Stories from Mennistriam
A scalekin gets the chance to prove that he is who he, deep down, knows he is… provided he survives the ice-cold winter night.
A swordswoman who can turn into a dragon fears losing herself to that dark side, especially after a wizard forcibly recruits her to his own ends.
A dragonslayer, the best of her time, achieves the victory of her life only to find herself in the deep hole of ‘what now?’.
Parts of the map of Mennistriam
The scalekin, the swordswoman and the dragonslayer are the protagonists of the novella Winterwaker (‘Winter Watcher’), a four-part novel series in the works, and something that will likely be a short story, respectively. They aren’t alone: a herbalist torn between her fellow villagers and the travelling centaurs dear to her, a shepherd adopting an unusual child, and many other characters patiently wait their turn. They all live at different times in the kingdom of Mennistriam, a fantasy setting I’ve been working on for many years.
Mennistriam is a a country where the influence of dragons, eradicated centuries ago, is still noticeable in many ways in various cultures, where centaurs, scalekin and harpies are pushed to the edges of civilization, and where magic is an inexhaustible field of research for its more advanced practitioners. But as much as the outward appearances differ from our world, so much are the people alike to those around us, with their fears and doubts, their thirst for recognition and their difficulty fitting into the boxes the world has intended for them.
It started years ago with the story of swordswoman Thaoryn, at the time in a barely furnished medieval fantasy setting. Mennistriam gradually evolved with the needs of the story into the world living in my head now, and it isn’t done growing yet. When new characters with slightly less epic stories appeared from the setting, I decided to use them to both practice my writing skills and work on the world in manageable chunks.
Anyone curious to get a glimpse of the kind of stories taking place in Mennistriam can read Winterwaker in the story collection Werelden Ontwaken (‘Worlds Awaken’), in which I and six other authors introduce our worlds to a wider audience for the first time. Available for pre-order now! Unfortunately for non-Dutch readers it, and future stories from Mennistriam, will only be available in Dutch for the time being.
Related news:
8-11-2023 - Interview on Out Of This World
25-11-2022 - ‘Werelden ontwaken’ released
9-11-2022 - Pre-order ‘Werelden ontwaken’
13-8-2022 - News about Mennistriam
28-4-2020 - Mennistriam on Facebook
3-6-2019 - Stories from Mennistriam