Three New Fantasy Stories Open the Gates to Darkspire
“The windmill turns. The echoes call. The time stops.
And the stories, like all good stories, are only just beginning.“
Stories begin in quiet places. Sometimes it’s a crossroads, a lonely road, or the hum of a village windmill turning against a wind no one can feel. Other times, it’s a smoldering cart by the roadside or a fragment of song echoing through a cavern. These are the moments that give birth to the Darkspire Chronicles – my shared universe of fantasy adventures, where every story is both its own legend and part of something larger.
Early in 2026, three of these adventures will find their way into the world: The Windmill’s Secret, Echoes of Forsaken Paths, and Perilous Pursuit For Time.
Though each can be read on its own, together they mark the opening chapters of a long journey – one that began for me nearly four years ago as a set of one-shot tabletop adventures among friends and has now grown into a living, breathing world called Thaloria.
The Windmill’s Secret: Where It All Begins
Every Chronicle must begin somewhere. For this one, it begins in Eldermire, a quiet farming village that should have been unremarkable. Cobblestone streets. The smell of bread drifting from the ovens. Orchards alive with bees. And on the hill, the old windmill, its sails groaning in the still air.
It’s there that the ordinary ends.
What begins as a simple curiosity becomes a descent into something far older and far stranger – a mystery tied to the windmill’s silent rhythm and the forgotten relics buried beneath it. Four travelers – Kaelen, Mira, Tav, and Serneya – find themselves drawn together by chance, only to uncover truths that threaten to unmake their world. Their courage and flaws alike are tested as they confront not only the darkness that haunts Eldermire, but the shadows within themselves.
The Windmill’s Secret is a story of small beginnings that spiral into dangerous depths – of loyalty and doubt, of the unseen forces grinding beneath the surface of the world. It’s where the Darkspire Chronicles begin, and like all beginnings, it carries a quiet promise: that what lies beyond the horizon will change everything.
Preorder The Windmill’s Secret here (paperback preorder coming in December) – Releasing on January 9, 2025.
Echoes of Forsaken Paths: When Legends Remember You
If The Windmill’s Secret opens the door, then Echoes of Forsaken Paths leads you deeper into the halls beyond.
This second Chronicle takes us to Everspring, a town divided by faith and held together by fragile threads of tradition. Here, temples whisper against each other in rivalry, and every prayer seems to cast its own shadow. It begins with a burned cart on a lonely road, an inn torn open by sudden magic, and a mystery that binds bloodlines to villainy.
The companions – Kaelen, Serenya, Bram, and Lyraen – do not set out as heroes. They stumble, they argue, they hesitate. Yet it’s in these flaws that the truest kind of heroism emerges – not the one of prophecy, but of choice. When kinship collides with betrayal and faith fractures into doubt, these wanderers must decide not what is right for the world, but what kind of people they will become within it.
Echoes of Forsaken Paths explores the fragile balance between shadow and light, power and mercy, doubt and faith. It is a story of companionship forged in peril – where even the faintest echo of a forsaken path can awaken an entire legend.
Preorder Echoes of Forsaken Paths here (paperback preorder coming in December) – Releasing on January 21, 2025.
Perilous Pursuit For Time: Companions in Motion against Time
In the twin-mooned realm of Eldoria, an elven scholar, Pherelar Jadesyl, is cursed so that every moment of stillness steals years from his life. To survive, he must stay in motion and find the fabled Elixir of Time before the curse consumes him.
Joined by two unlikely companions – Dorian Nymphwind, a mischievous faun bard, and Jarek Pyreforge Strongshield, a steadfast tiefling paladin warlock, Pherelar journeys across a world where magic, music, and danger intertwine. Together, they face ancient trials, confront the sorcerer who bends time itself, and learn the true weight of friendship and courage.
A tale of motion, magic, and meaning, Perilous Pursuit for Time is a race against destiny itself.
Preorder Perilous Pursuit For Time here (only releasing on Kindle) – Releasing on February 14, 2025.
The Heart of Darkspire
The Darkspire Chronicles aren’t about kings or chosen ones. They are about wanderers, rangers, clerics, and rogues; the people who move through the world unseen but who carry the true weight of its stories. Each volume stands alone, a full tale with its own beginning and end, yet every story adds to a larger chorus that echoes across Thaloria. Together, they explore timeless themes: the lure of shadow, the cost of power, the resilience of faith, and the bonds that form when everything else falls apart.
When I first began writing these adventures as one-shots for our tabletop sessions, I didn’t intend to build a universe. But as each story unfolded, I realized they were connected – not by characters or timelines, but by tone and truth. Each tale was a different melody, yet all were part of the same song.
That’s what Darkspire has become: a shared heartbeat of stories where ordinary travelers stumble into extraordinary moments and where their choices, however small, ripple outward like echoes in stone.
Writing in the World Between Light and Shadow
What makes the world of Thaloria special isn’t just its landscapes of mountains, ruins, and old temples. It’s the emotional terrain – the places inside us that mirror those dark forests and silent caverns. Writing these stories reminded me that fantasy doesn’t just let us escape; it lets us see ourselves more clearly. Every hero who hesitates before drawing their sword, every cleric who questions their faith, every rogue who risks trust again – they are reflections of us, walking those same uncertain paths.
In the Darkspire Chronicles, adventure lives twice: first in the immediacy of discovery, and then again in the telling – when we shape memory into myth. These books are my attempt to capture both: the pulse of the unknown and the echo that lingers after.
What Comes Next
The Windmill’s Secret, Echoes of Forsaken Paths, and Perilous Pursuit For Time are only the beginning.
More tales are already stirring – stories of lost shrines, cursed relics, and travelers who will cross paths in unexpected ways. The world of Darkspire will continue to expand, not through sequels, but through interwoven adventures, each revealing another corner of the same vast tapestry.
If you listen closely, you might already hear it – the turning of unseen gears, the whisper of footsteps on a forsaken road, the faint call of something ancient and waiting.
The Chronicles have only just begun, and the shadows of Thaloria are far from silent.
Preorder now and step into the world of Thaloria’s Darkspire Chronicles:
- The Windmill’s Secret: A Darkspire Chronicles Adventure Book One
- Echoes of Forsaken Paths: A Darkspire Chronicles Adventure Book Two
- Perilous Pursuit For Time: A Darkspire Chronicles Adventure Short Story
- Darkspire Chronicles on Amazon.
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