Black Dragons and Blue Elves (The Godmaker Saga pt1): The Esfah Sagas, #1

By Christopher Schmitz

The young world of Esfah is fraught with peril and war. As the empress of the Obsidian Grotto consolidates power in the north, heroes—Champions of the gods—rise to protect their peoples.

 

Melkior stumbles onto a ring of slave-takers, wicked people hunting gnomes to work the forges of The Crooked Spine. When he meets a stubborn blue skinned elf, he learns she is King Silverleaf's daughter, and she has set out to free her lands of a dragon.

 

Sneaking into the den of slavers to free a band of gnomes may be the height of nobility, but with a dragon looming overhead, will they live to tell about it?

 

This exciting, new 12-story event in the Esfah Sagas begins the Godmaker story arc and is also known as Time of the Champions. Start this epic journey today!

• Language: English
• Publisher: TreeShaker Books
• Release date: May 4, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224523047

Christopher Schmitz

Christopher Schmitz (M.A.), geb. 1988, ist wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter am Göttinger Institut für Demokratieforschung.

Book preview

Black Dragons & Blue Elves

Christopher D. Schmitz

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TreeShaker Books

Copyright © 2024 by Christopher D. Schmitz

All rights reserved.

No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher or author, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law.

Contents

Black Dragons and Blue Elves

About Esfah

Appendices

About the author

The Game

Legends an Lorecraft

Many authors have dedicated fan groups online. After publishing nearly 100 stories I wanted to build a place allowing me opportunities to engage with readers and engage more meaningfully than even my newsletter does.

Enter Legends and Lorecraft.

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Consider joining my author community. Unlike the big publishers, it is focused on putting readers first! Members get early access to beta and alpha read projects I’m working on (which means they’ll sometimes see early drafts—even before a story is done,) and there are tons of insider bonuses, plus amazing exclusives.

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Special Invitation

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The Godmaker Saga

Time of the Champions

1

Black Dragons and Blue Elves

Year 141 First Age

Hero! cried the old woman. You are a hero, and I’ll make sure everyone knows it.

The man, smeared with mud over most of his body and clothes, smiled at her and turned over the child he’d rescued. Oh, don’t worry. Everyone that needs to know that already does. He resisted rolling his eyes, but the woman hugged her teenage son to her side and showered him with kisses.

Regardless, you saved my boy, said the human. I don’t know of many who would venture into a den of mudmen to save someone other than family. She eyed the hero, Melkior. There aren’t enough heroes to go around… not since the wars have overtaken Esfah.

She hugged her son again and then put him at arm’s length. You should take him.

Pardon? Melkior stood a full head and shoulders above the young man, who was perhaps a year or two from reaching maturity. Melkior was an eldarim, one of the shara. He was tall, muscular, and very handsome… though he looked it, he was not quite human. The eldarim could interbreed with them, along with many other races that appeared in the last two centuries when the gods began creating… but the gods did not make the shara; they emerged from the primordial soup of the world. Mother Nature herself, the Goddess Queen Ghaeial, was revered by them, but the shara were nearly as old as the planet.

Take him. Train him to be a hero like you, the mother implored. Give him a grand destiny.

The boy seemed equally surprised as Melkior.

I am sorry, ma’am. But this is a burden I cannot bear. He looked over at the boy who, despite his shock, seemed eager if the eldarim would have him. I may be a hero, but I only work alone. He flattened his expression, not wanting it to show any emotion. Too many of his past comrades had fallen at his side these last thirty years.

After a moment of discouragement, the woman nodded, thanked him again, and resumed her travels along the road. Her son hurried to her side and followed her.

Melkior assumed their destination was Xlinea. It was a bustling town on the northwest part of the continent. It was not terribly far off, comparatively, though the road was fraught with peril.

Offering a brief wave, Melkior turned his back on the travelers and gazed over the sloping countryside. He possessed a modest home which he’d built overlooking Lurneville, a sea-side kingdom that had sprouted up these last few decades. It was a coral elf community, made up of the blue-skinned selumari.

Melkior was on friendly terms with King Vandoriil Silverleaf, who ruled in Lurneville. Even now, he could spot the king’s palace in the midday light. The walls of his castle glinted pastel and ivory where coral decorative accoutrements had been built into its bastions.

From the hilltop Melkior had chosen as his home, he could also see