A world of occultism, political intrigue, and global empires...
Crownlands - Part 1: The Sins of the Magi
Before the Beginning, after the great Celestial War between the Watchers and the Progenitors, the Goddess recreated the earth and gave dominion over it to the crafty ape she called Man.
Through the millennia, many different peoples carried on the teachings of the Goddess and fought against the various oncoming manifestations of darkness that emerged throughout the years.
Great armies and warriors clashed by night in the ancient war between the old religions and the new pantheon. There was magic then, nobility, ambition, and unspeakable cruelty.
And so it was until the dawn of the 20th century when the old European powers, rising nationalist movements, and their imperialist successors clashed together in what was known as the War to End All Wars, and the fields screamed of the wounded.
It was on that day that humanity's insatiable ambition would forever doom itself into descent.
Vienna, Austria-Hungary - 1913. Simon Devereaux is a tough private detective who is almost as brutal as the criminals he chases. One evening while on an assignment, Simon is attacked by the unknown assailant. On the brink of death, he is saved by a mysterious young and attractive woman in a dark cloak. Introducing herself as Karin Varada, she refuses to leave Simon's side, claiming that it is her mission to help him.
Yanked out of the routine of his everyday life, Simon is pulled into a deadly whirlpool of intrigue, revolving around the disappearance of renowned Polish anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski, the Austro-Hungarian royal family, terrorist attacks in the Balkans, the secret society known as the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, and the enigmatic figures known as the 'Magi'. The opening part of an historical fantasy trilogy, The Sins of the Magi blends 20th Century pulp adventure literature by authors such as Rudyard Kipling and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, European pre-Christian occult lore, and the nihilistic ambiguity of a Noir-style thriller set in late 19th century Europe during the wave of New Imperialism. |