VAPORMAGE TRIVIA 13:

I have no idea what the beef is between Tobias and Elliot and even if I did I don't think I'd tell anyone

VAPORMAGE TRIVIA 12:

The setting of Linnute doesn't have flight, which is fine for logistics because boats are surprisingly fast. Vapor sigils are good for engineering! They're still not as fast as jets, but like, a day or two to cross the Atlantic kinda rate (vs. a week+ IRL). Still super fast.

VAPORMAGE TRIVIA 11:

The whole fistfight sequence at the Barlow farm pretty much just exists for me to practice writing fight scenes. A magic-filled fantasy setting lets you do a lot of "fight scenes" that aren't very physically interesting, so I needed to stretch myself a little on that one

VAPORMAGE TRIVIA 10:

Kell isn't the only party member with a lineage of leadership. Sheila's parents were union organizers in Windglade, and though he's never met him, Alejandro is pretty sure his dad is somebody in Farolian politics. Can't prove it, though.

VAPORMAGE TRIVIA 9:

Tobias, as a professor, was always a bit of an easy A, which drew a lot of slackers to his classes. Whom he would then "playfully" mock and demean for dozing off or being lazy in lecture. Tobias does not have the best of reputations at the university, to put it kindly.

VAPORMAGE TRIVIA 8:

When writing the barren and stony Tabrill Pass, I was mostly working off images of Svalbard and other far-north regions (probably could've been more Iceland, even). But I was also thinking about the Hickory Run glacial boulder field in PA, which I remember visiting as a kid.

VAPORMAGE TRIVIA 7:

We don't go into Zeimatia in the book--little surprise, it's your classic suppressed theocracy with thick borders. But they're not fully isolated; stuff gets in and out. A surprising amount of that smuggling and shadowy dealing is even known to go through Dayton Point.

VAPORMAGE TRIVIA 6:

The Basilisk vehicle appearing in the story is described how it is partly because my mental image of it never really pushed past "a Humvee as ugly as a Cybertruck" and, I mean, it's not like I could just put that in the book, it'd break immersion

VAPORMAGE TRIVIA 5:

The summon that shows up later in the story, Raurack, does draw some in-universe guffaws and side-eye. Because, Raurack is the main character of a semi-popular children's cartoon in Linnute. It's like if you manifested a part of your soul and called it Pikachu

VAPORMAGE TRIVIA 4:

Yes the early sequence in the book involving an animated statue started off as a roundabout vaporwave goof. There were never going to be many of those but like, c'mon, there were never going to be none

VAPORMAGE TRIVIA 3:

The story is mainly set in the fall, and just like IRL, there's a good density of holidays in that season. The book only grazes by a couple, but that'd be impossible if it was set more in Bessetrae. They _love_ their holidays, like, Whamageddon would be basically impossible

VAPORMAGE TRIVIA 2:

Very early drafts used musical themes for character/place names, each country getting a different genre. (For example, Tobias was originally Miles, after Miles Davis. Rinculo was all jazz-y.)

The final book still has four characters named that way. See if you can spot them!

VAPORMAGE TRIVIA 1:

Though the strix, tanuki, and jaculus summon models are most common, there are plenty of others available for other uses. "Goblin" summons (really more like a kappa or water imp, visually) can be purchased; they are only good at being annoying. They're nearly #3 in sales.

Despite my background I haven't been selling Vapormage as a "furry novel", 'cause it's not _exclusively_ that, y'know, it's more general

But it's got bird people, canine people, gecko people?

Kell's aesthetic is influenced in part by protogens

There are some bona fides, is all I'm saying

(Hey guess who just realized they didn't rephrase the one "mystery" like they wanted to)

(Coffee would've been nice huh)

It's not gritty, but there's too many fight scenes for me to fully call it "cozy"

I guess it has the energy of a tabletop campaign being played by people who haven't met before but are getting to know each other (getting to like each other optional)

That notion does not surprise me