yeah I didn’t really enjoy Shadow Priest enough to main it, not for that long, I was just so damn attached to the character. She was the one I was playing when I met my husband, after all. But Mage, that felt good to play. I love a good glass canon, a character that has the tools to get away from the enemy and maintain distance but do a lot of explosive damage. That satisfies me. And I love a good wizard. So yes I think I’m happy to keep on with the Mage, even if I would like a class that could heal if needed.

However, my Mage was a Human and while she was cute, I never really wanted to main a Human. I tend to find them a little boring. I’m very much an Elf person. The main thing that kept me happy as a Human was the increased reputation gains racial and well… we lost that with the release of warband reputation. So I’ve been umming and aahing and well one thing led to another and….

My Mage is a Void Elf now. (I’m also 800k gold poorer because I just could not justify £19 for this)

I haven’t worked out lorewise if she’s more High Elf or Void Elf, as the Void Elves are actually corrupted Blood Elves, right? Either way I’ve given her the fancy purple eyes, going with “Arcane” eyes here, and she is Elf! And oh my god the racials are so good. She gets a little damage boost, 1% reduced Shadow damage which I can imagine will be great going into a 3-expansion Void story, a little teleport, 50% reduced transmog costs, oh and damage cannot interrupt her spellcasting! So many things. So good.

I’m so happy with her, and as somebody who started out with Blood Elves, it feels a little like coming home.Plus with the whole Void thing, going into the Void expansion? It’s a little way to continue on the headcanon I always had going with Seithir, my Shadow Priest. Cleaning up the mess she made.

So now my Warband screen looks like this!

Once I’d sorted her out it was getting let and starting a story quest wasn’t really on the cards so I decided to hit up an old raid, collect some mog. Settled on Tomb of Sargeras Mythic, found a map some nice Redditor had made so I could navigate the place, still managed to miss clicking on something I needed to open a door and get myself lost because that’s just how I roll! Thankfully one of my lovely guildies suggested we pop onto Discord and I screenshare so he could guide me right and he got me where I needed to go, then I finished off the raid after we worked out exactly how to handle Kil’jaeden, who has a nasty knockback mechanic you still have to work with if you’re not able to kill him outright. Eventually worked it out and got myself a new title: the Darkener. How perfect!

So to round us off, here’s a couple of screenshots I took in my wanderings. Tomb of Sargeras is such an important place lorewise and it’s simply gorgeous.

Okay I suppose this ended up being more post than fluff. I’ll take it. I have also been playing a little bit of WoW Classic, mostly Season of Discovery though I cannot settle on a class there for the life of me. I’ve got a level 32 Hunter, level 10 Warlock, level 9 Mage, level 2 Priest, level something Paladin, I just can’t decide what I feel like! Hunter would be nice, but I’d also love to try being a Warlock, that said I am a Mage – both in retail, and back in original Classic release, but it might also be nice to try Shadow Priest and also have the option to heal (which Mage also offers in SoD). I can’t settle. It’s a nice low spoons activity, though. I just don’t know anybody who is playing, nor do I have a guild so I’m pretty much solo.

The post Back in My Rightfully Elfy Place Ready for The War Within appeared first on The Dragon Chronicle.

Oh how young and naïve I was.

You see, with my disability (fatigue, for the most part) comes a healthy dollop of brain fog. For those of you who don’t know what brain fog is, well it has some crossover with fatigue. But basically, for me at least, it feels like you literally have a heavy cloud over your brain, the fatigue is stronger, and the ability to process information, concentrate, formulate basic sentences, and recall information or words is heavily impaired. I get very sluggish and easily confused and I just have to find something that I can do to pass the time that won’t be too energy intensive so I can rest and repair.

Sadly, writing is one of those tasks that has to be set aside. The act of writing a blog post uses so many parts of the brain, and mine already doesn’t have much power behind it, that it drains me of energy very very easily. So posts like my thoughts on AI? Devastating. Truly. You see, I don’t have the energy at the time, so the energy I end up using for them is basically borrowed energy, which means once I get to that portion of my day? Crash. The brain fog rushes in, the fatigue starts wiggling, and I just can’t function. I’ve been playing a lot of World of Warcraft the past couple days, I resubscribed in the first place because I was having a very low spoon period, it’s just a nice simple game when I can barely do anything, you know?

I’m still slightly in denial that writing does this to me.

I’m a creative person, writing was always my thing. Something I could do! I’ve blogged for years, I want to write books, I GM for TTRPGs and create my own worlds and campaigns, I am a writer. It fucking sucks that it can be so harmful to me.

However, I am learning where my limits are. This is something Blaugust 2024 is teaching me. Exactly what kinds of things I can write, how much I can do, how frequently. I simply cannot do what I used to do. So I may have to admit defeat on the Rainbow award because my health is not worth it, but I’ll be damned if I give up that easily! I still plan to aim for daily blogging, I’ll just allow myself days off when I can see it really, really will not do me any favours. *glances at the past two days*

I am still proud of myself. I honestly did not expect to write more than 3 posts, at the very most, as my history has shown I usually just can’t. Yet I fell right into the daily writing this year and it has been incredible. Here’s to the rest of August!

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