Right then! I'm back! Hello, guess we should get straight into it then?
Servorum
The country Servorum has existed as a plot point for longer than the Oceanic Empire (NZA). In the original story, which is only available on Wattpad at this time (Sorry, those three of you who read on Web novel and Scribble hub!), a character who I will introduce in a few chapters time was brought to that world as a contrast to Mclaw, who was brought to a world similar to our own. At that point, there was no war, it was just a task force of elite soldiers who'd go around defeating the 'enemy' (Similar to what task force Reaper is in this storyline). It wasn't much of a plot, this was my original intention with the first flashback chapter, then at some point after that the idea for the war came into existence. Anyway back to Servorum... the country itself is loosely based on Roman culture, as you may or may not have guessed by the name 'Mars Palace' which refers to the Roman God of War: Mars. Then there are other similarities to Rome, like the founding. Servorum was founded by a group of refugees who were forced into exile due to them refusing to worship the same religion as the current royal family of their nation after being defeated in a violent uprising, the war was a bloody one lasting for a year, the Mclaw clan ended fleeing to another landmass which was relatively uninhabited. The leader of the rebellion, the founder as we will call him, led his people to Settle along the west coast. Similar to how the Trojans were forced to leave Troy after the Greeks (Achaeans) won the Trojan War. Then their hero, Aeneas, lead them to what is modern day Italy on the east coast of the Tiber. However, this is where the paths of their history split; The Trojan hero, found a wife where he settled, who was the daughter of the King of Latium. The Founder, on the other hand, encountered a strange man who gained the Founder's trust, and they created a deal... while I don't wish to spoil the future, I might change my mind in future Authors Files, due to the fact that that plot point takes place well past the end of the war in the 2050s... yes we will go that far into the future.
I might be going a little off-topic here, but I want to talk about these countries, skip to the next heading if you don't care. Currently, the main countries are Servorum (Which we've talked about), Primos (Which is the country the Mclaw family escaped from based off a weird mix of the British Empire and Greece), Inimicus (Which were the enemy of Mclaw and the Dead Men in the first flashback chapter of this book, I haven't decided what culture to base this off of yet, possibly German or Austrian, but that feels a bit overdone?), then there is the Octoglade (This is an island nation based in the far east of Mclaw's world. I'm sure you guessed by that last sentence, but yes this nation is somewhat based on Japanese, Chinese and Korean cultures.).
Then finally, I want to talk about the last named "nation", Moon's Tip. Being the smallest nation in the whole of Mclaw's world, it's a beast person controlled country; however, it's completely at the whims of the unnamed country to its north due to the size of it. Beast people are descendants of humans who were experimented on by a long destroyed nation that fell due to its own inability to cope with threats from the inside, as legend says. These people were scattered until 400 hundred years ago, a clan of Beast people rose up and lead a peaceful revolution against their owners, who at the time were Primos, just a few hundred years after the Mclaw family started their rebellion. Primos started to ease up when public opinion back home set their eyes on a friendly relationship with the ex-colony, and even started to conduct peaceful protests themselves. Even though the current King was tough and tried to stop information leaking to the public, it constantly happened, leaving him no choice but to give the colony its political freedom at this time, Primos was the only empire with a large amount of land and a secure and efficient supply chain to hold their ground in the continent for long periods.
Mclaw's powers.
If you have been reading the story, you would have realised Mclaw is not completely "Human". While he may look and sound it, there are huge differences, like his regeneration and what I'm going to call magic. Mclaw's magic comes from the Aufers, a group of demigod-like creatures who control Mclaw's world. Each has their own element, which are, Heat, Earth, Air and finally Light. While not much is known by the regular person, Mclaw spent a year training with the heat demigod just a bit before the attack on Mars palace. The heat 'demigod' who we've actually heard Mclaw reference as 'Eher'.
Mclaw is in possession of three of the four elements including: Heat, Earth and Air. He primarily uses heat in combat due to a very common 'spell' called Control. Control can be used both offensively and defensively, so it's a very versatile spell favoured by most magic wielders.
Mclaw is in possession of all three tiers of magic, which all feed on his life force every time he uses them. The higher the tier, the quicker the wielders life force is drained; however, a way to abuse this was discovered a while before Jonathon Mclaw was born. As humans, technically, have no cap on magic usage except their own ability to grip to life before they pass out or die, they can unleash a high tier spell which causes extreme death and destruction, like we saw with Mclaws final stand against the riflemen.
The Dead Men
So I guess I should talk about Jonathon's original elite force, the Dead Men, now?
First Division of the Servorum Armed Forces are known as the Dead Men due to them being infamously hard to kill along with how they paint their armour. The Dead Men were founded by Jonathon's father under the name: Unit 10, Guardsmen, when Jonathon was only 10 years old. At the time, he was a young protégé and the next in line for the throne, so his father created the unit to give the young boy some confidence in leadership. By Mclaws 18th birthday, this unit had grown to 100 strong and participated in two major extermination missions to their south and their reputation started to be known across the globe, even in the collapsing empire of Primos who still garnered huge respect around the world.
They gained the nickname dead men when Mclaw was 21 during an extermination mission on the first continent. This mission was of top priority, to quell the invading monsters which were attempting to spread to the first continent. These monsters originated from a region called the untamed, which is basically a place where no human can live or build due to the red sky and monsters. However, humanity sometimes had to venture into the untamed to take down the numbers before they could spread. During this time, Mclaw's 200 Guardsmen were invited to participate and Jonathon was reluctant to agree but came under pressure from the surrounding nations. During the mission, his army was separated and lost all communication because a runner was killed in action. So they had to survive for two months without resupply. At the point of a month in, a report came back that a rumour started to spread around boarder towns that Mclaws group was killed by the monsters. However, the Guardsmen pushed further in until they reached the hub, where Mclaw encountered his first real challenge, the Bell Bears. Bred for war, these creatures were some of the oldest and most powerful living beings. Their leader Mortem fought with Mclaw nearly killing him. In the end, Mortem thought this battle was going nowhere due to the fact that Mortem claimed that are evenly matched, even though Mclaw knew Mortem was much stronger.
With Mortem leaving, the heart of the monster territory was now accessible to the unit, within the next two days they had completed wiped out several camps. Over this time, the full plate armour worn by the soldiers had been chipped at and extremely damaged over the space of the last few days. As well as this, chunks and blood had splattered the armour, giving the wearer a more menacing look and a horrific smell of rotting corpses. When they made it back to the nearest city, they were all shattered and couldn't fight any more, making them look dead, Jonathon's hood was missing chunks and falling apart.
And so they all looked on the verge of death, so the name Dead Men was born. The Reaper King would come a few years later, but I haven't fully worked out its origin yet, so... yeah.
Over The Coming Months...
Personally, I recognise my writing (or grammar) isn't to the highest quality no matter how much editing I do. So, until around February I will be working on improving and rewriting chapters, the planned changes are the following.
- Removal of the Prologue, retelling of it in other chapters like I did for Hunt's disappearance,
- Rewrite of Chapters 1-6,
- Minor changes in the other chapters.
That concludes this Author's File, so thank you for sticking with me and this book.
Goodbye for now.
-J