A project for the summer.

I love fantasy. It is probably one of my favorite book and television genres. If I get a book with a fantastic story and a really good magic system, it is absolutely amazing. I can barely set it down. Some of my favorite books range from Eragon, Name of the Wind, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, The Way of Kings, etc. These are all fantastic books and when I am reading them, I can barely put them down.

The best thing about all of this is that most of my friends like the exact same genre/series. My friend Cassidy is even going so far to write a book with her brother Blake. Seeing her take the initiative to start to write about what she loves, inspired me to finally get started on something I've been wanting to write about for a while.

The book that I am wanting to try to write over the summer (and probably the rest of the year) is inspired by a bunch of different sources. First off, it is loosely based off of the history of the United States.

Quick summary:
The story is set in a land that has developed weapons such as guns, cannons, steamships, etc., but still retains slavery. The government forces slavery upon the land of New Prospects because it wants to maintain its control over a certain group of people. The thing is, these people (name yet to be decided... Naming is HARD, especially when you are trying to come up for names for all the characters you want in the book), have the ability to use magic. But the information is suppressed by a very few as it took thousands of full moons to repress the information (in this world, a full moon occurs once every 50 days, and the dates are based upon the passage of a full moon. So a comparison would be that we keep track of the days by the time system based upon a year, they keep track of time based upon a full moon. So a "year" for them is 50 days, or full moon to full moon).

A very small group of people within these slaves is a group of natural magicians. They know what they can do, and they can do it easily. But they can't say anything because if they were to speak out, the slaves have been repressed so far that a. they wouldn't believe them, and b. they would be put to death.

But on the Continent of New Prospects, the cities along the Southern Ocean hate the way the slaves are being treated, and because of this, southerners who support the freedom of slavery are commonly referred to as the Empathist. A small group called the Gernium have been attacking trade routes, army groups, and forts in the north, and the Capitol is starting to get hostile towards the actions of the Gernium. Due to the nature of the south supporting the freedom of slavery, the Capitol sees the entire southern region a threat, and if the Gernium continue their attacks (which are increasing in escalation), it will declare Marshall law of the south, send it's armies in to punish whoever stands for the slaves.

Through a series of events, war breaks out between the North and the South, and it is similar to the Civil War of the United States. But the twist is, the group of magicians end up fighting for the south, so a quick summary of the story is the Civil War with magic.

Now mind you, the map I posted, and the a lot of the story is still in the idea phase, and it needs to be fleshed out so I can truly start writing it, but still, it's an exciting project to have during the summer.

I'll try to post the updates to my work here, and who knows where this new, exciting world I am building will lead?